How To Work With Fear & Grief: Pause

🙏🏽 We might wonder sometimes why the Buddhist teachings are continually calling our attention to the truth of what is called annica, or impermanence, since this seems like such an obvious truth – that everything in this world, including ourselves, is in a constant flow of change.

The problem is: impermanence is actually exactly what we tend to struggle with, in the form of both the fear of uncertainty, and the grief that comes with change. 

And because these two feelings – fear & grief – are so uncomfortable for us, our natural tendency is to want to somehow avoid them, or push them away – at all costs – which usually involves a sense of speeding up.

What the teachings are asking us to do instead is to learn how to momentarily rest, or pause, and courageously allow ourselves to BE with these feelings, so that ultimately, we can transform them, and discover more peace and ease in our lives. 

This month’s talk, “How To Work With Fear & Grief: Pause,” explores how we can use our meditation practice to train ourselves in the sacred, healing art of the pause. 

It includes a meditation at the end. 

As always, I hope it might serve.

Also, just few heads up! 

1) The next daylong retreat in The Plains, VA on Sat., Mar. 9, “Planting the Seeds of Joy,” has been filling quickly since it opened, and is now more than half-full. 

2) In just 3 months, I’ll be offering a new 5-day retreat “Keep Calmly Knowing Change,” at the beautiful, peaceful Peterkin Conference Center in Romney, WV, our newest retreat venue – which was very well-received in October! The center is excited to have us back, and is planning on many expansions and changes to make it even better, which is wonderful news! 🙂 

With joy and kind wishes, and my hopes to see you soon! 

~ Shell 🙏🏽💕😊

“It’s All Yours” – Responding to Disrespect & Anger

Traditionally, the holiday season is a time when we’re asked to remember and honor our intention to nurture a sense of peace within ourselves, our families, and our world. 

Yet as we all know, sometimes being with others can trigger the very opposite of this quality – especially when we feel in some way hurt, disrespected, or insulted.

According to the Buddha’s teachings, though,this is exactly the time when our practice can really help us hone our intention, especially as it involves our response – even if this is only in our own minds and hearts.

This is so important: because if our answer is even more aversion, unkindness, or maybe retaliation, we only need to look to history to know where this will lead – which is to more pain, harm, and division.

And of course, this is true whether we’re talking about political party vs. political party, nation vs. nation, citizen vs corporation, or individual vs. individual …

It all comes down to how we work with protecting our own hearts from hurt, aversion, and hatred – which in turn is going to protect others as well.

So, for this month’s talk, “It’s All Yours – Responding to Insult and Disrespect,” I thought I’d dive into the Buddha’s wise trainings in morality – or sila, in the Pali language – because they include precise instructions for exactly this.

As the teachings show us – over and over – even though it can be incredibly difficult, we never ever want to let another person’s disrespect, anger, or meanness harden our own hearts.

Instead, we want our practice to serve as a kind of guard for our hearts – a strong shield that can protect us against the power that other people’s unkind behavior can often have over us. 

It includes a meditation/inquiry at the end. 

As always, I hope it might serve.

Also, just few heads up! 

1) There’s only one week left to join us for the upcoming 8-week course on The Four Foundations of Mindfulness  JAN. 7 – FEB. 5, 2024 in Winchester, VA. This is my very favorite workshop! And it will be the last one I’ll be offering in 2024 – I really hope you might join us!

2) The next daylong retreat on Sat., Jan. 27, “Living From Your Deepest Intention“ is now more than half-full! Save your spot! 

With joy, and kind wishes for a blessed 2024! 

~ Shell 🙏🏽💕😊

The Gift of Giving: What Is Your True Intention?

During this seasonal time of giving, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Buddhist practice of dana, which means “generosity” or “letting go.”

As a practice, dana is not only something we’re asked to do consciously, on a regular basis, it’s also considered one of the main “qualities of heart” – or paramis  – that the Buddha urged us to cultivate as a way to discover more joy, freedom, and ease in our lives.

