Student Reflections

Engage with other sangha members here by reading and sharing reflections and discussing areas of interest to you. We all benefit from exchanging ideas and cultivating spiritual friendships. If you’re looking for inspiration, your fellow practitioners can help you feel supported and less alone! Do you have concerns about balancing practice and daily life? Here’s a place to turn for suggestions and encouragement.

Awakening Dignity · Holistic Living
Marc Dueñas reflects on Phakchok Rinpoche’s recent public lecture in Barcelona, Spain.
In this article, Alan Pope shows how parenthood provides an opportunity to take our meditation practice into the heart of our daily lives.
Holistic Living
Helen Felcey describes her experiences attending the three-day Radically Loving Retreat hosted by Erric Solomon.
Vajrayana
Alan Pope talks about how we can learn to treat the obstacles on our path as our greatest blessings through skillful practice.
Meditation · Vajrayana
Samye Institute’s students share their experiences during 2020’s online retreats.
Right now, as a result of this pandemic crisis, many people are navigating through loss of some kind. May Mariam’s Playground offer some measure of solace.
Holistic Living
Anxiety is widely reported to be the number one psychological challenge among students today, and in a recent survey, 97% of students reported technological distractions are a problem both inside and beyond the classroom. Any faculty member can confirm this: to give a single anecdote, I was sitting at one of our public events behind a young woman who had brought her laptop, and she had nine live social media feeds open at once in just one app. More in others. Did she hear anything at the event where she was sitting? It seems unlikely. Many students find themselves in a constant state of distraction.
Holistic Living
The Buddhist path is incredibly complex – beautifully so – interweaving a multitude of components the way a great weaver threads thousands of strands of yarn to build a blanket.
Holistic Living
Wiyono Gunawan shares his experiences in facing a cancer diagnosis.
Judith Stemerdink-Herret shares her reflections from attending Erric Solomon’s Radically Happy event in Vienna, Austria
Holistic Living
A marriage is not just a union of one person to one person. Actually we need to build and combine skillful means, wisdom, enlightenment.
Daniel Baruch shares some reflections of the first day of the 2019 Mahamudra retreat at Samye Hermitage New York.