At one of our recent Sundays Together gatherings, a participant’s reflection on rumination opened into a thoughtful teaching from Pablo Das on how mindfulness can help us navigate the full spectrum of human experience — from pleasure and comfort to pain, trauma, and loss. We share their exchange below.

Participant: “As someone who has experienced trauma and survived dangerous situations, I find myself prone to rumination—thinking about what I could have done differently to prevent harm or trouble. I’m curious if this practice [of mindfulness] helps neutralize that discomfort, letting us anchor and feel it in the body, or perhaps even diffuse it. Could it give us skills to handle these experiences more skillfully? In life, there are events and situations that make us want to figure everything out to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe. I’m wondering how mindfulness practice can help in these moments.”

Pablo: You’re touching into something very potent there, right? I share your experience. I have a trauma history, and one of the challenges with trauma is that we become hypervigilant. We get fixated on scenarios — for example, let’s say you get hit by a red car. You then start paying attention to red cars for the rest of your life, and projecting a sense of being threatened onto every metaphorical “red car” that you ever encounter. 

In the Buddhist realm, what we might say is that we can bring mindfulness to that. I define mindfulness partly as an objective awareness: it’s an ability to step back from an experience so that we can have some perspective. We can step back and go, oh, interesting, that’s an impulse, that’s a belief, that’s a view. We can begin to evaluate if what we’re believing is actually true, or if we’re just projecting because of our history.

Part of the liberation from the trauma experience is breaking that identification. Even if an impulse stays with us as a knee jerk reaction, we no longer see it gospel. We’re able to see that, oh, I’m having this conflict with somebody, and my experience of this is way bigger than this moment asks it to be. So my whole history of wounding is present here, and I’m bringing that into this experience with this person who has nothing to do with this. They’re just triggering something that lives in me.

And so, I think the value of Buddhist practice when it comes to trauma is this kind of objective awareness. I would say when we have awareness of our hypervigilance, that non-reactive presence can begin to precede our response. It is the pause that allows us to evaluate how it is we’re going to respond in a given situation. And what is a response? It’s a thought, speech, or action.

So, what we’re interested in is how does that thought, that speech, that action support us to be more well than we were? Should we choose a different response that will self-generate less suffering or harm? Buddhist practice is, broadly speaking, also an ethical system. We’re very interested in the mitigation of suffering, whether that’s the suffering we generate for ourselves, or the suffering or harm that we cause externally because of whatever’s happening within us.

Speaking just for myself, I’ve come to feel that whatever happens to us, it ultimately becomes our responsibility. That is, we are the only people who can manage how we react, and how we feel. One of my favorite sayings from Buddhism around this is, you’re not your fault, but you are your responsibility. The things that condition you, the things that happen in your life, are not your fault. Often, things do happen to us, and some of them are really terrible. That’s our measure of suffering for this life, and we work to manage it with as much grace and dignity as we can. We work to minimize the generation of suffering for ourselves, and harm that we cause others as a justification by saying, look what happened to me. No, no, it ends with us. That’s the spirit, I think.

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The post Seeing Our World Differently appeared first on InsightLA Meditation.

In the Buddhist teachings, Wise Intention is one of what we call the “path factors.” It’s the second factor on the Noble Eightfold Path. What is really important about Wise Intention is that that is something we have control over. There are lots of things that we don’t have control over, but we do have control over our intentions.

It’s to ask ourselves: How do I want to show up in the world?  How do I want to respond to what’s going on in the world, in my community, in my family, and to what’s going on inside of me?

Wise intention is a part of that. Because if we know what our intention are, then we can align, or at least try to align, our actions with our intentions. If we are no clear about our intentions, then habit and reactivity will take over. For myself, usually that means I will react in a way that my scared or overwhelmed nervous system is hardwired to do. And we know where that ends. 

And so we need some particularly strong intentions in times where we feel more stressed, overwhelmed, and triggered; to be firm that we do not want to react in a certain habitual way. 

In the Buddhist teachings wise intention has these three aspects, the first one being renunciation. We can renounce being pulled into behavior that we don’t want. For example, we can renounce being provoked into anger or reactivity — such as getting into fights and arguments in person or online.

That can be a very powerful practice, because when you think about it, if you cannot be provoked, who has the power? You do. But if somebody provokes you and you fly off the handle, who has the power? So I think there’s something very powerful in that, but it’s not easy, right? Because we’re working against our nervous systems, which are built to fight or flee.

So we have to have even more awareness, and think ahead. For example, perhaps you think, “I’m going to have that conversation with that person, and I know it’s more likely that I will react when they’re saying something.” Knowing that is going to happen, you could make it a challenge for yourself to see if you can stay cool in that conversation.

This can be a way to train yourself to stay in your power, instead of giving up, or giving over your power to the other person. Because it’s a training, sometimes it’s good to have many opportunities to practice, because it’s not easy.

