Toward Light: Practical Buddhism for the Modern World

I used the sense door of hearing a lot on my recent retreat so in this episode I share ways to use sound in our mindfulness practice. I also explore ways that we can use mindfulness of hearing to develop mindfulness in other areas of our lives.

This week I explore three categories of identity we can get overly attached to and the importance of letting go of or dropping these labels.

In this episode, I explore some categories of identity that are important to honor and recognize in our lives and how that relates to ultimate reality, the three marks of existence, and spiritual bypassing. I quote Ruth King, and if you want to read more, I highly recommend her book Mindful of Race

This week I share AN 5.57 Five Themes for Daily Reflection. I explore how reflecting on aging, illness, death, separation, and karma can help us cultivate samvega, spiritual urgency.

This episode I offer a listening meditation using  phrases from Sayadaw U Tejaniya's pamphlet: What Is the Right Attitude for Meditation?

In this episode I share 5 myths I often hear about Buddhism and mindfulness and share some facts. 
-Buddhism and yoga come from different lineages
-Practicing Buddhism is noon-theistic
-Mindfulness and meditation are not interchangeable terms
-Mindfulness is not a panacea
-Distraction is not a bad word
Give a listen to learn more!

This week I look at 3 tools that can help us listen and 3 things that may get in the way of our ability to listen if we're not aware of them. 

How can we bring wise speech into all aspects of our verbal lives? What does wise speech actually consist of and why is it so important? I attempt to answer these questions and share some wisdom from Bhikkhu Bodhi.

When the world gets "too much" what do we do? How do we stop spinning our wheels and take positive action? The first step is to stop, take a break, and get back into our bodies. I offer a roughly 10 minute stationary meditation practice to help us do just that.

In this episode I attempt to answer the question: When difficult things come up in meditation, how do we assess our capacity to stay with it and what does that look like? I discuss how tease out the difference between unpleasant and unwholesome mind states as well as share some tools for grounding when we are disassociated during practice.