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.
It is possible to use our practice to keep away difficult emotions that we think are "bad" or "wrong" and this causes a split in our way of being in the world. When we practice a meditative approach to our emotions, we begin to wake up all parts of ourselves, and reclaim our humanity and our aliveness.
The Buddha's teaching addresses the problem in life. Thoughts themselves are not the problem, rather the greed, hate and delusion bound up in the thought. A personal story exploring how to unbind ourselves from these conditions that cause us pain.
When we are present with experience and can sustain our connection, this allows for a deep intimacy with all things. This brings love, delight, wisdom and responsiveness, as we engage with our life.
This talk explores Metta or loving kindness, and how to shift our view from being identified as a separate self (and the heartache that can cause) to understanding that nothing is fundamentally wrong with us.
If we can leave our fixed ideas behind, and return to the openness of our direct experience, we gain a new kind of knowledge, independent of our thinking mind that is immediate, fresh and deepens our trust in the natural unfolding.
Our nature is love, yet through ego identification, this love becomes distorted. By following wholesome impulses, we strengthen our natural inclination to love.
The Buddha points the way to uncovering our essential goodness, here, exploring the five spiritual powers that turn our mind towards the beautiful; how to become intimate with all of life's experiences.