One of the core elements of the mindfulness practice is that we are finding what we call “the gap.” Perhaps you’ve heard  the quote that allegedly Viktor Frankl said: “Between the stimulus and the response, there’s a space, or a gap. And in that gap is where our freedom lies.”

Because our freedom is to be able to choose. Usually when there’s a stimulus, there’s no space. We call that reactivity: when somebody pushes one of your buttons, and bam, you’re gone. And it doesn’t feel powerful, it feels quite helpless.

Mindfulness practice helps us, over time, catch ourselves more often. Of course not always, which is why we also practice self-compassion, acknowledging we’re all human, all a work in progress. But perhaps if you’ve been practicing, you have had more of those moments,  where there was a choice. Maybe you felt the impulse to do something and say something, and then you went…I’m not doing that right now.

That feels really powerful. We’re practicing for that choice, to renounce acting on an impulse. Over time, maybe those impulses even disappear, and it’s really cool when that happens. You suddenly notice progress, often in traffic – someone cuts you off, and before, you might have gone berserk. Now, you think, I’m making progress!

So renunciation is a wise intention, as is practicing goodwill. Loving-kindness is a form of goodwill: it’s about protecting our own mind from being poisoned by aversion and hatred. This doesn’t mean people won’t do terrible things. It’s about taking responsibility for our own mind and heart.

Depending on the situation, that can be difficult. But sometimes, it doesn’t take much practice to just say, “I’m refusing to hate that person.” That doesn’t mean you have to like the person or speak to them again. This is about choosing a different relationship, and practicing it over time. Thinking about the internal environment you want to live in. Does it feel good to be mad or to hate somebody? Sometimes it feels a little good, but that wears off. Then it erodes us from within. Holding grudges has a price. 

The third aspect of Wise Intention is not causing harm. This is complex, and I don’t have clear answers to all of it.

You may know about the monks who walked for peace. A week ago, they arrived at Lincoln Center in Washington after walking 108 days, 2,300 miles. 108 is sacred in Buddhist practice. They walk with no money, no food, no shelter, completely dependent on the generosity of strangers. It’s amazing.

They were not protesting anything; they were for something—peace, peace within each of us. We can’t make world peace. It would be wonderful if we could, but it’s not possible. What we can influence is peace within this body and mind.

Bhikku Bodhi said: Since the state of the world reflects the minds of its inhabitants, permanent universal peace would require a radical transformation in those minds. That’s beautiful, but unrealistic. What is possible is lasting individual peace within ourselves, fulfilled through the Buddha’s threefold training.

This internal peace overflows and positively influences others. As the old Indian adage says: One can never make the earth safe for one’s feet by sweeping away all thorns and gravel. But with shoes, one’s feet are comfortable everywhere. One cannot be free from enmity by eliminating all foes, but if one strikes down hate in the mind, one sees no enemies.

That’s powerful. This is what the monks teach: you’re responsible for peace in your own heart. Practice that, and your environment will transform.

Systems theory applies here: change one part of a system, the whole system shifts. We can’t change everyone, but we can control ourselves. That matters, especially when we feel overwhelmed.

I’ve seen people inspired to walk with these monks, hundreds from all parts of society. We need hope, teachings that peace is possible. Remember, the Buddha lived in violent, unjust times.

If everyone practiced this, the world would be different. We can’t make everyone practice it, even our kids. What matters is focusing on what we can do.

The flip side of peace is not harming. Being trained as a physician, “first do no harm” has always been important. We cannot avoid harming, but we can set the intention not to harm. We can be humble, acknowledge our mistakes, and listen deeply to those we hurt.

Even then, conflict repair isn’t always possible. Sometimes others can’t understand, or the harm is too deep. Still, we cultivate practices to listen first before seeking to be understood.

“Harmless” is often used as an insult, as if it means weak or insignificant. We can reclaim it: yes, I’m harmless. I’m proud to be harmless. To be someone nobody fears—not weak or passive, but with boundaries and assertiveness.

Exploring that fine line can be very helpful.

Warmly, 
Christiane

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The post Choosing How We Respond to Life appeared first on InsightLA Meditation.

So I researched the way the Buddha taught, and found that he taught according to this gradual path. They say that he would come into a new community, and then with his Dharma eye, or psychic powers, he would assess the level of the students, and what teaching they were prepared for. But in the absence of that, the very first thing in this gradual path is the teachings on generosity.

The Buddha really emphasized generosity as a quality that makes it easier to navigate what it is to be a human being. He said that if people knew the results of giving in the way that I know them, even their last morsel of food, they would share, if there was someone to share it with.

There’s a story of a little girl who’s on a school bus. She comes to the front of the school bus, and hands the driver a handful of peanuts.  He says thank you, and he enjoys eating the peanuts. A few minutes later, the girl offers the driver another handful of peanuts, and the he thanks her. The third time the little girl comes up with peanuts, the bus driver says no thanks, you enjoy those with your friends, dear, I’ve had enough. And the little girl says, we just like sucking the chocolate off of them.