What this means is that: it’s not necessarily what we give that’s important, but our intention for the giving itself – because our awareness of this is exactly what can help nurture and expand this quality in our own hearts.

One of my favorite stories about this comes from an offering of dana I received many years ago from a student at the end of a residential retreat he attended with me.

During our retreat, he’d discovered this gift inside a huge old tree. Apparently, finding it had meant so much to him and had seemed so precious, that it was truly a difficult practice – to let it go and give it to me, instead of keeping it for himself.

Yet, he felt strongly that he should do this, and that I would understand.

This particular offering, which he left anonymously, happened to be a four-foot long snake skin, which I found coiled up in the bottom of the dana basket – or, the place where students traditionally leave teachers monetary or other gifts after attending a retreat.

Just recently, at the end of another residential retreat, this same student approached me rather sheepishly, confessed that he’d done this, and told me he’d wondered for a long time if I’d somehow been offended.

What he didn’t know was – I was so happy to finally know who had left it, and to let him know that I had absolutely loved his gift!

So much so that I had kept it on the shelves above my desk for years, to remind me how this practice has the power to radically transform us if we allow it ourselves to truly let go, just as the snake lets go of its old skin over and over, and becomes new again.

So, paradoxically, his unusual gift of dana was actually an excellent metaphor for the act of dana itself!

His confession was also truly a gift to me, because it enabled me to relieve him of his doubt, and to let him know that yes, I did understand, and that I greatly appreciated his intention.

As an interesting side note, at a daylong retreat a few months later, I felt inspired to bring this student’s gift back to him, and we both felt incredibly joyful about this.

At the end of that retreat, I saw him standing in a line of students waiting to say goodbye to me, and he seemed to be holding something. When it was finally his turn, he approached me slowly, smiling, and opened his hands to reveal … yet another snake skin! He’d found it hanging on a tree he’d been sitting underneath, during lunch.

Instantly, we both burst out laughing at the serendipity of this new finding … and it felt just perfect.  

In the teachings, the Buddha tells us that whenever we give, we should feel joy three times: before, during, and after.

And if we think about this, when we’re truly offering something from our hearts – even if it’s just a smile, a hug, or a listening ear – there is joy in the anticipation of giving, there is joy in the actual giving, and finally, there is joy in the remembering.

So, along with contemplating our “intention” for giving, we might also consider another great question, which is: what do I want to remember?

Even if our gift is not well-received (as you might imagine a snake skin may not have been!) we can ask ourselves: can I feel joy when remembering my intention?

At the same time, we might also try to remember the good intention of others, even when what they’re offering us might be something we’d rather not receive.

With joy, and kind wishes for Happy Holidays and a wonderful 2024! ~ Shell

EMPTY OF EXPECTATION: Exploring “Beginner’s Mind”

As we head into the holidays and new year, not only are our metaphorical plates likely full right now, our minds might also be filled with various goals for ourselves – for what comes next. 

It’s just a very natural time for us to do this. 

For me, I’ve always felt this pull acutely,since December also happens to be the month of my birth, and my husband’s, along with about a handful of other close friends and relatives who all chose this busy end-of-the-year month to be born.

So especially when I’ve been meditating lately, what I’ve been noticing is how much my mind has been leaning forward into the future.

And while the Buddha assured us that it’s healthy to be aware of all our different intentions, he also suggested that once we’ve planted the seeds of our plans, our practice becomes surrendering to any determined outcome – to truly let go, of all of it.

Not easy! Which is why this teaching lies at the very heart of our practice, because ultimately, it’s exactly what we’re training ourselves to do – to let. go. 

This month’s talk, EMPTY OF EXPECTATION: Exploring “Beginner’s Mind”, is aimed at helping us to let go more and more often by inviting us to see all things as new – including all situations, people, and especially ourselves – rather than clinging so tightly to our preconceived beliefs and expectations, which tend to keep us stuck.   

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, just few heads up!

