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...]
The Interplay Between Meditation Theory and Practice
Bhikkhu Anālayo
The present article briefly surveys four developments in Buddhist meditation traditions from the viewpoint of an apparently ongoing interaction between theory and practice: a gradual reduction of the sixteen steps of mindfulness of breathing to just focusing on the breath; an apparent fascination with light and fire imagery leading to investing the mind with intrinsic luminosity and purity; a tendency to grant increasing importance to absorption as indispensable for progress to awakening or even … [Read more...]
Grieving for the Buddha: Three Cambodian Songs
Trent Walker
Trent Walker is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies and a Lecturer in Religious Studies at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and has published widely on Khmer, Lao, Pali, Thai, and Vietnamese Buddhist texts and recitation practices. Trent began his training in Cambodian Buddhist chant in 2005, under the guidance of Koet Ran, Prum Ut, Yan Borin, and Preah Maha Vimaladhamma Pin Sem. His online multimedia … [Read more...]
Reflections on Nibbana
Joseph Goldstein
Joseph Goldstein is a co-founder and guiding teacher of IMS. He has been teaching vipassanā and mettā retreats worldwide since 1974. In 1989, he helped establish BCBS and, more recently, IMS’s Forest Refuge. He is the author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, One Dharma, The Experience of Insight, and Insight Meditation, and co-author of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. A pdf version can be downloaded here. As challenging as it is, it seems important to explore the meaning and … [Read more...]
Technologies of Transformation: The Power of Spiritual Autobiography
Lama Liz Monson and Sarah Fleming
Lama Liz Monson, PhD, is the Spiritual Co-Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship and has taught at Harvard Divinity School. She currently serves as the managing teacher of Wonderwell Mountain Refuge, a Buddhist meditation retreat center in Springfield, NH. She holds a PhD in Religious Studies with a focus in Tibetan Buddhism and Ethics from Harvard University. She has been studying, practicing, and teaching Buddhism for over thirty years and has been ordained as Lama in the Kagyu tradition of … [Read more...]
Bhikkhu Anālayo and Mu Soeng: A Conversation on Study, Practice, and Monastic Life
Bhikkhu Anālayo and Mu Soeng
Bhikkhu Anālayo is a scholar-monk and the author of numerous books on meditation and early Buddhism, such as Satipatthāna: The Direct Path to Realization, Perspectives on Satipatthāna, and Satipatthāna Meditation: A Practice Guide. He is a Faculty Member at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, where he has been in residence, since 2017, having retired from being a professor at the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg. His main area of academic research is early … [Read more...]
The Ibex Sutra
Mu Soeng
In "The Ibex Sutra,” Mu Soeng, inspired by Anguttara Nikaya 10.26 and Samyutta Nikaya 12.23, takes up the image of an ibex seeking salt as a way of understanding craving, conditioning, and the possibility for change. Mu Soeng is Scholar Emeritus at BCBS. He trained in the (Korean) Zen tradition and was a monk for eleven years. He is the author of Thousand Peaks: Korean Zen (Tradition and Teachers); The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way We Perceive the World; Trust in Mind: The Rebellion of … [Read more...]
Narratives of Grief, Narratives of Care
Sarah Fleming
Sarah Fleming is an interfaith chaplain and the guest editor of the Spring 2021 issue of the Insight Journal. She holds an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School, where she studied Buddhist narrative and religious reading practices. This past year, she worked as a graduate assistant at BCBS. A pdf version can be downloaded here. In a well-known Buddhist story, a young mother, Kisā Gotamī, goes out searching for medicine for her dead son. Mad with grief, she wanders from house to house with her … [Read more...]
Practice for Self, Practice for Others: A Prison Minister’s Reflections on Faith and Freedom
Myokei Caine-Barrett
The first woman to hold the position of bishop in the Nichiren Order of North America, Myokei Caine-Barrett, Shonin is the resident priest of the Myoken-ji Temple in Houston, Texas. She currently supports two sanghas in the Texas prison system. A pdf version can be downloaded here. In the Lotus Sūtra–based Nichiren schools, three concepts describe Buddhist practice and the arc of growth in faith. The first is jigyo keta, which translates to “practice for self, practice for others.” The second … [Read more...]
Into the Heart of Suffering: Lessons From the Story of the Tigress
Bill Crane
Bill Crane has been a per diem interfaith chaplain at Boston Medical Center for five years. He began hospital chaplaincy training after a 42-year career as an attorney and is a long-term Buddhist practitioner. He can be reached at billcrane1945@yahoo.com. A pdf version can be downloaded here. In a well-known jataka tale, the Buddha, as a bodhisattva in a previous lifetime, is said to have looked down from the edge of a cliff to see a starving tigress and her cubs. Gazing at the tigress’s … [Read more...]