So this is not generosity. When you’re practicing generosity, to paraphrase Kahlil Gibran, you should feel the little pinch. And that pinch is your stinginess protesting.

If you give away your old worn-out coat you wouldn’t be caught dead in, that’s not generosity. You’re doing nothing to overcome your stinginess, you’re just cleaning out your closet and calling it something else. Giving away your coat might keep someone warm, but it doesn’t address the problem we face as spiritual practitioners to free ourselves from grasping.

This is one of the reasons that the Buddha made the teaching of dana, giving, letting go, so primary. Because the heart of the path is letting go.

And when we are generous, we’re practicing letting go. And generosity is one of the few things that brings immediate happiness. I think about how good it feels to give a gift to someone. Or give your time, or support a cause that you care about. It’s like an instant happiness loop.

And we’re sitting here in this uninterrupted stream of 2,500 years of generosity. For 500 years, these teachings were memorized by people because they hadn’t been written down. One version of the Pali Canon is 45 volumes, ranging from 500 to 700 pages in length. Because of the enormity of the text, to commit these teachings to memory basically required that you dedicate your life to doing so. It meant a life of renunciation, a life of simplicity. Those teachings were handed down mouth to ear for 500 years; eventually written down, and somehow through wars, famines, and all the things that have happened in humanity, they made their way here to us. Only because of the generosity of those people that preserved them.

So there are many ways to practice generosity. We can practice generosity with our financial resources, with our things, but also our time, our energy, our attention, our care.

One form of generosity that I’m trying to cultivate in my own life is the generosity of attention. The way that practice works for me is that if someone’s talking to me, I will put down whatever I’m doing, literally and figuratively, to give them the fullness of my attention. And it’s strange. Just the other day, I was on my computer, when my colleague came into the room. I closed my computer, and looked at her. She was like, what? What are you looking at? What’s going on? It really took her by surprise that I did that.

But this practice of giving attention has enhanced all my relationships in immeasurable ways. Being generous is an active expression of loving-kindness, and it brings us more into the relational field. Even science nowadays is telling us that having strong relational supports correlates very highly with lifespan and healthspan. Generosity kind of waters this soil of interconnectedness.

There was a barber who decided he was going to practice generosity. He said the first customer who comes in, I’m gonna give them free whatever service they want. So the first day, it was a florist. When it came time to pay, the barber said, it’s okay, this is on me, I’m practicing generosity. And the next day, there were a dozen roses at his door. Reciprocity of generosity. The second day, it was a baker. The next day, he got a dozen muffins. And then the third day, it was a politician that came in. And the next day, there were a dozen politicians lined up to get their free haircuts.

So when generosity is offered, the question is not just what’s given, but how do we receive? For many of us, it’s hard to receive. The gift, however, is not diminished by how others respond. It’s our own spirit of letting go, our own appreciation, our own reciprocity of heart.

How we receive becomes a kind of diagnostic. Does the heart move toward gratitude or entitlement?

The recipe that society gives for happiness, well-being, contentment, satisfaction, belonging, is acquisitional. So we can be happy when… fill in the blank. The right job, the right partner, the right status, the right amount of money, right education, whatever it might be. But it’s very hard to arrange life in that sort of perfect way, where we got all the things that we want and we don’t get any of the things that we don’t want.

As the great sage Mick Jagger said, we can’t always get what we want.

Joseph Goldstein says, the practice of generosity is the beginning of letting go. Every act of giving is a moment of non-clinging, a moment of freedom. In this way, generosity becomes the whole of the path. There’s a famous quote from Ajahn Chah: “If you let go a little, you’ll have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you’ll have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you’ll have complete peace.”

Generosity often comes with the sense of there being enough, or even abundance, which I’ve learned doesn’t actually depend on your bank balance or your net worth.

An anthropologist was interviewing an Appalachian woman living very remotely, in a dirt shack, no indoor plumbing, no electricity. And in the course of the interview, he asked her what she would do if she came into a lot of money. She thought about it for a while, and then she said, “I guess I’d give it to the poor.”

Well, I’ll end with this. I am very inspired by this quote from Mark Morford. He used to write for the San Francisco Chronicle. “Realize that for every ongoing war and religious outrage, environmental devastation, and bogus war plan, there are a thousand million counterbalancing acts of staggering generosity and humanity and art and beauty happening all over the world right now, on a breathtaking scale, from flower box to cathedral.”

I think it’s noteworthy that he wrote this in 2001. We always feel like every generation, it’s the worst. I was talking to some boomers the other day, and they were like, it’s a cakewalk compared to what we did in the 60s. And I’m sure if you talked to the older generation, it would have been World War II. There’s no comparison. So I always like to widen the view.

