Contemplative Studies Program Blog
Where did you grow up and what was your childhood like? Did you have any particular experiences/stories that shaped your adult life?
I grew up in Hong Kong with tremendous privilege but often felt dissatisfied as if something essential was missing. By the time I was twenty I had made it to India...
Sound healer and Integrated Vibrational therapist Phil Jacobs of Toronto Sound Therapy is a regular guest of the Contemplative Studies Program. Phil has brought soothing sounds and vibration to Miles' guided visualizations to powerful effect on a number of occasions. Phil rejoins...
Join us for this free event April 21 at 7pm EDT when Geshe Tenzin Zopa (Unmistaken Child) shows us how to meditate on the themes from the 1000 year old Tibetan Buddhist tradition of lam rim or gradual path of spiritual awakening.
Register here.
Dr. Miles Neale talks to Jacob of Sacred Earth Journeys about the upcoming Buddhist pilgrimage with Geshe Tenzin Zopa to the holy sites of the Buddha in India and Nepal.
Learn more here.
The following is a lightly edited excerpt from Find True Refuge.
How many of you feel like you're a terrible sinner? How many of you went through all the hell realms in the Yangsi [Rinpoche] book and all the negative karmas and all the things that can befall you and felt like you were a...
In Mind Meld 224 of the Third Eye Drops podcast, Miles and host Michael Philip muse about revolution, tantra, psychology, alchemy, myth, mysticism, why this is an incredibly transformative time, and more.
There are what are called the four parts of karma. We think of karma as one thing but karma is actually many things. Not only is karma cause but karma is also the effect. They come together. They are interdependent. You can't have a cause without an effect.
The root verb for karma in Sanskrit...
In the first foundation of mindfulness the benefit or the hallmark is achievement of stability and vividness or pliancy. In the second, you have response flexibility. In the third, you have meta cognitive awareness and in the fourth, you have what we're calling meta cognitive insight. You can...
I think it actually requires much more maturity to be able to stay in the hot pocket of understanding the virtue of this institution and how the lama arrangement works and the qualities of seeking a master that's truly qualified and also recognizing all the malarkey and all the nuance and...
The following is a lightly edited transcript from Master Your Becoming.
Sensation is depicted as a dude with an arrow in his eye.
From our mindfulness 'Awareness' workshop, in the second foundation, sensation, there are three types of sensation: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. The unpleasant,...
Usually when there's shame, there's also a shadow, rage or anger. Sometimes we're more aware of the anger and less aware of the shame because the shame is more core and more painful. If you have lots of rage, if at the exterior of the onion there's lots of rage, it's designed to protect the core...
Miles sits down with Steve James of Guru Viking to recount how an affluent but disturbed childhood with alcoholic parents and a narcissistic father drove him to self harm and dissatisfaction, and how he found solace and healing in religious practice and a series of influential...