1) I’ve recently made the decision to give myself a little more time next year, for rest, and will only be offering one in-person workshop next year … an 8-week course on The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Jan. 7 – Feb. 5, 2024 in Winchester, VA. Spots are limited! 

2) The Dec. 9 daylong retreat in Berryville, VA, “FULL SURRENDER: Learning to Ride the Waves” is now FULL with a short waiting list.

3) The next daylong retreat on Sat., Jan. 27, “Living From Your Deepest Intention“ is open for registration! Save your spot! 

With joy, and kind wishes for Happy Holidays and 2024! 

~ Shell

Content in the Center: Exploring the Buddha’s Middle Way

During a 5-day meditation retreat I led in West Virginia earlier last month, I had an interesting insight:

After speaking with many different students, what occurred to me is that no matter what each of us is currently struggling with, we all seem to be seeking a sense of balance in the midst of all the chaos – whether this is our own personal chaos, or the chaos that’s happening all around us.

I also noticed a related struggle, which involves our ongoing effort to strike a good balance between being there for others, while at the same time being there for ourselves.

And, in almost all cases, what’s actually the most helpful for us is to find and nurture a place of rest, right in the center of all of it – good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant.

So, since that retreat ended, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the Buddha called The Middle Way, which is actually how he described the entirety of his teachings.

In fact, the Middle Way was not only what he discovered when he became enlightened, but it was also the way that he got there, to enlightenment itself.

And the idea is that: the more we practice the Buddha’s Middle Way, the more realize that contentment resides at the very center of our wanting and not wanting, and, at the center of our indulgence or deprivation. 

This month’s talk, Content in the Center: Exploring the Buddha’s Middle Way, addresses how we can use our meditation practice to “walk in the middle” more often, and discover more joy, ease, and balance in our lives. 

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, just few heads up:

1) After many years, I’ve finally and happily given in to requests for a WEEKLONG RETREAT, and will be offering one next year Sept. 26-Oct. 2, 2024 at the wonderful Peterkin Conference Center in Romney, WV: 5 WAYS TO LET GO: Releasing the 5 Hindrances. Registration is now open!

2) The next daylong retreat in Berryville, VA, on Dec. 9, “FULL SURRENDER: Learning to Ride the Waves” is now more than 2/3 full!

3) I’ll only be offering two in-person workshops next year … starting with an 8-week course on The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Jan. 7 – Feb. 5, 2024 in Winchester, VA. Spots are limited!

In the meantime, I hope you might join me soon!

With joy and kind wishes, ~ Shell

Peterkin from the sky

Sept. 26 – Oct. 2, 2024 Weeklong Meditation Retreat: 5 WAYS TO LET GO: Releasing the Hindrances

The Buddhist teachings warn of 5 main challenging and complicated mental states that block, confuse, or “hinder” our ability to more fully open our hearts and minds, and prevent us from finding freedom from suffering.

And while these hindrances are painful, they are also natural expressions of the heart and mind when we are suffering, and knowing how to work them is exactly how we can experience more relief and release, and deepen our spiritual path.

During this silent weeklong retreat, we’ll explore a variety of different ways that we can use our meditation practice to more clearly recognize these five mental states, discover how to work with them, and eventually learn how to loosen our grip on them in order to nurture more joy, freedom, and ease in our lives.

Our time together will include daily dharma talks, guided meditation, silent meditation, walking meditation, and q&a sessions about these transformative practices. In order to nurture a sense of stillness and deep listening, silence will be maintained throughout the retreat.

LEARN MORE HERE

Excruciating, and Wonderful – A Meditation Student’s Description

A few weeks ago, as people were arriving for a 9-week meditation workshop I’m leading, a handful of students started telling their classmates that they were both nervous and excited about joining me at an upcoming 5-day meditation retreat I was getting ready to offer in Romney, WV.

More specifically, those who were new to retreat were asking those who had done it before what they might expect.

Suddenly, the whole room became silent, and one student answered, “It’s excruciating,” – which prompted an explosion of laughter, and I’m guessing even more nervousness!