Warmly, 
Gullu

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Bring your practice into community and deepen your practice of mindfulness:

Join Next Week’s Community Dharma Nights – Experience guided meditation, teachings, and connection with fellow practitioners. Register Here 

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The post Starting the Path of Practice appeared first on InsightLA Meditation.

We are happy to highlight the work of long-time teacher, Lisa Kring, LCSW, who offers a unique bridge between mindfulness practice and professional psychotherapy.

A Compassionate Approach to Healing
With over 25 years of experience, Lisa integrates her deep background in Theravada mindfulness with somatic and attachment-based therapies (including Hakomi). Her approach is non-pathologizing, meaning she meets you not as a “problem to be solved,” but as a whole person capable of reclaiming your innate freedom.

Who Can Benefit?
Lisa offers a sacred space for those navigating anxiety, trauma, chronic illness, or the complexities of grief and parenting. 

Take the First Step
If you’ve been curious about how therapy and mindfulness can work together, Lisa invites you to reach out. She offers a free 15-minute consultation to see if her approach feels like a good fit for your journey.

Click here to learn more and book a free 15-minute consultation with Lisa Kring via Psychology Today.

The post Finding Freedom Through Mindful Therapy with Lisa Kring appeared first on InsightLA Meditation.

So loving-kindness is not a Buddhist thing, and it’s not an Eastern thing. It’s very much a human potential. Loving-kindness is one of the Brahmaviharas: “Brahma” means highest, “vihara” means abode — an abiding or a dwelling place. Metta is described this way not from an authoritative place, not because the Buddha said, “This is the best thing for you to do, so you should do it,” but because you can really feel loving-kindness as a very powerful energy. It overrides the afflictive states in our mind and liberates the mind from them. It’s called a liberating quality.

Each moment that your clear mind connects, “May I be safe,” your mind is then liberated from hating yourself, self-doubt, judgment, judging others. In that moment, there’s a liberating quality. That moment is all you ever have to do. And then there’s a new moment, and you do that again.

There’s a way that we can try to — and we do all the time — put effort into our practice, or into our life, that is trying to control outcomes. My teacher pointed this out when I was on an intensive retreat. He said, “You put in the causes and let go of the effects.”

That’s the one job when practicing loving-kindness meditation. The one job is repeating these phrases: may I be safe, healthy, and happy. Next moment, same thing. The mind will wander, then coming back — that one job: may I be safe. Kind of put it down and let the effects of it happen.

This is very conserving of our energy. Trying to control outcomes is a waste of energy because it’s trying to control what we don’t have control over. It puts us at odds with life and depletes our energy.

Metta is very restoring of our energy. It’s very healing. Much like the guy who studied the effects of words on water — the way it affects your molecules — Metta, when you say the words “may I be safe, healthy, and happy,” vibrates into your body, into your nervous system. It soothes the nerves.

The mind-body relationship becomes very visible in intensive practice. When we get quiet, the mind gets concentrated, and you can see a thought and its effects on the body. And that’s every thought.

I like to think of Metta as really the force of the universe, even though it’s hard to see in a world where there’s so much violence, pain, afflictions, and evil. But existence sort of rewards this beautiful quality and all wholesome qualities. The deepest essence of the universe bends toward goodness.

You can have that kind of faith — that our job is to line up with that creative force of the universe, where we care about the well-being, happiness, and peace of ourselves, and we care about the wellness, happiness, and peace of those around us. And the universe responds. The body responds to that.

The body also responds to anxiety and to worry, contracting the blood cells and having a negative effect on our organs. In Burma, it’s well talked about and very much understood — not taken as theory, because they’ve witnessed it so much — that people heal themselves through meditation practice. Why is that? Because thoughts are consuming. We’re consuming them. What are we consuming that goes into our bodies?

Sustained wholesome thoughts like mindfulness and concentration are a constant stream feeding your body. I’ve had small experiences. I haven’t healed anything major, though I’ve known somebody who has. I had a friend who went into a retreat with rheumatoid arthritis in a wheelchair and came out walking afterwards. That was the biggest one of somebody I knew.

There’s a little pamphlet of Mahasi Sayadaw that talks about tumors bursting and people curing cancer. You don’t go into the practice to do that, but this is what happened. You’ll see it manifest in intensive practice as your skin starts to get very clear, or the whites of the eyes start to get very white. That’s having an effect on all of the organs and all of the nervous system. Your heart starts to beat more regularly. Your digestion starts to work better too.

It’s not something we reflect on much, and it’s not something doctors know much about, which is very unfortunate and limiting to the medical system as we know it. But other forms of healing do know that your thoughts absolutely go into your body. It’s an early insight in Vipassana practice, and it’s an absolute law. It’s not a theory. You can see it for yourself.

You’ll see it in small ways if you say the thoughts of loving-kindness and feel a release in your body. I always hear my brain going — as soon as I start doing Metta practice, something in the brain starts cranking. But it’s constantly happening. It’s every single thought.

