Loving Kindness Meditation – Download

The purpose of the Dharma is to free us from the causes of suffering and to help us plant the seeds of genuine happiness. One of the great causes of happiness is goodwill toward ourselves and others. Loving kindness is also an antidote to fear.

Meditation Sitting Posture – Download

Body and mind are not exactly one, but they aren’t separate either. Posture affects how we feel during meditation. Posture also affects our mental energy — the sense of busyness or dullness. Posture also helps balance the subtle energies that release the knots of confusion that block clarity and wisdom. Here we take a look at seven parts of the body in sitting meditation: legs, hands, torso, shoulders, head, tongue, and eyes.

Finding Equanimity in the Midst of Experience – Download

Diligence and wise attention can bring a measure of calm on the meditation cushion, but we may still lose our emotional balance in daily life. Stillness and calm are one thing, but experiences arises unceasingly, so how do we find balance and perspective right within experience?

Introduction to Insight – Download

Dissatisfaction arises as conflicting thoughts and emotions, but the root of them all is confusion about the way things actually are. Insight or Clear Seeing (Sanskrit vipashyana, Tibetan lhatong) is “the seeing that frees.” Let’s take a look at how an experience arises — as a sensation upon which we add pleasant or unpleasant feelings, names and ideas, stories and impulses and reactions.

Four Reminders – Download

These “four thoughts that turn the mind toward the Dharma” are recommended as preliminaries to any other Buddhist practice. Daily reflection of these four thoughts is an essential reminder of why we practice, and gives us some insight into the causes of suffering and the end of suffering.

I Highly Recommend the Meditation Sandwich – Download

Several of my teachers trained me to enjoy what I call a meditation sandwich. Whatever the main meditation is, put it in between two slices of bread, and add a few trimmings.

Mindfulness and Calm Abiding – Download

The cultivation of stable clear attention is the foundation of all Buddhist meditation. Mindfulness is a key ingredient of calm abiding (shamatha or shinay).

Studying, Reflecting, Meditating: Why We Need All Three – Download

Maybe you have a hunch that meditation would be helpful to you, but you don’t know where to begin. Or perhaps you’ve found an inspiring Dharma book, one that really makes sense to you, but you haven’t gotten around to meditating. Maybe you’ve tried to meditate, but the instructions in the book aren’t very clear.