When the laughter had died down, this same student added, “And … it’s wonderful.”

And I thought: just perfect; exactly – it can really be both.

But here’s the thing: the hard part isn’t usually about any arduous logistical difficulties – we’re almost always retreating in a beautiful, quiet setting in nature, and offered comfortable beds, hot meals, and warm showers. Plus, we’re given the opportunity to spend ample time with ourselves in the silence, and asked to set down all the distractions that come with our lengthy “to-do” lists, relationships, and even our phones.

And yet, this is often exactly why it can sometimes feel difficult, or even “excruciating.”

Because at some point during retreat, it suddenly dawns on us that we can’t escape ourselves. In the silence, we find ourselves faced very intimately with our own thoughts, judgments, and opinions – along with all those pesky emotions that we may have been avoiding, too.

And this is also just perfect – because being willing to sit, or “stay” with these difficult thoughts, judgments, and feelings is essentially what our meditation practice is urging us to do.

The beauty of this is that, when we can train ourselves to not look away, and to bravely confront and investigate all those things that we’ve been avoiding, or distracting ourselves from – this is the time when retreat can suddenly become “wonderful.”

In fact, more than wonderful:

After each retreat ends, almost every student I speak with seems to be glowing with emotion and gratitude as they recall what they’ve discovered about themselves in the silence, and along with “wonderful,” tend to offer words like “life-changing,” “transformative,” and simply, “I have no words.”

Regularly, people tell me that their hearts have opened “like a dam breaking,” and that they feel like something fundamental has forever shifted in them – all due to their own willingness to stay with themselves, and their hearts, when at times it felt difficult.

So, if you’ve never been on a meditation retreat before, please know that it’s truly a mix: there can absolutely be times of intense peace, gratitude, and joy … alongside times of grief, frustration, and sadness … and, in the end, a sense of incredible release, relief, and growth.

I hope you might join me! 🙏🏽💕

The Sacred Healing of Noble Silence

“Anyone who has probed the inner life, who has sat in silence long enough to experience the stillness of the mind behind its apparent noise, is faced with a mystery. Apart from all the outer attractions of life in the world, there exists at the center of human consciousness something quite satisfying and beautiful in itself, a beauty without features. The mystery is not so much that these two dimensions exist – an outer world and the mystery of the inner world – but that we are suspended between them, as a space win which both worlds meet … as if the human being is the meeting point, the threshold between two worlds.” ~ Kabir Helminski

I so love the above quote, which reflects a vital practice and qualitythe Buddha called Noble Silence – something precious and multi-faceted, like a jewel, and not simply about being quiet. 

For those who are new to practice, trying to enter this more sustained silence can often feel frustrating, or maybe even impossible.

On the other hand, those of us who have experienced the incredibly calming, healing, and transformative aspects of being in the silence for longer periods can very often need a strong reminder to step back into it.

It’s like … even though we’re aware of the great benefits of being in and nurturing the silence, we tend to get so caught up in the swirl of our busy lives that we either neglect it, or, sadly, sometimes forget about it completely.

For this month’s talk, “The Sacred Healing Power of Noble Silence,” I thought I’d explore not only how we can experience the Noble Silence more often, but how we can slowly learn to live our lives from within this peaceful space of silence.  

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, just few heads up:

1) The next daylong retreat in Berryville, VA, “FULL SURRENDER: Learning to Ride the Waves” is now almost half full. I hope you can join us!

2) The date for the 5-day spring retreat at one of our new retreat centers, Peterkin, has been changed to May 2-6, 2024: KEEP CALMLY KNOWING CHANGE: Embodying the 3 Truths. I’m really looking forward to plunging into this retreat topic, one of my favorites.

3) I’ll be offering another 8-week, in-person workshop, THIS IS IT: The Four Foundations of Mindfulness, in Winchester, VA Jan. 7 – Feb. 25, 2024. Spots are limited! (P.S. Because this is truly a summary course of our whole practice, it really is designed for all!)

