The millennium question I hear students asking is how they can integrate the path of self-liberation with the path of paying attention to the welfare of others. My focus is guiding practitioners to do both. The dharmic brilliance is that liberation, the core teaching, creates a deep, transformative experience of who we are, which, in turn, transforms our care for the state of all beings everywhere.
I love storytelling as a vehicle for the dharma. I find that creating a non-ordinary reality of time and place carries the Buddhist spirit beneath the intellect and straight into the heart. Since we are all on a mythic journey inside the story of our lives, creating a timeless dimension through storytelling fires up our natural wisdom and compassion.
One of my deepest passions is engaging with an earth dharma. Dharmic awareness gives us a way to create a profound relationship to the land. We can learn to show care, honor and respect, loving the environment as the true extension of our hearts and minds that it is, feeling one with it in our blood.
People all over are seeking and longing for a sense of connection, community and an inner life. When we fuse the traditions of the dharma as self-liberation and as compassionate action, we infuse our daily lives with the power of the ancient lineage of Buddhism. We learn about the true nature of who we are and what it means to lead a compassionate life with ourselves, with others and our environment.
Part 1 illuminates the fundamental nature and support of faith, or confidence, as a sustaining force in practice. Courageous energy follows, as the courage required to carry Dhamma into depths of one’s being.
Detailed description of each Brahma Vihara, in generating and pervading them through oneself and to others in receiving them. Examples of each - enlightened leadership; using Brahma Viharas as basis for political freedom. How acts of kindness have rippling effects with unknown and mysterious consequences.
Introduced by gratitude to teachers and lineage. Followed by a thorough description of mindfulness and the four foundations of mindfulness. Concluded by how to support skillful states of faith and courageous energy.
A description of the four brahmaviharas and the interconnected nature of things. Good acts of metta especially have far-reaching consequences —changing our patterns, and releasing powerful, previously repressed energy for awareness, love and wisdom.
