Jan Surrey[1] PhD is an Insight Dialogue Teacher. She teaches Insight Dialogue retreats worldwide and leads a longstanding practice group in the Boston area. Her first meditation teacher was Vimala Thakar . She has practiced in the Insight tradition for over 30 years, and trained as a Community Dharma Leader at Spirit Rock. Since 2007, Jan has worked intensively with Gregory Kramer and is currently serving on the Teachers Council of the Insight Dialogue Community. Jan is a practicing … [Read more...]
Coming Clean on Diversity and Staying in Love with Practice
Insight Journal: I often hear people saying some version of, “I sit 30 minutes a day, but I want to get up to 45.” Or “I sit an hour a day, but I’d like to do two.” Are we missing something when we evaluate practice in this way? Pannavati Bhikkhunī: I think we often misunderstand what striving is. The kind of striving that the Buddha talks about is tied up with the aspiration of the heart, not some external effort like trying harder or putting in more time. It’s more about quality than … [Read more...]
Long Retreats, Selfie Sticks, and the Five Faculties
IJ: Maybe we can start by talking about your own practice. Do you find that practice changes much from day to day, week to week, or month to month? WN: There’s some variation. Since I did a retreat a few years ago with Pa Auk Sayadaw, that great concentration master, I often include periods of jhāna practice, where I work directly with the breath and with material jhānas, and perhaps go into mettā from there. IJ: You participated in that somewhat famous 4-month retreat with Pa … [Read more...]
Mettā: What It Is, What It Isn’t
Insight Journal: How has your relationship to mettā changed over the years? Shaila Catherine: When I was first introduced to meditation in the 1980s, the classic model was a 10-day meditation retreat emphasizing mindfulness. At some point during each retreat there would be a guided mettā meditation. And I have to admit that at first I hated it. IJ: Why did you hate it? SC: I really liked the silence of mindfulness practice, and all the phrases felt disruptive. It was hard enough for me … [Read more...]
The Visuddhi Magga on the Brahma-Vihāras
Becoming More Clearly Human
The Venerable Sayadaw U Paṉḍitābhivaṃsa is one of the most renowned teachers in the tradition of the Mahāsi Sayadaw. U Pandita continues to act as guiding teacher of the Panditārāma meditation center in Burma, and offers students from around the world the wisdom he has gained over seven decades of integrating in-depth theoretical study with intensive practical application of the Buddha's teachings We are very grateful, Sayadaw, that you have agreed to talk with us today. Your remarks will be … [Read more...]
In This World, Hate Never Yet Dispelled Hate
Based on a talk given at the IMS Forest Refuge in Barre, MA, last winter. ‘‘Look how he abused me and beat me, How he threw me down and robbed me.” Live with such thoughts and you live in hate... Abandon such thoughts and live in love. In this world Hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law, Ancient and inexhaustible. (Dhammapada 3-5) Hatred, indeed, has never yet dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. Hatred just leads to revenge, and revenge … [Read more...]
Cultivating the Brahmavihāras
An Interview with Bhikkhu Anālayo on his new book, Compassion and Emptiness in Early Buddhist Meditation Insight Journal: Bhante, most people know you for your work with the satipaṭṭhānas. Why now this book on the brahmavihāras? Bhikkhu Anālayo: For one, it reflects my own practice. For me, satipatthāna is the very foundation. But this foundation does not stand on its own. It also has its complement in the brahmavihāra practice, in particular as it fulfills samatha—tranquility—meditation. … [Read more...]
Escaping the Karma of Addiction
This article is based on teachings given at BCBS in January, 2008 by Paul Simons & Gregory Bivens in a course called Working with Addiction: Spiritual Self-Schema Therapy. It might seem strange to talk about “spiritual self schema” as something to aspire to in a Buddhist context. In the psychological language of Self-Schema Therapy, it describes an alternative to the “addict self,” the type of mistaken identification with one’s negative thoughts and feelings that perpetuates a cycle of … [Read more...]
The Nature of Compassion
This article is excerpted from a talk given at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies on July 27, 1994. My colleague Joseph Goldstein and I just returned from teaching in Boulder, Colorado at the Naropa Institute. Naropa was celebrating its twentieth anniversary, and it was also the twentieth anniversary of our beginning to teach in this country. It was a time filled with nostalgia and also a time for a lot of reflection: what have we done over the last twenty years? Have we done what we … [Read more...]
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