Amma Thanasanti began meditating in 1979 under the guidance of Jack Engler, Ajahn Chah, and Dipa Ma. She spent 28 years as a Buddhist nun, including 20 years in Ajahn Chah monasteries, and has taught internationally since 1996. She is the founder of Awakening Truth (awakeningtruth.org) and developed the Integrated Meditation Program (IMP), an attachment-repair pathway for meditators. Her work integrates classical Buddhist training with contemporary psychology and trauma-informed practice, helping practitioners discern where meditation supports awakening—and where relational wounds and trauma require direct healing. This integration allows the stillness, clarity, and goodness from meditation to become more natural and sustainable. SHINE is a practice Amma developed as a counterpart to the RAIN method by Michelle McDonald and Tara Brach. While RAIN helps us meet difficulty, SHINE supports cultivating positive states—training the nervous system to recognize, sustain, and deepen what's good.The acronym stands for Sense, Hold, Inquire, Nourish, and Enhance. Integrated into the broader Integrated Meditation Program (IMP), SHINE addresses a gap many practitioners experience: we become skilled at observing suffering but less adept at stabilizing ease, joy, and goodness when they arise. In this session, we'll practice SHINE together and explore how cultivating these states helps stillness, clarity, and goodness become more natural and sustainable in daily life.

We will explore how the Buddha’s teachings map onto the challenges that many face navigating this arena of life. Concrete practices and suggestions will be offered.

The cultivation of metta for a dear person seems easy. However, one must watch out for the ‘hidden’ defilements of either attachment & lust or worry & grief. Hand out as many Metta Candies as possible.

Mindfulness directed equally to every experience in the style of Dipa Ma opens us to shift from happiness dependent on conditions to unconditional happiness.