Yesterday Jack and I drove to Mexico with our InsightLA board member Butch Schuman, Tere Romano, an InsightLA teacher from Mexico and her daughter Fredel, and Rosamaria Segura from our Facilitator Training, who created mindfulness classes in two shelters in the border city of Tijuana. In the women’s shelter, there are countless little children playing… Continue reading
Christiane Wolf, Joslyn Hitter, Martin Vitorino and I just returned from the InsightLA fall meditation retreat in Lucerne Valley. There, the windswept mountains are strewn across a vast valley under the towering blue sky. The ridges and mesa seem impossibly desolate at first glance – lunar, stark, bleak. It takes time to see the beauty… Continue reading
Grieving is hard work — even physically in a way we don’t anticipate. When my wasband George and I got divorced, there was real pain in my chest. My heart was literally aching, like a broken bone. The time it takes to recover from intense grief can be longer than most people expect. Other people… Continue reading
On Rosh Hashanah Sunday, someone asked a poignant question. She wondered what to do? Yom Kippur is coming, the holiest of days of atonement, repentance, and she’s not ready to forgive – not at all. Her fear about facing this day without doing what is required reminded me of being a young girl and wondering… Continue reading
Earlier this year, a man who played professional football with the NFL for a few years came to sit with us at InsightLA. As we talked, he described how he gave his all to the game. Like some other players, he chose to use the power of his visibility as a pro athlete to call… Continue reading
“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. – is sure to be noticed.” —Søren Kierkegaard Right after I turned 22, I became a mom. It took a while to integrate this new reality. I remember having a… Continue reading
Once when I was teaching at a Spirit Rock retreat years ago, Jack was giving the evening dharma talk, I was so tired that I fell sound asleep like a child listening to a bedtime story. I was sitting up straight in perfect cross-legged posture on the stage right in front of everyone in the… Continue reading
Last Saturday, the InsightLA teachers gathered for another day of exploration of inclusion and diversity. Together we’re putting the magnifying glass of mindfulness on top of our organization to better see where any of us might be reflecting the conditioned racism of our society. With the heartbreaking divisiveness and suffering around racism so currently visible,… Continue reading
Photo: Kobun Chino Roshi (far left) and Mu Deung Sunim (far right) pose with Trudy Goodman and George Bowman at their wedding reception. This past year, we’ve witnessed several Buddhist communities reeling from reports of serious teacher misconduct. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you remember that every decade there’s a spate… Continue reading
Yesterday evening I was sitting on the beach at sunset, mesmerized by a flock of surfers bobbing on the waves, lit by the last pink light as the sun went down behind the mountains. I jumped into the ocean and played in the surf alongside some children I heard speaking French. A joyful toddler made… Continue reading