Posts Tagged ‘practice’
My First Retreat – Part 3
This is Part 3 of a series of 3 articles. For Part 1: https://secularbuddhism.org/2017/10/12/my-first-retreat-part-1-of-3-a-zen-sesshin-at-rocky-mountain-ecodharma/ For Part 2: https://secularbuddhism.org/2017/10/12/my-first-retreat-part-2-of-3/ …continued: Morning 3: This was the last day, a short day. And in everything, I “relaxed”… in a “bad way.” I think that one factor was a personal or internal one: all of the praise I got during Dokusan…
Read MoreMy First Retreat (Part 2 of 3)
This is Part 2 of a series of 3 articles. For Part 1: https://secularbuddhism.org/2017/10/12/my-first-retreat-part-1-of-3-a-zen-sesshin-at-rocky-mountain-ecodharma/ …continued: Day 2: We woke up at 5AM (successfully!), chanted, and sat (zazen). I couldn’t tell you much about what came up during that specific sit, but I do recall that most other retreat attendees took full advantage of any breaks to…
Read MoreMy First Retreat (Part 1 of 3) – a Zen sesshin at Rocky Mountain EcoDharma
What do you call it when the food at the retreat doesn’t agree with you? 30 minutes of sh*tting meditation J/k lol, everyone. This joke (which has probably been thought of before) occurred to me during one of the breaks. I was resting in my room, and I overheard a woman whispering a remark to…
Read MorePractice Circle: Keeping Your Practice Together
I won’t bore you with the details, but 2017 has been a tough year for me. Job loss, unemployment, an auto accident, the stress of adjusting to a demanding new job, physical injury, and more — it’s all come one after another. Dukkah, thick and fast. And, just as I needed my practice the most,…
Read MorePractice Circle: See Confusion as Buddha
I love the Tibetan Lojong slogans because so many of them provocatively explore the dharma from angles that we can tend to overlook. I often initially react negatively toward them, because they are trying shock us into understanding our practice in new ways. The slogan we will work with at Practice Circle on July 23,…
Read MorePractice Circle: Stay Close to Your Resentment
One of the interesting things about working with the Tibetan Lojong slogans is the way they so often seem strangely counterintuitive. The slogan we’ll be working with this week at Practice Circle is a good example: “Stay Close to Your Resentment.” What? As good Buddhists, aren’t we supposed to be releasing our clinging to illusory…
Read MoreThought and Practice
How important is thought, reasoning, and cognition to our practice? Or is it just a kind of impediment? We’ll look at some material from early Buddhism for answers to this question.
Read MorePractice Circle: The Antidote to Hatred
In this world Hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, Ancient and inexhaustible. Dhammapada As a mother watches over her child, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, suffusing the whole world with unobstructed…
Read MorePractice Circle April 3: Rick Heller and Face Meditation
Hi! To avoid the holiday weekend, we’ll reschedule Practice Circle for Sunday, April 3, when author Rick Heller will join us as guest facilitator. Rick will share one of the practices from his book, Secular Mediation: 32 Practices for Cultivating Inner Peace, Compassion and Joy. Here’s an excerpt from the chapter on the practice Rick…
Read MoreSecular Meditation: A Review
When I reviewed Sam Harris’ book, Waking Up, in these pages, I lamented that the book failed to live up to its subtitle, “A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion.” Indeed, there are a growing number of volumes, from writers like Harris, Stephen Batchelor and others, that discuss the philosophical underpinnings of living a spiritual life…
Read More