responsibility – Integrating Presence

Balancing Inner Work And Selflessness At A Monastery (As A Lay Resident)

Reflections on a balance between personal spiritual practice and selfless service as a lay resident in a Buddhist monastery in England. Key themes include emotional complexities, cultural differences between England and America regarding helpfulness, the importance of healthy boundaries to prevent burnout, and guidance from the heart in discernment.

Dharmic Strategies For Empaths

This niche topic for empaths, or energetically sensitive beings, encapsulates years of note taking from experience, study and practice, provides nine categories of approach:

1) Gratitude for opportunities
2) Mindfulness (– especially of contact and vēdanā)
3) Hedonic Tone and the Three Characteristics of Existence
4) Self and identification
5) Equanimity and compassion
6) The Four Right Efforts and Five Hinderances
7) Energy
8) Non-attachment
9) Miscellaneous strategies