Tag Archives: Jill Shepherd

January 18 – Celebrating the Wholesome

Dear Friends, To support our exploration of the third wise effort—cultivating wholesome states—here is a guided meditation by Jill Shepherd titled “Investigating skillful behaviour skilfully.” (13:24).https://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/39015/ This meditation focuses on investigating and recollecting skillful, wholesome, or virtuous behavior. Jill’s approach, which she calls “post-mortem mindfulness,” invites us to reflect on past actions of body, speech, or mind that… Read More »

January 22 – Paying attention to joy

Dear Friends, With wise effort, we want to abandon unhelpful states and cultivate helpful ones. There are many ways to cultivate these beneficial states, including the Brahma Vihara practices of metta (kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (appreciative joy), and upekkha (equanimity). Today, we’ll focus on mudita! Mudita is the capacity to feel happiness or gladness, to delight in someone’s… Read More »

January 4 – Meditation on Right View

Dear Friends, In meditation today, feel free to explore any of the aspects of right view from the previous emails or from your own reading or listening and reflection. Here’s a brief meditation from Diana Clark that explores that actions have consequences:Guided Meditation on Right View (13 minutes)https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/4341 And a meditation from Jill Shepherd that explores the four… Read More »

January 20 – A wellspring of joy

Dear Friends, Gil’s fourth talk on the faculty of samadhi considers the state of the mind “when we are fully present, fully engaged in what’s happening.”https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/11153 He talks about some of the more refined states of concentration, often called ‘absorption’ – although he clarifies that this state is not one where we are losing ourselves in the experience.… Read More »

January 29 – May we abide in well-being

Dear Friends, The last track in the retreat recordings, Reflection on Universal Well-Being Chant, is a traditional Buddhist chant, translated to English. Historically, teachings across many traditions were transmitted orally, and being able to chant the teachings in unison was a way to help the practitioners learn and memorize the teaching. You might have chants, hymns, or songs… Read More »

January 25 – Exploring equanimity

Dear Friends, In Equanimity Practice, Jill invites the retreat participants into another relational practice related to equanimity. First she brings in an interesting question, as this was the penultimate day of the retreat – inviting the participants to notice how they are responding to the ending of the retreat as that can highlight the habitual tendency we might… Read More »

January 24 – The heart of equanimity

Dear Friends, In Morning Instructions – Working with Equanimity, Jill sets the stage for practicing with equanimity as a heart quality. One of the ways to cultivate equanimity in practice is with the use of phrases. Jill summarizes some from various teachers that relate to cultivating equanimity with the truth of impermanence:Jack Kornfield: May I learn to see… Read More »

January 20 – Thoughts, emotions, moods, and mind states

Dear Friends, In Afternoon Instructions – Mindfulness of Mind, Jill looks at different mental processes and leads a reflective practice for the participants. Jill speaks again about the “wheel” model of how body and breath are related to getting lost in proliferation. It might look something like this: Here’s how Jill explains this: To continue exploring the model… Read More »

January 15 – Compassion cascading like a waterfall

Dear Friends, Today, a brief summary from Jill on Working with Compassion, and a guided compassion practice. In the first talk on the The Brahma Viharas for Insight and Wisdom, Jill shared a set of reflections from Caroline Jones and Paul Burrows, that outlined the interrelationship between the four heart qualities of loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and… Read More »