Shaila Catherine is the founder of Bodhi Courses (bodhicourses.org) an online Dhamma classroom, and Insight Meditation South Bay, a meditation center in Mountain View, California (imsb.org). She has practiced meditation since 1980, with more than nine years of accumulated silent retreat experience, and has taught since 1996 in the USA, and internationally. Shaila has dedicated several years to studying with masters in India, Nepal and Thailand, completed a one year intensive meditation retreat with the focus on concentration and jhana, and authored The Jhanas: A Practical Guide to Deep Meditative States (Wisdom Publications). From 2006–2014, Shaila studied jhana and vipassana under the direction of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw, and authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana (Wisdom Publications, 2011) to make his systematic approach of meditative training accessible to western practitioners. Her third book, Beyond Distraction: Five Practical Ways to Focus the Mind, teaches skills to overcome restless thinking, rumination, and obstructive habitual patterns. Shaila’s teachings are characterized by precision, diligence, and gentleness. She emphasizes deep samadhi, jhāna, loving kindness, and the path of liberating insight.
The Buddha teaches that, just as the dawn precedes the rising sun, so developing certain qualities prepares us for fully engaging in our practice of the Noble Eightfold Path. Seven of these qualities are taught in the Magga Samyutta (SN 45:49-90): good friends, and the accomplishments in virtue, desire, self, view, diligence, and careful attention. This series of brief talks, Shaila Catherine introduces each of these qualities and illuminates how their development can support our path to liberation.
The Buddha teaches that, just as the dawn precedes the rising sun, so developing certain qualities prepares us for fully engaging in our practice of the Noble Eightfold Path. Seven of these qualities are taught in the Magga Samyutta (SN 45:49-90): good friends, and the accomplishments in virtue, desire, self, view, diligence, and careful attention. This series of brief talks, Shaila Catherine introduces each of these qualities and illuminates how their development can support our path to liberation.
In this talk, Shaila Catherine suggests that everyone is responsible for their own state of balance. She explores several practical areas for cultivating a balanced approach to practice including: aligning the body posture with the force of gravity, recognizing how mindfulness brings a balanced relationship to sensory experiences, and cultivating a non-reactive attitude toward both pleasant and unpleasant feelings. We learn to quickly restore our emotional balance whenever we find ourselves entangled in stories or personal dramas. We refine our ability to apply balanced effort in the way that we engage with meditation. And we continuously refine the powerful balance in the meditating mind by perceiving how the five spiritual faculties and the seven awakening factors are affecting our attention and understanding.
The Buddha teaches that, just as the dawn precedes the rising sun, so developing certain qualities prepares us for fully engaging in our practice of the Noble Eightfold Path. Seven of these qualities are taught in the Magga Samyutta (SN 45:49-90): good friends, and the accomplishments in virtue, desire, self, view, diligence, and careful attention. This series of brief talks, Shaila Catherine introduces each of these qualities and illuminates how their development can support our path to liberation.
The Buddha teaches that, just as the dawn precedes the rising sun, so developing certain qualities prepares us for fully engaging in our practice of the Noble Eightfold Path. Seven of these qualities are taught in the Samyutta Nikaya (SN 45:49-90): good friends, virtue, desire, completeness of mind, view, diligence, and careful attention. This speaker series introduces each of these qualities and illuminates how developing each one can support our path to liberation.
The Buddha teaches that, just as the dawn precedes the rising sun, so developing certain qualities prepares us for fully engaging in our practice of the Noble Eightfold Path. Seven of these qualities are taught in the Magga Samyutta (SN 45:49-90): good friends, and the accomplishments in virtue, desire, self, view, diligence, and careful attention. This series of brief talks, Shaila Catherine introduces each of these qualities and illuminates how their development can support our path to liberation.
Scientists have documented some significant and measurable changes that occur as a result of meditation. But Buddhist practice is not limited to calm, pleasant, relaxing states of meditation. The liberating path includes a broad range of practices that produce a wide variety of benefits. We learn how we encounter the world of the senses; we unravel distortions of perception. We weaken defilements. We learn to let go. In this talk, Shaila Catherine points to the liberating potential of the path.
In this talk, Shaila Catherine encourages practitioners to view illness and pain as opportunities to practice equanimity, patience, and mindfulness of the body. When we are sick or in pain, we can still practice being attentive to present conditions, and reflect that all beings are all also subject to illness and death. Illness is not wrong; it is inevitable. The more we resist this fact, the more mental suffering we add to our physical difficulties. When we learn to be present with both pleasant and unpleasant feelings, we will know an experience of profound peace.
How are we using our minds? Where do our thought incline? The Buddha's teachings focus on the practical application of intention and the power of thought, rather than ritual, as the potent force behind action. Working with thought, we see how habits and tendencies develop and form patterns known as kamma (karma). We must be honest with ourselves and see any conceit, agitation, anger, greed, or restlessness that might be lurking as tendencies of mind. We can learn to use our thought skillfully, and guard the mind with diligent mindfulness. Wholesome and unwholesome thoughts are explored. There is nothing to fear from wholesome thoughts such as intentions toward renunciation, letting go, loving kindness, compassion, and generosity, and yet a concentrated mind will bring deeper rest. The path of liberation and awakening includes the development of morality and virtue, and also calmness, concentration, and wisdom.
