My focus in teaching is to provide the support that students need to turn their life to the dharma, to truth, and to find ways to come out of their pain and suffering. The retreat experience is an invaluable aid to this exploration; however, what matters more is how one integrates this under- standing into everyday life.
I care that students see through the illusory wall between formal meditation and their daily life. Then, what remains is a meditative attitude to all that occurs.
Vipassana practice helps us to become respectful and caring towards ourselves and others. This generates the conditions of mind and heart that allow us to awaken to the truth of who we are, rather than believing in our limited assumptions. As we see the impersonal nature of our own mind, we then experience a deep engagement with life that allows for a complete transformation of the heart. When we know this deeply, we can no longer unconsciously engage in actions that will lead to suffering and the ongoing destruction of our planet.
As a teacher, I am accessible and able to meet people at an intimate level. I am interested in how the language that we use can show where we are holding on. I look to the concepts about reality that people believe in as the key that unlocks the door to liberating insight. People can easily discount their experiences and forget that they hold the seeds to liberation, that the wisdom is already within them. As people speak what is in their hearts, affirmation brings about the confidence needed to take the next step, which can often seem confusing and daunting as one walks into the unknown territory of the mind.
Why come on retreat? As we orient to the present moment and reconnect with ourselves, we can begin to know what no longer serves us and let go. We open to a bigger picture of the way things are.
If we try to get the conditions of our life to match our expectations, we will be disappointed again & again. Understanding the Buddha's teaching on 'dukkha' helps us let go and see more clearly.
As we shift from a self-centered view to a dharma-centered view, we enter the authentic truth of our experience, and see with new eyes, even when facing difficult mind states. What can support this turning?
The Buddha invites us to open to all experience just as it is. When we open, we deepen our experience to allow both pleasure and pain and enter the stream of life without resistance or grasping.
With wise and clear intention, we invite the conditions for transforming our heart-mind. We directly attend to the prickliness of aversion and resistance and open to the way things are.
Mudita is one of the divine Abodes. The quality of the heart that feels happiness for others' good fortune. An introduction followed by a 20 minute guided meditation.