Our thoughts of self-hatred, our thoughts of fear, our thoughts of anger — they’re all affecting us. So it’s really lovely to have a container of retreat practice that supports you in constantly increasing thoughts of loving-kindness. You don’t have to do more. You just have one job. But how do you do it?

By familiarizing yourself with Metta. Quiet. Closing the eyes. Calling up Metta and getting to know it. Feeling it. Becoming familiar. Studying it, really — like a scientist. Looking at it clearly by cultivating it, by constantly increasing these thoughts of loving-kindness.

Each thought is something to be treasured. The more you practice, you don’t have to make yourself treasure it. The more you familiarize yourself with it, the more you feel it in your system, in your heart, and the benefit of it, and you will naturally treasure it.

Warmly,
Melissa

The post Loving-kindess is a Human Capacity appeared first on InsightLA Meditation.

When I first heard this concept of the mind being naturally “luminous,” I thought it was an allusion to the fact that there’s something in the mind that’s secretly pure and awakened already. That underneath everything else, enlightenment is already there.

But that’s not what the Buddha meant by this. What he was really saying was that the mind is naturally good, and ready to be enlightened, but not enlightened. The quality of the mind that allows it to be good and ready to find awakening or enlightenment is that the mind can know. When the mind knows, it means that it is shining a light on an experience, on whatever’s happening. The question is, how do we train our minds to do that?

It can feel really crowded in inside our minds. Have you ever had a meditation when it was just like Grand Central Station in your mind? Sometimes we describe it as standing under a waterfall. Thoughts, images, and stories pounding down on you, all these experiences coming up one after another. All that phenomena is fueled by three classic things: greed, anger, and delusion, or the three poisons in Buddhist practice. And these three poisons drive suffering in the world.

For a lot of us, when we see these qualities come up in ourselves—anger, greed, or delusion—we tend to think it’s baked into our brains, into who we are. One of the gifts of practicing meditation is that we can get unstuck from that idea, because if we sit long enough, we’ll see that what’s going on will arise, and then it will go away.

So it turns out that greed and anger and delusion are not hardwired into the mind. Rather, they’re visitors,  and that’s really good news, because we can work with that. We can change it.

There’s a good illustration of this idea of darkness. What if you were in a room that had been dark for a thousand years, and you lit a match? The darkness goes away, and there’s light. The darkness doesn’t stand up and protest and say, “I’ve been here a thousand years, what do you think you’re doing?” It just goes: when light is shined on it, it leaves.

That’s a moment of clarity. It may be brief, but in practice, when it comes up, it’s those moments when the thoughts slow way down. We talk about hindrances in practice: desire, aversion, sloth and torpor, restlessness and anxiety, and doubt. They come up for everybody, no matter how seasoned a meditator you are. These experiences cloud what we’re seeing. The good news is that when we shine a light on these experiences when we’re having them, they go away. And in those moments, you see a glimpse of what the mind is like when it shines a light on things — it becomes clear. 

It’s equally important to notice when the hinderances are not there. When you see you’ve gotten lost in aversion—irritability, disdain, hatred—and you say, “This is aversion,” that’s great. That’s the first step. When the mind shines a light, it sees what’s present, and it sees if the hindrances are present, but it also sees when they’re not there. It’s just as important to note what’s not there as what is there.

Part of what helps with this is discernment. Discernment is your wisdom coming into a situation. It can be used internally in practice and externally in what you see. When we’re not using discernment, the hindrances come in like fog. The fog gets thicker and thicker, and we don’t see.

The world is sort of designed to promote us not seeing what’s coming up in our experience clearly. It can be your smartphone, and doomscrolling. Hanging around with people who aren’t wise. Hearing teachings and not really taking them to heart. These things cloud over what’s happening, and fuel inappropriate attention. We’re looking in the wrong place.

Instead of being lost in status, comparison, and blame, discernment suggests we use a different question. We back up and say: Where’s the suffering here? That’s the kind of suffering the Buddha talked about — it’s happening right where you are. If you turn and ask, “Where’s the suffering? What am I experiencing? And why?” you’re changing direction.

On a 14-day retreat, I spent a whole morning lost in things that happened when I was 5 or 7 years old. I was upset to the point of tears. I went to my teacher and told her I was lost in all this awful stuff from the past. She listened patiently and then said, “Stop it. This is all a delusion.”

That was her lending me her discernment to kickstart mine. I was lost in a story about my life. When we turn to suffering, we can apply the Four Noble Truths: Suffering exists. There’s a cause for suffering. There’s a way for suffering to be relieved. And there’s a path to do that. Then we can ask questions: What is the suffering I’m experiencing? What’s causing it? There’s a good chance it’s craving. Why can’t I let this go? It might be clinging. How can I start to let go?

