Reflections posts are offered as a helping hand for those seeking to develop the Buddha’s path. Unless otherwise indicated, all of the posts are written by Dharma Friends Community’s Guiding Teacher, Callie Justice. Please feel free to let us know about any responses to these posts through the Contact page.
Below each title, you’ll see links for categories (broader themes within these writings) and tags (more specific subject areas), which help you investigate certain topics that might be of particular interest to you. To explore more posts within a category, you can also click on the links below.
Core Teachings • Practices • Engaged Dharma • Resources • Announcements
The term ‘mindfulness’ has become widely used in recent years. Generally, in current popular-culture, the word mindfulness is employed to mean ‘bringing full non-judgmental attention to an aspect of present-moment experience.’ This approach to the practice of mindfulness has been used to beneficial effects in many different areas of contemporary society.
Read MoreIn a talk given during a recent workshop at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, Chip Hartranft observed that many contemporary dharma teachers present a flattened version of what mindfulness is about. The right mindfulness of the Noble Eightfold Path as we find it in the early Buddhist texts has dimension, texture, complexity.
Read MoreThe practice of breath meditation is one of the core practices taught by the Buddha. It is a practice that develops in layers over time. This guided meditation introduces the first steps of the practice.
Read MoreRight mindfulness is the seventh fold on the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path. In this talk given in August, 2017 Callie introduces right mindfulness to a Beginning the Buddha’s Path group.
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago Hurricane Florence came bringing us a message. The basic message was a louder more insistent version of one that arrives on our doorsteps on a regular basis. Florence told us that things change, and that sometimes things change dramatically. The rains fall. The wind blows. And overnight the place where we have constructed ‘home’ as best we could becomes imperiled.
Read MoreIt’s hard to be a person. We seem to have been made to want what we cannot have. That’s a predicament. Not just an occasional-hiccup kind of a predicament either. We want what is pleasing to our bodies and to our minds – all of the time. And, on top of that, we want this for others as well. At a minimum, we want those who we love to be happy enough most of the time. Yet, since the experiences that please us cannot endure, we will never find lasting happiness in trying to hold to them.
Read More
