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.
The First Noble Truth acknowledges two aspects of suffering, one we can change and one we can't change. It also asks us not to personalize our suffering.
Our mind moves to manipulate our experiences to find a way to be happy. When we stop and embrace our experience, even when difficult, this present attention opens us to our deeper nature.
To realize the deepest levels of equanimity, we need to let go of all our ideas of what equanimity is, and this is what drops us into the unmoving stillness.
We steady our mind through developing concentration and come to know our own innate nature as still, yet firm and supporting. We discover a ground to our being that that allows us to meet the challenges of life in a balanced way.
How do we practice effort that is directed towards freedom from suffering and brings us emotional strength and balance? How do we awaken "natural effort" that leads to effortlessness?
We often compare where we are now to some ideal state and get caught in the painful habit of rejecting our experience. How do we transform this habit in order to come into connection with the truth of the way things are.
