Dharma Glimpses with Judy Lief Judy Lief

The Buddha's life can be seen as a template for our own journey along the Buddhist path • the Buddha grew up in a palace, surrounded by safety, comfort, and security • but growing up in such a sheltered environment, he started to feel claustrophobic and curious • one day the Buddha snuck out of the palace grounds with his attendant and encountered a series of “teachers”: someone who was very ill; someone who was extremely old; and the body of a dead person&...

As you get older, your sense of physical balance declines a bit; and so you might think, well, I'll just try to be balanced and just stay there • but if you're working with a trainer, they deliberately try to throw you off balance • they're looking to see if you can return to balance when you're thrown off — which is the whole point • in meditation practice, we're continually trying to find the balance between too tight and too loose • as ...

In this episode, I'd like to explore the topic of confusion • a traditional chant has the line, “Grant your blessing so that the path may clarify confusion” • as you practice meditation and see how your mind works, you begin to uncover deep patterns of confusion — not confusion in the ordinary sense, but fundamental misperceptions that can lead to increased suffering for ourselves and others • for instance, it’s important to clarify our relationship with ti...

In this episode, I'd like to focus on awareness, or vipashyana • while mindfulness refers to stabilizing, grounding, and focusing the mind, vipashyana is about clarity, openness, curiosity, and inquisitiveness • vipashyana is a natural outgrowth of mindfulness practice: as the mind settles, it begins to naturally clarify • vipashyana draws us outward; it is based on taking a genuine interest in the details of our life, in the details of our perception, and ...

The Eightfold Path is one of the early teachings the Buddha gave after his enlightenment • they are guidelines for living in accordance with the Dharma; they are guidelines for how to comport yourself, how to relate to one another, how to be in the world in a way that's more wise, more skillful, and more accurate • the first of the eight is right VIEW — cultivating clearer seeing, cultivating the ability to see for yourself, be curious, and to look deeply into the natu...

As a student of Chögyam Trungpa, I heard the phrase “back to square one” quite a lot • he implied that doing something over and over again is very important — in our dharma practice, in our meditation, and in our studies • throughout his teachings, Trungpa Rinpoche put a great deal of emphasis on building a strong foundation, and on going back to the very earliest teachings of the Buddha, in particular to the teachings of the Four Noble Truths: the reality of suffering...