In order to do this, it takes willingness. Sitting can be tough. Sometimes it’s wonderful, and there’s great insight. But awakening isn’t guaranteed. There’s no mechanism inside of us that’s going to drag us across the finish line against our will. We have to want it.

There are three things that are important: the desire for happiness, a mind that can know—and you have one—and the ability to train ourselves.

There’s a quote from Ajaan Mun: We are warriors fighting defilement. Defilements are those things that trash up your mind. Our weapon is discernment. And the warrior in us is the determination not to suffer again. Without that determination, the path won’t unfold.

That’s why the teaching on the luminosity of the mind matters. If the mind were permanently stained with greed, hatred, and delusion, there would be no hope for change, but it’s not permanently stained. And if awakening were guaranteed, there’d be no sense of urgency, but it’s not guaranteed.

Those are extremes. The middle path is this: the mind can know, the mind can be trained, and the mind can let go. How do we do that?

The first teachings in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness: mindfulness of the breath and mindfulness of the body. Without changing your posture, just find your breath. Gently land on your breath. All sorts of things may come up. When they do, look at them as visitors. They’re not permanent.

You have the breath to sustain you, and you can always come back to it. No matter how confused or complicated the mind gets, you can come back. Relax into the breath. Just as surely as these visitors come, they go. Letting your mind be the light.

It’s like that old Motel 6 commercial: “We’ll leave the light on for you.” Well, guess who’s going to leave the light on for you? You. Because you’re going to realize the light is right there: it’s in your mind. When you let the process happen, the mind will shine the light on what’s going on. And you’ll see.

Warmly, 
James

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Bring your practice into community and deepen your practice of mindfulness meditation:

Join Next Week’s Community Dharma Nights – Experience guided meditation, teachings, and connection with fellow practitioners. Register Here 

Explore Weekly Sits & Group Events – Find a regular practice space to support your mindfulness journey. 

The post The Mind is Naturally Luminous appeared first on InsightLA Meditation.

One of my mentors, Gil Fronsdal, likes to say, if you’re only free when you’re comfortable, you’re not really free. Because if everything is cool and easy, practice isn’t hard. But when things are not cool, when it’s not easy, then we actually put our practice to the test. We have to be intentional.

For me there are two questions. One is: what kind of world do I want to live in externally? And equally important: what kind of world do I want to live in internally?

It’s easy to say, “They make me feel this way. They make me angry, they make me upset.” And yes: a terrible event happens, or someone does something I think is awful, and then I feel angry or overwhelmed. But the real question then is: what do I do with that now? If I’m having a reaction and I say to myself, “I don’t like how this feels,” do I just run with it? Or do I bring attention to it and say, “I want to be informed by this feeling, but I don’t want to react”?

When we get triggered, we often go into fight or flight. We get angry, or we withdraw. And sometimes we even misuse our practice to withdraw and pretend everything is fine. We have to be careful not to meditate ourselves into disengagement. Practice is meant to help us stay engaged, not check out.

That’s where wise intention comes in. Wise intention has three components: renunciation, goodwill, and not harming. I’d like to focus for now mainly on goodwill. Perhaps you are familiar with loving-kindness practice, a meditation practice where we send friendly, loving wishes to beings across five categories: someone easy to love, ourselves, neutral people, difficult people, and eventually all beings. We start with sending the wishes of goodwill where it’s easiest, wishing a loved one well. Sometimes even that isn’t all that easy, and that’s okay. We’re just trying to incline our minds in toward goodwill, and away from tension and stress.

Sometimes we don’t want to let go of our anger because it feels familiar, or because we think staying angry means we’re staying loyal to a good cause. But the point is not to pretend everything is fine, it is to be regulated enough to act wisely. Otherwise we’re just passing triggers along. And the hard truth is: it’s us who have to stop that cycle, not the other person. Only we can change our own mind.

There’s a story from a monk practicing in Asia who had a snake living in his hut. He tried leaving the door open, but the snake stayed. Finally he sat down and practiced goodwill toward the snake. He acknowledged that they lived on different planes, that being so close was dangerous for both of them, and that the forest would be a better place for the snake. And the snake left.

The point wasn’t loving the snake up. It was wishing it well and asking it to go away. That really stayed with me. I wish you well. I don’t want you harmed. But please be far away from me.

What if loving-kindness were really about not losing our goodwill toward people? About deciding what kind of inner world we want to live in? I don’t like the inner climate of anger, resentment, and reactivity. Anger itself isn’t the problem, and it can certainly be appropriate. It’s good starting fuel, but if we keep using it, it harms us and others.

The practice is to let anger move through, to use it as information, and then to transform it into something that’s not reactive. We will mess this up, because we’re human. That’s when the practice becomes: what do I do when I mess up? Can I repair? Can I apologize sincerely?

