Guest blog: Embodying Our Practice – including the body in meditation

In his book ‘Touching Enlightenment’, the Buddhist teacher Reggie Ray makes the point that many western meditation students spend a lot of time in their heads and very little in their body. Meditation practice is all too often seen as a mind practice with very little to do with somatic sensations. He goes [...]

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Guest post: Fugen on Jukai experience

Note from Irisha:
Many of the Leafers have started the preparatory study for the second online Jukai and put their sewing skills to test. Once again I did not think I was ready for taking Jukai this year for a number of reasons but asked Fugen (Torbjörn), one of the last year’s Jukai takers and a [...]

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Guest blog: On mindfulness

Have you ever watched a kid playing?  There is something special about the way they can pick up a stick, shout “STICK!!” and run into the world causing havoc. There is nothing more in this moment than the kid, the stick and the world. I would like to call this special something ‘mindfulness’ or ‘presence’ [...]

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Guest post: The Buddha’s Footprints

Before he died, the Buddha instructed the sangha not to make images of him. In the Maha-parinibbana Sutta, he wanted each of his disciples to be “an island unto his or herself, as a refuge unto his or herself seeking no other refuges”. There were no portrayals of the Buddha in a human form in [...]

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