I had an interesting conversation about faith recently with Asma Elhuni. She is the lead organizer for the Upper Valley Interfaith Project (UVIP) [ http://www.unitedvalleyinterfaithproject.org/ourstaff/ ], the local interfaith social justice group of which Valley Insight is an active member organization. Asma is Muslim. New to the Upper Valley, she is the wife of the…

Doreen Schweizer Every time we sit down to practice we are “entering the forest.” (Anonymous) Last Monday a bird sat down and rested on my head. I’ve been meditating in my backyard early on these clear mornings. I sit on a stone next to a bowl of water, which serves both as a birdbath and…

Last June, for the first time, we sent the VIMS community a fund appeal letter asking for help in meeting the costs of our prison sangha program, which include mileage for our two-and-a-half-hour drive in both directions; books for the library; study materials for the men; and a small stipend for me, for time spent…

Doreen Schweizer An Insight: Twenty years ago, on the fifth day of the annual ten-day New Year’s meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, in an evening Dharma talk, Jack Kornfield said, “Sometimes when the mind is very quiet, you can ask yourself the question: ‘What is the greatest lesson I have…

Doreen Schweizer The removal of the wish to harm as a possibility from the mind is both the ethical function and the ethical fruit of compassionate action. I heard Jon Kabat-Zinn say recently that when reporters ask him for one word to explain mindfulness, he always used to say “awareness,” but now he says “relationality.”…