In the meantime, I hope you might join me soon!

With joy and kind wishes, ~ Shell

What Am I ‘Really’ Offering Myself and Others? An Exploration of Dana

☀️ A few weeks ago at a party, I found myself very mindlessly opening my mouth and interrupting someone who was right in the middle of speaking. 

Thankfully, I was able to apologize, but my behavior felt so surprisingly unkind, ungenerous, and painful that it inspired me to dive even deeper into the profoundly important practice of dana, or generosity – which along with metta (or loving-kindness) is considered the very foundation of our practice.

The reason for this is that: our whole practice of dana essentially comes down to our practice of letting go, or non-clinging.  

And, our deepening wisdom of this non-clinging eventually brings us around full circle to our letting go of a sense of a solid, unchangeable, separate self, which as the teachings show us is the main cause or root of almost all of our suffering – when we are clinging so tightly to this sense of me, or mine, and believing that we are somehow separate. 

This month’s new talk, What Am I Really Offering Myself and Others? explores how we can use our mindfulness practice to become more kind and generous not only to others, but also to ourselves, by honestly revealing and investigating all the ways in which we might not be being as kind, or as generous as we may think. 

It includes a 10-minute meditation at the end. 

As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, just few quick important notes: 

1) I won’t be offering the intensive Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) workshop again until 2025, and there are still just a few spots open in the upcoming series, offered Sept. 10 – Nov. 12 on Sunday afternoons in Winchester, VA. 

2) The new 5-day retreat on Oct. 5-9,“LOVING YOURSELF: Nurturing the Heart Practices“ is now almost full! … I’m really excited about our new beautiful, secluded retreat center (Peterkin) in Romney, WV, and hope that you might join us for this.

3) I have a new weekly blog! I’ve been encouraged to start one of these (long overdue), and so have made a commitment to do so as a practice. Along with copies of the newsletter, it will include weekly dharma insights and meditation tips. I hope that it will serve! 

In the meantime, I hope you might join me soon!

With joy and kind wishes, ~ Shell

METTA: A Reminder to Be Kind

About 14 years ago now, when I first moved back to Virginia from New York City, one of the first things I needed to do was to go out and buy a car – something I hadn’t needed in the city.

And to my great surprise and delight, I was able to choose the ancient Pali word “Metta” as my license plate.

I was thrilled, actually, because I knew that attaching that word directly to my car would essentially serve as a daily reminder for me, to practice what it preaches.

The most basic definition of this incredibly complex and important word, metta – a verb – involves the practice of offering our loving-kindness (or goodwill) out to others, to all the situations we find ourselves in, and especially, to ourselves.  

And again, it’s a practice – because as we all know, this isn’t at all easy.

In fact, particularly for those of us who grew up in the West, studies have shown that we seem to do the exact opposite – which is to give ourselves an unnecessarily hard time.

Sadly, unfortunately, we tend to do this especially during those times when our own kindness and compassion is what’s most needed.

For me, I often like to recall a great example of this kind of Western mindset, which showed up very vividly during one of the first international Buddhist teacher meetings about 30 years ago, where the Dalai Lama was the main speaker.

During a q&a session with this great Tibetan spiritual leader, a group of western teachers asked him how they might help their students work with feelings of un-kindness towards themselves, which manifested in various forms of unworthiness, self-criticism, shame, and self-hatred.

But apparently, the Dalai Lama was totally confused about this; he just couldn’t comprehend words like self-hatred. He was so baffled, in fact, he spent a full 10 minutes conferring with his translator, trying to understand.

Eventually, he asked this large group of teachers if any of them had experienced these same feelings themselves, personally, and was shocked when each one of them nodded.

“But that’s a mistake,” he told them. “Every being is precious!”

That story never fails to remind me: I am not alone in suffering sometimes from my own lack of self-kindness; it’s just the water that we’re swimming in, if you will.

It also reminds me that, again, metta is a practice, not a perfection.