Warmly, 
Christiane

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With that being said, I’d like to share about what are called the Ten Pāramīs in Buddhism. One translation of pāramī is “perfection,” and that can sound a little intimidating. I like to think of the pāramīs as more of aspirations — something we’re living every day, especially if we make them part of our conscious practice. They’re not necessarily a noun; they’re more of a verb. To practice the pāramīs reverently, with some energy, opens our human capacity for compassion and wisdom, and they also serve as a path to liberation. They helps us let go of some of the things that get in the way in our lives.

The particular pāramīs that I’d like to focus on now, to me, are like bookends—ones that focus a little more on the relational aspects of practice. They are the first two, generosity and ethical conduct, and the last two, loving-kindness and equanimity. As we practice these, they relate with each other—both in sequence and cross-sequence. They don’t necessarily come in order. There’s a circularity to them. Sometimes one affects another. They can be organic if we allow them to be in our lives by noticing how they manifest in our everyday lives and relationships.

And these pāramīs are non-obligatory. They’re not something we have to do. They’re something we choose to do—like this whole path, this whole practice. We don’t have to do it. It’s not fundamentalism. If we don’t do this, it’s not that something terrible is going to happen. It’s a choice we all make. And I hope it’s one we make out of respect, and something skillful that grows within us.

So the first one: generosity. The Pali word for generosity is dāna. If you donate when you register for a meditation class, or give of your time—that’s dāna. That’s a form of generosity. But it’s really more than just an act of giving. It’s an opening of the heart and of letting go. Letting go of holding onto money or things, but particularly of letting go of wanting — grapsing — everything for ourselves. It’s a cultivation of the perspective that others are important in our lives and in the world.

In Southeast Asia, practitioners are encouraged to practice dāna before they ever start meditating. It’s so important in the tradition there to start with giving, not with focusing solely inward—to reach outside of yourself, to establish connection outside of yourself, to support and care for others, before you even start turning inward.

It can be really easy to become self-obsessed with cultivating generosity in a way that benefits you and doesn’t have other people’s benefit at the center of it. I don’t know if you’ve ever done this before—given something because it’s going to make you look good. I’ve done that, particularly earlier in my life. I wanted recognition. I wanted a name on a plaque or some kind of certificate. That’s not at the heart of dāna. Dāna is given without any expectation of return. It’s completely free and open giving, unburdened by any idea that this is going to come back and help me.

This is something we can practice with. We can develop it by noticing the ways that we get in our own way. Do we block our own pure heart by having some expectation other than giving for care, kindness, or support? As a pāramī, dāna is non-obligatory—completely voluntary. And another thing that can happen is that when we give, we feel it as an obligation, or we do it resentfully. I’ve done this before too. This is just an invitation to notice that these things can arise. True generosity is not self-aggrandizing. It’s not selfish. It’s completely voluntary and open.

The next of these pāramī “bookends” is ethical conduct. This is the aspiration to live in a way that doesn’t harm other beings. How can I live my life in a way that doesn’t contribute to suffering? There are five precepts often offered: to abstain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and substances that cloud the mind. What matters to me is doing things thoughtlessly, heedlessly, or with malice. Each of us needs to explore how this lands in our own life.

The relational aspect is to refrain from harming. And in doing so, we also refrain from harming ourselves by acting out of alignment with our deepest values. Most of us know what that feels like—we feel it in the body. The practice is to notice, set intentions, and keep learning when we make mistakes. It’s a path of unfolding and growth.

On the other side are the bookends of loving-kindness and equanimity. Mettā can be translated as loving-kindness, kindness, or goodwill—simple goodwill toward other beings. This can be practiced formally or lived in everyday life. Kindness isn’t always soft. It can be fierce and protective. When kindness meets suffering, that’s compassion. And when we can celebrate others’ joy without envy, that’s kindness too.

Equanimity is the ability to remain balanced when things are going sideways. Life moves through gain and loss, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. Equanimity is not indifference—it’s a deep concern rooted in compassion and wisdom. It offers perspective, reminding us that sometimes we’re at the bottom of the wave, sometimes at the top, but eventually we glimpse the horizon.

Each of us has good qualities we can practice with and develop, sometimes on our own, sometimes in community. This is what inspires me to practice and to teach. And the science supports this too: generosity and gratitude actually shape our minds toward contentment and goodwill. So I hope something about these bookends—the front and the back of the pāramīs—might inspire you, in how you relate to others and to your own experience, and in developing an open heart and a wise mind.

Warmly,
JD 

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That phrase—“against who we really are”—has always gotten my attention. Who are we really? When we meditate, we see the changing flow and stream of phenomena that we often take to be “me” and “mine,” that we take to be a self. And that flow of phenomena is here and now.  There’s a phrase we use: the Dharma is ehipassiko—come and see for yourself. Any given moment, when met with mindfulness, can be a Dharma doorway into the truth of things as they actually are.

