Welcome. I’m looking forward to our month of practice together. Even though the new year has barely begun, it feels as though many of us are feeling tired, increasingly stressed out, and over-burdened. This is a chance for us to Read More
Author Archive | Sharon Salzberg
Week Two of the 2019 Challenge
Week two of our month is devoted to mindfulness of the body. Here we are also challenging the conditioning of judgment – “I’m not feeling the right things, I’m not feeling enough, I’m feeling too much.” Our goal is a Read More
Week One of the 2019 Challenge
Welcome. I’m looking forward to our month of practice together. This first week is devoted to the deepening of concentration. Inherent in the art of concentration are several skills. The two most prominent of these are cultivating balance, and the Read More
Week Four of the 2018 Challenge
Welcome to our final week together! In contrast to our usual ways of thinking which might regard love or lovingkindness or compassion as gifts we can do nothing to cultivate, or immediate emotional reactions we enjoy but can’t stabilize, these Read More
Week Three of the 2018 Challenge
Welcome to week three! This week we are going to focus on mindfulness of the mind: thoughts and emotions. These objects of mindfulness can be more subtle and fleeting, as is especially the case with thoughts. Whether thoughts or emotions, Read More
Week Two of the 2018 Challenge
Week 2 is devoted to mindfulness of the body. Here we are also challenging the conditioning of judgment –“I’m not feeling the right things, I’m not feeling enough, I’m feeling too much.” Our goal is a balanced awareness of whatever Read More
Week One of the 2018 Challenge
Welcome. I’m looking forward to our month of practice together. This first week is devoted to the deepening of concentration. There are several skills inherent in the art of concentration, 2 prominent ones being balance, and the ability to let Read More
Week Four of the Challenge 2017
I really believe that Lovingkindness is being developed in any skillful practice of meditation. If we go back to the first exercise we practiced, developing concentration by settling our attention on a chosen object, like the feeling of the breath, Read More
Week 3 of the Challenge
In Burma, there is a teaching story that is told about a hunter who goes into the forest to try to capture a bird. He may wander for a long time in the forest and, in the end, may not Read More
Week 2 of the Challenge
My Burmese meditation teacher, Sayadaw U Pandita, had a trick question he used to ask people, “How many breaths can you be with before your mind wanders?” The reason it is a trick question is that they believe it takes Read More
