Sometimes we mistake understanding with experience. Just because you read a cookbook, doesn’t mean you’ve made a tasty meal! With meditation, we enter the arena of experience and develop a direct understanding of our mind and the world we live in.
Calm abiding meditation provides us with stability to help us stay present. Practices focused on discovering our own natural kindness and compassion bring ease to our hearts, and deeper meaning to our relationships. With meditations that emphasize the development of clear insight, we gain an open and unbiased mind that can see limitless possibilities in ourselves and our world.
The path of meditation provides progressive stages of practice for working with one’s mind. From foundational calm abiding meditation to the profound practices of the Vajrayana, including Mahamudra and Dzogchen, this path covers all stages of teaching in our tradition. This systematic approach creates a welcoming, transformative environment for people of all levels and with different interests.
As part of the path of meditation, Practice Instructors act as friendly guides to help members along their journey.Â
The practice of meditation is basically a process of getting to know yourself by becoming familiar with your mind. The Buddhist view of the mind is that it’s always awake. Its nature is awareness and compassion. Whatever meditation practices we may do, they are all intended to increase our mindfulness and awareness, strengthen our sense of inner peace, and improve our ability to deal with our emotions as well.
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche