Gina Sharpe, Lila Kate Wheeler, and Larry Yang, core teachers of the Teacher Training program at Woodacre, California's Spirit Rock Mediation Center, share about this year's participants. In July 2017, the eighth Spirit Rock Teacher Training program began with more participants from diverse, multicultural communities than ever before. This four-year training will create fully [...]
Who’s Difficult?
They say that fences make good neighbors, but in this story of waking up on the spot — published to mark our community retreat, Waking Up In Every Moment, which will be livestreamed on August 29th and 30th — Kate Wheeler learns that some barriers should just come down. I was at a retreat on loving-kindness when it came time to send goodwill to what traditional texts call [...]
The Thing about Relationships…
"Let's cultivate clear seeing, rather than holding a hierarchy of images in which ordinary life, people and relationships are held as mundane and second-best." At about seven o'clock each morning, I do a practice that makes me grateful for the Buddhist teachings. Pushing aside the panting puppy who stands beside the bed, that hairy alarm clock who wants me to feed and [...]