The View from the Top
Sister Ocean
2 December 2016
From the top of a mountain we can see far and wide. We can see the land and the sky. Standing at the meeting point
A Small and Precious Miracle
Sister Ocean
4 November 2016
My first meditation retreat was in 2004, in Ladakh, northern India, at the far western end of the Himalayas. Our meditation hall was an army
Procrastination, Determination, and Compassion
Sister Ocean
7 October 2016
I’ve known people who go to a single meditation retreat and when they return home they start sitting an hour in the morning and an
Are You Sure?
Sister Ocean
9 September 2016
Sacca, or truthfulness, is the seventh of the ten paramis, or perfections. We usually think of truthfulness in relation to speech, and this is the basis for
Patience is Power
Sister Ocean
12 August 2016
Water falling, drop by drop, will fill even a large pot.Likewise, the wise (one), accumulating good, little by littleBecomes goodness itself. The Dhammapada (Maitreya 1995, 34)
Fine-tuning Your Practice – Wise Effort
Sister Ocean
15 July 2016
When it comes to developing the fifth parami of viriya—the perfection of effort or energy—the instructions seem simple: the Buddha said to “abandon the unwholesome” and to “develop
Intimacy, Humility, and Stillness: The Perfection of Wisdom
Sister Ocean
17 June 2016
“To study the way of enlightenment is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is
Wonder: The Heart of Renunciation
Sister Ocean
20 May 2016
I recently had a chance to visit the Wonder* art exhibition at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC, which comprises two floors filled with large-scale, site-specific
Inner Goodness: The Perfection of Morality
Sister Ocean
22 April 2016
In last month’s column, we explored the first parami (Skt. paramita, or “perfection”) of dana (“generosity”), so we are now ready to explore the second, sila, which translates as “morality” or