A short talk and discussion given at Spirit Rock during a Thursday morning yoga and meditation class. I talked about the difference between Bare Awareness styles of instruction and Cultivating Wholesome States styles, and how they relate to each other. Talked a bit about how understanding them as different ways of engaging in practice shines a light on some of […]
Intervention vs Observation in Mindfulness Meditation Read More »
If you’ve sat a meditation retreat at Spirit Rock, IMS, Insight Retreat Center, or any of the other Insight Meditation spots around, you know the standard retreat schedule well: basically a day of alternating 45 minute sitting and walking meditation periods, dharma talk in the evenings. All in silence except for a 15 minute check-in with a teacher every other
A new meditation and yoga retreat format Read More »
A month of talks exploring the relationship between Buddhism and Yoga, or between the many “Buddhist and Hindu Yogas” plural. I wove in some history, but tried to stay close to actual practice issues. 1. Embodiment. Meditation: Orientation through the senses 2. Focus & tranquillity: the practices of jhāna/samādhi, and the pleasure of Rapture (pīti). Child Gotama under the rose-apple
Buddhist & Hindu Yogas are less separate than you think Read More »
After the sudden passing of Buddhist teacher Michael Stone. Meditation: Center of Gravity, breath
Michael Stone and the 4 Heavenly Messengers Read More »
A talk on the deep layers of identity and history we all are/experience. Reincarnation. Meditation: body & spine
Karma, past lives, identity, and interconnection Read More »
Four weeks of investigation of the relationship of the trauma physiology and resilience teachings of Organic Intelligence to the practices of meditation and yoga.1. Meditation: Orientation, Body Posture, Pleasure (6.6.17) Trauma Basics: Fight, Flight, Freeze (6.6.17) 2. Meditation: Mettā (Loving Kindness) for a Benefactor, with the breath (6.13.17) Trauma Basics: Activation-Deactivation (6.13.17) 3. Meditation: 3 Important Spectra/Qualities to Track (6.20.17) Trauma
The Nervous System in Meditation & Yoga Read More »
Talk given at Haas Business School on Valentine’s day. They asked me to talk about the “mind-body connection” in yoga so I talked about how there’s really no such thing. How Descartes was wrong, etc. They were great.
On the “mind-body connection” in yoga & meditation Read More »
For more resources (for white folks) on uprooting White Privilege, check out the White Awake curriculum developed in part by the folks at Insight Meditation Washington DC.
On karma and white privilege Read More »
For many years, parallel with my training in Buddhism and Yoga, I practiced a contemporary contemplative discipline called Authentic Movement (AM). Developed by dancers and Jungian analysts in the 1970s, AM is rare in both its provenance as a contemplative art created and maintained almost entirely by women, and in its resistance to capitalism and the spiritual marketplace. Few people
Authentic Movement as Tandava Read More »
Buddhism as a liberation path is a gradual purification of the heart that takes root as we see more clearly, stop clinging so much, and grow out of confusion about who we are into the maturity called wisdom. Wisdom is expressed partly as understanding: everything changes, and many things hurt, but there’s an openness, a clear space, at the heart
The 5 Ethical Precepts (sīla) Read More »
May the forces of delusion
not take hold, nor
weaken my resolve.
(Sharing of Merit)