Blog

Dear Common Ground Friends, Is it possible to change the quality of our life simply by cultivating a sincere interest in calmness? Because of habit, our attention is often drawn to what is dramatic, intense, and personally juicy. However, the heart can ...

Dear Common Ground Friends, The Twin Cities Vipassana Collective (TCVC) has been supporting the local insight meditation community since 1986 by organizing residential retreats, usually one in February and another in June. A dedicated group of Dharma v...

Dear Common Ground Friends, The Dhamma invites us fully into our lives in every profound and ordinary moment. By attuning willingly to the ordinary experiences of body and mind, we come into alignment with the transient currents of sensation, feeling, a...

Dear Common Ground Friends, An important part of our practice is realizing the liberating shift when our heart releases its clinging to the content of mental proliferation. This release can happen at any moment, and reveals a more inclusive, receptive, ...

Dear Common Ground Friends, The Buddha's final words to his attendant Ānanda carry an unmistakable clairty and tenderness, inspiring us still more than 2,600 years later: "There are these roots of trees, these empty huts. Meditate, Ānanda, do not delay...

Dear Common Ground Friends, No matter the particular meditation technique one uses, Buddhist practice depends on developing a continuity and stability of present-moment awareness. So much of this path, the development of wisdom and compassion, depends o...

Dear Common Ground Friends, I’ve always appreciated the simplicity of the first noble truth. It can be translated like this: there is suffering. It is so ordinary that we can almost miss its depth. After all, we can all agree that life includes plenty of s...

Dear Common Ground Friends, I am guessing that I am not alone in experiencing challenges when communicating with those with different points of view. Whenever I feel the impulse to defend a point of view, I often notice the impulse to denigrate the other ...

Dear Common Ground Friends, One of the great lessons that life keeps extending, is how vast the expressions of lovingkindness or metta can be. We might notice lovingkindness as warmth of love or care. In other moments we may recognize metta through the a...

Dear Common Ground Friends, Sayadaw U Tejaniya asked a group of Dharma teachers once, “Are the Buddha’s teachings optimistic or pessimistic?” After waiting a bit while many of us squirmed trying to figure out how to respond, he answered the question him...