Stephen has been a Buddhist practitioner for over 30 years, and is authorized to teach by the eminent Burmese meditation master, Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw. Described as having a compassionate no-nonsense style, he finds fulfillment in supporting students as they discover deeper authenticity in the acceptance of a loosening self-definition in the process of purifying the mind. This deepening authenticity leads to a more profound, experiential knowing and appreciation of the magnificent complexity of the Buddha's teachings.
My biding motivation for the practice of teaching is to share my interest, my understanding and my confidence in the Buddha's way for a balanced and deeply happy life. Given the pace of our culture and the direction in which it is going, mindfulness is essential to sanity. Since my first vipassana retreat in 1975, I've experienced the wisdom of sanity, peace and freedom.
Now, the challenge in sharing the dhamma is to translate the Buddha's understanding into an idiom that speaks to the whole of our lives. As practice matures, the focus in guiding others shifts from informing the skeptic, inspiring the depressed and doubtful, soothing the suffering, energizing the lazy, cautioning the ambitious to discovering the subtler sources of suffering and happiness in our understanding and behavior. With deepening vipassana insight, students joyfully and confidently disentangle their minds.
In all of this, what sustains me as a teacher is the unwavering confidence that mindfulness is the source of our healing, sanity and freedom. Vipassana practice offers us a perspective on reality that is liberating, both personally and at every level of human interaction. Initially, my unwavering commitment was to the practice. Now my commitment includes service in sharing the dhamma and wherever possible informing, inspiring and encouraging others in the practice.
The millennium question I hear students asking is how they can integrate the path of self-liberation with the path of paying attention to the welfare of others. My focus is guiding practitioners to do both. The dharmic brilliance is that liberation, the core teaching, creates a deep, transformative experience of who we are, which, in turn, transforms our care for the state of all beings everywhere.
I love storytelling as a vehicle for the dharma. I find that creating a non-ordinary reality of time and place carries the Buddhist spirit beneath the intellect and straight into the heart. Since we are all on a mythic journey inside the story of our lives, creating a timeless dimension through storytelling fires up our natural wisdom and compassion.
One of my deepest passions is engaging with an earth dharma. Dharmic awareness gives us a way to create a profound relationship to the land. We can learn to show care, honor and respect, loving the environment as the true extension of our hearts and minds that it is, feeling one with it in our blood.
People all over are seeking and longing for a sense of connection, community and an inner life. When we fuse the traditions of the dharma as self-liberation and as compassionate action, we infuse our daily lives with the power of the ancient lineage of Buddhism. We learn about the true nature of who we are and what it means to lead a compassionate life with ourselves, with others and our environment.
Susan Moon is a writer and teacher and for many years was the editor of "Turning Wheel," the Journal of socially-engaged Buddhism. She is the author of The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi, a humorous book about an imaginary Zen master, and editor of Not Turning Away: The Practice of Engaged Buddhism. Her most recent book is This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Dignity and Humor. Her short stories and essays have been published widely.
Susan O'Brien has been practicing vipassana meditation since 1980 and has studied with a variety of Asian and Western teachers. She began teaching in 1996 and coordinates the Insight Meditation correspondence course.
Susie Harrington has been meditating since 1989, and been engaged in Insight meditation practice since 1995. She began teaching in 2005, with the guidance of Guy Armstrong, Jack Kornfield and more recently Joseph Goldstein. She often offers retreats in the natural world, believing nature to be the most profound dharma teacher, and a natural gateway to our true self. Her teaching is deeply grounded in the body and emphasizes embodiment of our practice in speech and daily life. For more information go to desertdharma.org.
Suvaco is a former Buddhist monk and a passionate advocate for embodying life in all of its forms. He lives in the South West United Kingdom where he works as a psychotherapist and Tai Qi teacher.