And because of this, it can be really beneficial for us to have some sort of daily or ongoing reminder, one that can help us to actually offer it out – not only to others, but especially to ourselves.

🙏🏽 (If you’re interested, on Sept. 16, I’ll be offering a daylong meditation retreat on the practice of metta in The Plains, VA. I hope you might join me!) 💕

What’s The Best Time to Meditate?

Whether I’m leading a meditation workshop or a longer retreat, one of the first questions I tend to receive from newcomers during any q&a session is: what is the best time to meditate?

And my answer is always: whatever time is set in stone on your daily schedule.

Because the hard truth is that, no matter our preference for this, if we haven’t already chosen a very particular time slot dedicated to our meditation practice, we’re not likely to ever get around to it.

It’s very similar how we can often make a commitment to ourselves to exercise “some time” during the day.

For many of us, if we’re honest, this rarely ever works.

This is because, if we don’t have something firm written into our day calendar, even mentally, we tend to fill up our day with our regular busy-ness until bedtime rolls around, and by then, it’s too late.

So, if you are struggling to commit to a daily practice, I encourage you to first pick what you believe might be a good time period for yourself, then add it directly to your calendar. You might even set an alarm or reminder, to prompt you to remember.

After you’ve done this, you can then experiment, and decide what time slot works best for you.

As a lifelong night owl, I prefer to start my sits at 10:30 in the evening, since it’s when I tend to feel the most calm, and clear. I also find that it helps me to fall asleep easier.

If you’re an early bird, you might try getting up 15 minutes – an hour earlier than usual, so that you can roll out of bed, and practice during those more quiet hours, before you go to work, or before others in your household begin to rise.

If you can’t seem to find any quiet time during the day, you might try meditating during a lunch break at work, in places you may not have considered … like, maybe your car, or some other quiet space outdoors.

And if you can only get in 5 or 10 minutes of practice – perfect. You can always choose to increase this over time.

The important thing is to make sure you do it every. day, at the same time, so that eventually, it becomes a solid and reliable pattern, one that feels as easy and matter of course as brushing your teeth.

What You Resist, Persists: Working With Aversion

A confession: the theme of this month’s newest talk resulted in large part due to a difficult experience I had in the recovery room of the hospital, following a surgery I had in late June. 

In fact, my resistance was so fierce, so un-wielding, and so persistent, that it surprised me. It was an intensely powerful sense of just. NO – of not wanting, not accepting — on any level — what was actually happening. 

Sadly, this aversion was aimed directly at my own body, and what was happening within it – which was a strong sense of “unpleasant.” 

And of course, as the Buddha tells us, this quality of not-wanting – or, not accepting what’s happening, not accepting the reality of the moment, which might be unpleasant – is one of the main ways that we create suffering (or dukkha) … not only for ourselves, but also for others. 

In the Pali language, the spoken language of the Buddha’s time, this quality of resistance or aversion to what IS is called dosa. 

And because this dosa tends to cause so much unnecessary pain and stress in our lives, the teachings urge us to use mindfulness practice to get to really KNOW our dosa, at all levels – from the most minor ways that we resist to the most troubling, and destructive. 

This month’s new talk, “What You Resist, Persists: Working With Aversion,” explores all the many ways that we can start to notice when we’re in some way resisting, and start to let BE, instead of being so aversive to other people, life itself, and of course, ourselves.

It includes a 10-minute meditation on dosa at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

P.S. Please take a look at our newest retreat center in Romney, WV! I was finally able to obtain a few new photos of this beautiful residential campus, which includes 1,400 acres of forest, mountain streams, and miles of hiking trails. 

I’m really excited about being there this Oct. 5-9, when I’ll be offering a 5-day retreat on nurturing the heart practices, “LOVING YOURSELF (*update: it’s now more than 3/4 full.) 

I’ll also be offering another 5-day retreat there March 14-18,  KEEP CALMLY KNOWING CHANGE: Embodying the 3 Truths. 

I hope you might join me! 

With joy and kind wishes, ~ Shell