Dear Friends, I like to start off the month talking about intention. For me, this has a different flavor than a resolution. In a recent post, Jack Kornfield wrote, We all know about New Year’s resolutions and how short-lived they can be. Consider setting a long-term intention. … Setting a long-term intention is like setting the compass of… Read More »
Dear Friends, So now that we’ve zipped through four weeks of material, and we’re nearing the end of January, I thought we could take a step back and have a big picture of what we’ve been cultivating this month. 1 – What’s your why – setting an intention can help us stay oriented in our practice and life… Read More »
Dear Friends, A new year tradition for many people is to set some resolutions… lose weight, meditate every day, run a marathon! And before the month is through, many people will have given up on keeping those resolutions. In previous years, I have written about the usefulness of setting an intention – for the year, month, day, or the… Read More »
Dear Friends, A talk by Joseph Goldstein this summer started with this quote from René Daumal’s Mount Analogue: Keep your eye fixed on the way to the top, but don’t forget to look right in front of you. The last step depends on the first. Don’t think you’re there just because you see the summit. Watch your footing,… Read More »
Dear Friends, The first lines of a book, a speech, a song, a movie, often points to the subject or theme that will be explored in the work. (You can probably think of several opening lines that have stayed with you over the years.) Christina Feldman starts A Boundless Heart with this paragraph: There is no greater love… Read More »
Dear Friends, As we enter into the fourth week of our daily emails, our focus now moves to the fourth way of establishing mindfulness, mindfulness of dhammas, which can be translated as mindfulness of phenomena or “stuff”. As Mark Coleman explains in a lecture from Essential Buddhist Teachings, The other three [ways of establishing mindfulness] – we were… Read More »
Dear Friends, Welcome to the beginning of our third week together! As you recommit to your intention for practice, here are some helpful words just posted on Tara Brach’s Facebook page: It is helpful to start your meditation with a reflection on what matters to you. Some meditation students bring to mind an all-encompassing aspiration, while others focus… Read More »
Dear Friends, Welcome to 2018 and the first email of our month together! You have reasons why you signed up for this series. Perhaps you are seeking steadiness in a turbulent life, forming deeper connection with others, creating conditions that will lead to peace, or many other reasons. Try to articulate this reason, as this intention will help… Read More »
Dear Friends, Today is the last day of the 5 day retreat with Adrianne Ross, so I’ll be back to the land of technology later this afternoon. I thank you for your patience! Meanwhile, here’s a reflection for today! I look forward to catching up with your responses. It’s hard to believe we’re at the end of January!… Read More »
Dear Friends, I’m on retreat right now, so here’s a post to keep you inspired while I’m not engaging with email and the internet. I won’t be able to respond to your emails or posts until Tuesday afternoon. Feel free to share your thoughts below to inspire the others reading these posts. Well, here we are, almost at the… Read More »
Dear Friends, At the insight meditation retreats I’ve attended, the first day often starts with reviewing the precepts. For those not familiar with the concept, the precepts are a way to explore creating a community with an attitude of respect and care for the community – a container of safety – oriented towards non-harming. Andrea Fella’s first talk in the Daily… Read More »
Dear Friends, New Year’s Resolutions, Goals, Intentions… Likely your news feeds have had many suggestions about what to do to make things stick in the new year. So let’s start this month together by looking at intentions. In an article titled “The Power Of Setting An Intention“, Jeena Cho writes: As we come to the end of 2016,… Read More »
Dear Friends, One of my big tasks at work this month will be working with my team to our articulate goals for 2016. Goal setting is something many people do. Intentions are different than goals. I found a good description of the distinction between goals and intentions, by Phillip Moffitt: Goal making is a valuable skill; it involves… Read More »
Dear Friends, This past May, I had an opportunity to sit with Susie Harrington and Anne Cushman at the Lost Coast Retreat. As we neared the end of the retreat, Anne shared her tips on “How To Maintain A Daily Practice of Almost Anything“. The first step is “Set Your Intention.” Many of you are familiar with Jeanne’s… Read More »
