Nature’s beauty and our vulnerability
In the beauty and poignancy of spring we can become deeply aware of the beauty of the changes around us. Can we take in this beauty in a way that helps us accept the natural changes of our mind-body and the mind-bodies around us as another deeply beautiful process? One that could bring us to…
Generosity’s gifts to those who give
In the Buddha’s opinion, the practice of gratitude and generosity, while not always easy, is “beautiful in the beginning, beautiful in the middle, and beautiful in the end.” The variety of forms that gratitude takes can be remarkable. Giving to a charity or to a person on the street may be what first come to…
Wisdom and Energy
Meditation offers us many benefits, and at the top of the list are Wisdom and Energy. Wisdom may come in small increments or spectacular insights. But in either case it requires sustained energy. Wisdom may reveal to us that energy is finite and fluctuant, and needs to be shepherded carefully and cultivated with patience and…
Forgiveness – the Path to Freedom and Healing
Forgiveness is not a parami or a brahma-vihara. However, forgiveness is an important skill for us to develop along the Buddha’s path. Forgiveness requires love, compassion, joy and equanimity. As part of the human experience we will naturally be hurt and hurt others. If we cannot forgive others or cannot forgive ourselves, our suffering will only continue the…
What the Earth can Teach us about Equanimity
Eveline guided our reflections this Sunday, exploring how we can learn a lot about being equanimous by investigating our interbeing with the earth. The Buddha often remarked that the earth accommodates everything that happens to it without reactivity: it is whole and equanimous. We often feel we need to find our way back to the…
The stories we tell ourselves
If we look at the stories that make up most of our mental chatter, we come to see that even if they seem to range broadly, they are mostly in fact about ourselves, and actually help to create and the sense of self. This phenomenon, called mana papanca (mental proliferation around the sense of self), and…
Short, Clear, And Surprisingly Profound: Buddha’s instructions to Bahiya
We reflected this week on the instructions that the Buddha gave to Bahiya about what is sometimes called bare attention, or sometimes mindfulness: “In the seen, let there be just the seen, in the heard let there be just the heard”, and so on. These ostensibly simple instructions are at the heart of the practice,…
Seeking to not-know
When we study a natural phenomenon or a discipline, we usually seek to accumulate knowledge, hoping to find wisdom that will help us to grasp the situation clearly. With meditation, the approach may sometimes be reversed: we may seek to shed old ways of seeing, and genuinely attempt to not-know. Eric guided our reflections this…
Music, Surprise, and the impact of Impermanence
Darryl guided our reflections on the Surprise of Impermanence this Sunday, drawing on excerpts from a talk by Carol Wilson, and using a musical recording to explore our shifting response to impermanence itself. Carol’s talk can be found here: https://dharmaseed.org/talks/73270/ You can listen to the music that was shared from Plum Village at this link:…
Inclining the Mind Towards What is Working
Surrounded by bad news, in media’s algorithmic echo chambers — how can we find and nurture the joy that is our birthright? The practice of Mudita gives us countless opportunities to savor happiness as we celebrate the good fortune of others. And such cheering information is available if we seek it out. Lorilee framed our discussion…
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Burlington Buddhist Sangha 