Rick Hanson, Ph.D. is a psychologist, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times best-selling author. His six books have been published in 30 languages and include Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Just One Thing, Buddha’s Brain,  and Mother Nurture - with over a million copies in English alone. His free newsletters have 220,000 subscribers and his online programs have scholarships available for those with financial needs. He’s lectured at NASA, … [Read more...]

Walt Opie was first introduced to insight meditation in 1993 and began sitting retreats in 2005. Currently, his most influential teachers include Bhikkhu Anālayo, Joseph Goldstein, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, and Gil Fronsdal. Walt is a graduate of the 2017-2021 IMS Teacher Training Program, as well as Spirit Rock’s Community Dharma Leaders program. He has led sitting groups for people in recovery and served as a volunteer teacher in several California prisons. A pdf version of this article can be … [Read more...]

Eva Seligman is a Master of Divinity candidate at Harvard Divinity School, where she studies the entanglement of Buddhism and Colonialism. She works as a graduate assistant at BCBS. A pdf version can be downloaded here. In October 2017, I had been working as a middle and high school teacher for over ten years. I imagined that I would be a teacher for the rest of my life. But… things had been feeling off for a while and I couldn’t explain why. I was having increasingly intense mood swings and … [Read more...]

Thanissara began practice in the Burmese school of U Ba Khin in 1975. She spent 12 years as a Buddhist nun in the Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah. She has facilitated meditation retreats internationally the last 30 years and has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice. She is co-founder, with Kittisaro, of Dharmagiri Sacred Mountain Retreat in South Africa, and Sacred Mountain Sangha in California, which runs a two-year Dharmapala Training. She has authored several books including  Time … [Read more...]

Cristina Moon is a writer, strategist, and Zen priest. She lives and teaches at Daihonzan Chozen-ji, a Rinzai Zen temple in Honolulu. A pdf version of this article can be downloaded here. "A good analogy for zazen," said the Zen priest instructing me in seated meditation, "is early man hunting. Totally still, totally silent, and totally alert. Seeing, hearing, and feeling everything." "And," he continued, after a brief pause, "ready to jump up and kill something." It was January 2018 and I … [Read more...]

Katie Loncke (they/them) is a longtime activist, Buddhist practitioner of 14 years, and a fan of warm-hearted, unconventional rebellions. A former Co-Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Katie currently serves as a somatic coach helping people — primarily queer, trans, and/or BIPOC — deepen pleasure in their ecologies of intimacy. A pdf version of this article can be downloaded here. “Mercy means to surrender cloaking ourselves from ourselves and experiencing a shared vulnerability … [Read more...]

In “The Bhara Sutta,” Mu Soeng, inspired by the Bhara Sutta, SN 22.22, takes up the image of the oxen as craving, and their oil-tiller as clinging, and presents taking up the burden and putting down the burden. 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...]