Writing

Our practice is cultivating a continuity of awareness to understand the processes at work in our minds, in particular the processes that create dukkha – distress, dissatisfaction, struggle, or suffering. The simplicity of noticing experience and cultivating continuity of awareness, coupled with the intention to understand suffering, allows wholesome qualities to begin to grow: qualities […]

When we go on a residential retreat, we often hope that our meditation will result in a deepening of concentration: a quality of composure, collectedness, of settled attention. But unfortunately, we can’t force concentration to happen! We can, however, support the conditions that allow it to arise. This simple fact has been really helpful for

One of the great blessings of retreat practice is that we make space to set aside our usual worldly activities. On retreat our main work is to cultivate mindfulness and to practice meditation. We can engage with practice throughout the day, not only in formal sitting and walking periods, but also in the “in between

Buddhism teaches us that suffering and unskillful states of mind arise out of three basic roots: greed, aversion and delusion. While greed and aversion are often fairly easy to recognize in our experience, delusion is much harder to recognize! Learning about some of the different ways that delusion happens can help us recognize it. One

In mindfulness practice, we often emphasize accepting experience as it is, simply observing what is happening, without holding on to or pushing away experience. Yet, sometimes unseen beliefs or views can creep into “accepting”. So it can be useful to explore subtle, perhaps hidden beliefs even within the practice of accepting. Accepting is the possibility

One of the great things about mindfulness practice is that there are no inherent distractions. Whatever we think is a distraction is simply something else to notice. At the beginning of a retreat, we often offer the instruction to settle the attention on the breathing to collect and quiet the mind. With that instruction, people

At the end of a recent residential retreat, someone asked me for a simple practice to engage with in daily life. I offered the practice of becoming familiar with what it is like to be aware and mindful. When we more readily recognize the sense of being mindful, the many moments when we are spontaneously

As we settle into a retreat, from time to time we might experience states of calm, peace, happiness, and joy. Leaving retreat and returning to our daily lives, we sometimes feel that these states are very far from our experience. In your daily life, let yourself be open to the possibility that this kind of

In every moment of experience our minds are attending to something. Attention is an interesting factor of mind, partly because it is amenable to conscious control as well as resulting from causes and conditions. In a way, it is like the breath: we can consciously control the breath, or we can settle back and let

In our meditation practice we often emphasize exploring our inner, personal experience. Through our practice we begin to open to the personal suffering that each of us experiences based on the conditioned patterns of our lives. Yet as our exploration of our personal suffering deepens, a question can naturally arise: “How can this practice help

What is the mind doing, right now? Is it thinking? Is it being aware? Is it searching? Is  there ease or struggle? Whatever is happening in the mind, it can be known. Is it noticing  body experience? Is it noticing feelings, emotions? Any experience, every experience can  be known. No experience any more or less

As mindfulness becomes steadier, we can begin to see the impulses that move and motivate us: mental urges to take action. Every action of body, speech, or mind is preceded by a such an impulse, which is subtle, yet can be noticed. We can know we’re going to move before we move. We can know we’re going to

Thoughts are a natural function of our mind. Another function of the mind is to be aware. The mind does its job of producing thoughts and emotions, and the mind also can know thoughts and emotions. Since the mind both produces thoughts and is aware, sometimes we might think both those things can’t happen simultaneously, believing thatif

As we become more familiar with meditation, we might think we know how practice should unfold. We can begin to carry hidden agendas into our practice. One such agenda is that the mind needs to be in a certain state in order to meditate. There might be a belief such as “good meditation has a

Reflections on an evening question from a recent retreat :Given impermanence, unreliability, and not-self, where do we find trust?This is a deep question – an important question for us.  From our usual, everyday perspective we think things are trustable when we can take a stand on them. Yet the teachings point us in a different

Our mindfulness practice asks us to open to all aspects of our experience: both our joys and our struggles. It can be challenging to open to suffering: to the frustration of wanting things we cannot have; to the fear that the things we have will go away; to anxiety about the health and happiness of

How do you stay in the present moment when it’s physically painful (not a posture issue)? Andrea Fella responds: One reason it’s hard to stay in the present moment when there is physical pain is that we are reactive to the pain.  We react with fear, confusion, aversion, the feeling of being out of control.

Patience supports mindfulness practice when it is joined with gentle persistence and active exploration.  Such patience allows for our practice to simply unfold, neither discouraged about nor anxious for results.  As the Indian Vipassana teacher Munindra-ji said, “When the fruit is ripe, it will fall from the tree.”  For me, this image has been very

In every moment of experience our minds are attending to something.  Attention is an interesting factor of mind, partly because it is amenable to conscious control as well as resulting from causes and conditions.  In a way, it is like the breath:  we can consciously control the breath, or we can settle back and let

One of the great things about mindfulness practice is that there are no inherent distractions. Whatever we think is a distraction is simply something else to notice. At the beginning of a retreat, we often offer the instruction to settle the attention on the breathing to collect and quiet the mind. With that instruction, people

At the end of a recent residential retreat, someone asked me for a simple practice to engage with in daily life. I offered the practice of becoming familiar with what it is like to be aware and mindful. When we more readily recognize the sense of being mindful, the many moments when we are spontaneously