What’s not an illusion is this flow. But the “I-me-mine” making, the selfing around it, the identification with what’s happening as “me” and “mine”—that’s the illusion. There’s a line from a poem by Rilke that stays with me: “I am the rest between two notes.” Who are we when we sit down to meditate and experience the relief of dropping that endless “I-me-my” making? The mind is constantly concocting, putting experience together, interpreting it, identifying with it. Even if it’s just thirty minutes where you put that down, there’s a rest in that. The perpetuation of a self, and the project of constantly improving the self, is exhausting.

So we practice the middle way—setting wise intentions from love and wisdom rather than aversion or endless self-improvement. We do that by staying present, moment by moment, whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant. That takes patience. Patience, as Ajahn Sucitto describes it, is holding the heart still in the presence of its suffering until it lets go of the ways it creates that suffering. This is the nature of practice: we see dukkha, we stay present with the reactive mind, and over time, wisdom lets go—not “me,” not a self doing it, but insight itself.

As the heart-mind lets go, intention changes naturally. Compassion and loving-kindness arise. We see the value of letting go of craving. The Buddha encouraged us to know our own hearts and minds directly—to see cause and effect clearly. When we practice in silence, the mind settles, like sediment in a glass of water, and clarity becomes possible. Wise intention means starting where we are, letting things be as they are, and seeing clearly what’s not serving well-being. Letting go happens naturally; it’s not forced.

Howard Thurman wrote, “There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have.” As we make space, we begin to hear that sound. And intention becomes a rudder—it helps us notice when we’ve gone off course and gently return. The Buddha taught three wise intentions: letting go, goodwill, and harmlessness. These counteract craving, ill will, and cruelty. These are the places we practice wise intention.

So you might just pause and let this settle. Get interested in clinging and craving. Notice how it shows up as grabbing or pushing away. Allow the heart and mind to be still in the presence of those patterns. See them clearly.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Warmly,
Celeste

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Understanding Suffering as a Doorway
The Buddha’s very first teaching was the Four Noble Truths. That alone says something about how important they are. He wasn’t offering philosophy, dogma, or abstract ideas—he was pointing directly to lived experience. What is actually happening in our lives, right now? What do we keep running into as human beings?

At the heart of this teaching is a simple, honest acknowledgment: there is suffering. Not that all of life is suffering—we know there is beauty, love, and joy—but that suffering is an unavoidable part of having a body, a heart, and a mind. When we stop arguing with that truth, something begins to soften. Instead of blaming ourselves or feeling like we’ve failed, we can start to understand what’s really going on.

The Many Faces of Suffering
The Buddha described suffering, or dukkha, in several ways. There is the obvious kind: physical pain, illness, aging, loss, and emotional heartbreak. If you have a body and a heart, you know this kind of suffering. It comes with the territory.

There is also the suffering that comes from constant change. Everything is impermanent. Things shift, relationships change, circumstances fall apart or come together again. There is a subtle stress in living in a world that won’t hold still, where nothing can be fully relied on to stay the same.

And then there is a deeper, quieter kind of suffering—the sense that even when things go well, they’re never quite perfect or complete. There’s often something slightly off, something unsatisfying. This isn’t a personal failure; it’s the nature of conditioned life. When we can see this clearly, we stop taking it so personally. The instruction here isn’t to fix suffering, but to know it—to feel it, understand it, and stop fighting the truth of it.

Clinging and the Second Arrow
The Buddha didn’t stop at naming suffering. He also pointed to its cause: clinging. We cling to how we think things should be, to what we want, to the idea that if only this happened, we’d finally be happy. This clinging itself is painful. You can feel it in the body—the tightening, the bracing, the white-knuckling of life.

There’s a teaching about the “second arrow.” The first arrow is the pain we can’t avoid—aging, loss, disappointment. The second arrow is what we add on top of it: resistance, blame, resentment, the stories we tell ourselves about how we’ve failed. Pain is inevitable. Suffering, in this sense, is optional. When we learn to notice clinging and gently let go, even a little, there is relief. Often it’s not getting what we want that feels good—it’s the momentary release of grasping.

Intentionality and the Path to Freedom
The Four Noble Truths don’t leave us stuck in suffering. They point toward a path. When we see clearly how things are, wise intention naturally follows. Intentionality is what brings the teachings into daily life. It’s the moment-to-moment choice to turn toward experience with awareness instead of habit, kindness instead of reactivity.

Intentionality isn’t about controlling outcomes or chasing goals. It’s about aligning with wholesome qualities—presence, compassion, clarity—right here. Wherever the mind is flowing, that becomes our life. When we’re asleep at the wheel, we often find ourselves circling the same patterns of stress. When we’re awake, even briefly, we can put our hand on the rudder and gently change course.

Suffering becomes “noble” when it wakes us up—when it points us toward freedom rather than despair. Many of us begin this path not because life is easy, but because something in us knows there must be another way.

What might change if you met your own suffering not as a mistake, but as an invitation to understand and let go—just a little more gently—right now?

Warmly,
Lisa

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