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Contemplation

 The meditation practice of examining all aspects of an object
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    Contemplating Corporate Culture Paid Member

    By Helen Tworkov
    Mirabai Bush is the director of The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. Based in Massachusetts, its mission is to bring contemplative practice into mainstream institutional life. Corporations, media organizations, law schools, and universities have sponsored programs directed by the Center. Prior to co-founding the Center in 1996, Bush was the director of the Guatemala Project and the Compassionate Action Project for Seva Foundation. A Buddhist practitioner for the past thirty years, she is also co-author, with Ram Dass, of Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service. This interview was conducted in New York City by Helen Tworkov in March 2001. What was the initial motivation behind the Center for Contemplative Mind? More »
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    Pushing the Limits Paid Member

    By Thanissaro Bhikkhu
    All phenomena, the Buddha once said, are rooted in desire. Everything we think, say, or do—every experience—comes from desire. Even we come from desire. We were reborn into this life because of our desire to be. Consciously or not, our desires keep redefining our sense of who we are. Desire is how we take our place in the causal matrix of space and time. The only thing not rooted in desire is nirvana, for it’s the end of all phenomena and lies even beyond the Buddha’s use of the word “all.” But the path that takes you to nirvana is rooted in desire—in skillful desires. The path to liberation pushes the limits of skillful desires to see how far they can go. More »
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    Why Sit? Paid Member

    By Lama Surya Das
    Sometimes sitting meditation seems useless when so much is going on around us. Is there another way to look at it? More »
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    Bread and Stone Paid Member

    By Jacob Needleman
    IT IS THE MIDDLE OF December, the last day of classes. Outside, the sky is darkening and the wind is rattling the windows. I am meeting with students in a course called "The Nature of Religious Experience." We have been reading from the Upanishads, the Life of the Buddha, the Zen Buddhist Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, the Tao Te Ching, the books of Job, Isaiah, Matthew, the sermons of Meister Eckhart, and the poetry of two great masters of Islamic spirituality, Rumi and Hafiz. We have been speaking about religious experience—we have not been trying to have religious experience. More »
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    What You're Made Of Paid Member

    By Bodhipaksa
    I first learned the reflection on the Six Elements thirteen years ago, on a four-month retreat in the mountains of southern Spain. It was my first introduction to insight meditation, and although at times since then the practice has given rise to uncomfortable experiences, it has more often brought a sense of lightness, freedom, and expansiveness as well as a greater sense of connectedness to the world. More »
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    Welcome to the Real World Paid Member

    By Judith L. Lief
    In the wake of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, in many quarters there is a subtle undercurrent of satisfaction, even glee, that the U.S. is finally experiencing a small glimmer of what life is like outside its privileged bubble. We have come to take for granted a level of prosperity, security, and personal freedom unheard of in most parts of the world. While we are obsessing about ups and downs of the stock market, the price of gas, or the hassles of HMOs, countless others are worrying about surviving ethnic violence and genocidal warlords, falling ill with no chance of treatment, or finding enough food to eat and clean water to drink. Can you blame people for feeling it’s about time we joined the real world? More »