In Buddhist circles, there’s a very powerful yet simple phrase that serves as both a profound invitation to us, and also a reminder of what we’re all capable of.

This proposition is: Claim Your Seat.

This phrase is especially rich, since it points directly to the Buddha’s own enlightenment, where after many months of struggling with his own personal doubts – especially about his own potential for awakening – he finally reached down, touched the earth, and “claimed his seat.”

In other words, he finally affirmed his innate belonging – to the earth and all things – with the recognition that he didn’t need to ‘do’ anything to ‘prove’ that he was worthy. He simply saw clearly that he already was, just as we all are.

At the same time, he was also confirming his strong faith in himself, as well as his intrinsic ability to discern for himself which thoughts and actions would ultimately lead him towards happiness and away from suffering.

This is probably my favorite part of the story of the Buddha’s awakening, because it serves as a sage message for us: not only are we all innately worthy, and precious, but we’re also all entirely capable of conquering our own doubts, and discovering a deep faith in ourselves.

This month’s talk, “CLAIM YOUR SEAT: Buddha’s Teachings on Doubt,” explores how our experience of unhealthy doubt can create suffering in our lives, and how we can use our healthy doubt as the antidote, as a way to reveal what is true.

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve.

Also, a heads up!, and a request:

1) The next daylong retreat on NOV. 16, “Cooling the Flames of Anger,” in Berryville, VA, is almost full!

2) Our team is currently looking for a retreat/conference center/academy or school within about 2.5-hours of Winchester, VA that could accommodate between 50-80 people in single rooms for a silent retreat. It would require a quiet dining facility, and space for both group meditation and walking meditation. If you have any good leads, we would be so grateful if you could please let us know more!

In the meantime, I’m sending many kind wishes, and my hopes to see you soon!

~ Shell 🙏🏽💕

“There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.”~ Ajahn Chah

The above quote is a well-known teaching from one of the main teachers of my teachers, and is considered a kind of summary of how we are being asked through our meditation practice to face our difficulties – which is face-on, and courageously.

But, if we’re really honest with ourselves, whenever we’re experiencing any kind of suffering (or dukkha in the Pali language) our common reaction to it is to believe – either consciously or unconsciously – that it is somehow wrong, or maybe that it just “shouldn’t be.”

In fact, we tend to believe that not only is the cause of our suffering itself is in some way wrong, but that our own response to it is also wrong. And therefore, we tend to surmise that we, ourselves, are also somehow wrong.

So, we tend to label all of it – our suffering, our response, and ourselves – wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Happily, the teachings are designed to help us not only notice this common pattern, but learn how we can bravely open up our own pain and suffering, and really get to know it – very intimately – so that we can become more wise, compassionate, and understanding, and eventually, become free of it.

For this month’s talk, “Some Things Just Hurt: Allowing Our Pain,” I’ll be exploring how we can better allow ourselves our own feelings through the lens of a half-a-dozen different teaching phrases, which I affectionately like to call “Buddha’s Sticky Notes.”

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve.

Also, a few important heads up!:

1) There are just 5 spots left! for our special weeklong meditation retreat SEPT. 26-OCT. 2 “5 Ways to Let Go: Releasing the Hindrances” at the beautiful Peterkin Retreat Center. I hope you can join us!

2) The next daylong retreat on NOV. 16, “Cooling the Flames of Anger,” in Berryville, VA, is open for registration, and has been filling quickly.

In the meantime, I’m sending many kind wishes, and my hopes to see you soon!

~ Shell 🙏🏽💕

I just recently arrived back home from a 5-day meditation retreat I was leading in Romney, WV, and I need to admit that I love our new retreat center, Peterkin, so much that I’m already really missing it. 

It was a truly wonderful retreat, and I honestly just wanted to stay for a little while longer!

During our last day there, I offered a longer q&a session, and one thread of inquiry that seemed to keep coming up was this:

When we perceive that some sort of harm is being done – either by another person, people, or even on a more national or even global level – how can we best confront this without nurturing aversion in our own hearts, or letting it consume us in some way?

Along with this was the question: how can we avoid taking on our aversion as a kind of identity – maybe as an angry or mean person, for example – when we experience that need within us to take a stand, or to say “no”, or maybe, “that’s enough.” 

And, how can we use our mindfulness practice to best discern when (and when not) to take a stand about something?

So, for this month’s talk, Do No Harm/Take No Sh*t: A Buddhist Lesson on Boundaries” I thought I’d expand on my answers a bit, and explore what the Buddha taught us about how we can use our meditation practice to help us to say “no” or “stop” without doing further harm to either ourselves or others, or allowing our aversion to shut down our hearts. 

It includes a brief meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, a few important heads up!:

1) We’re so happy to be heading back to the beautiful, peaceful Bon Secours Retreat Center in MD July 6-10 for a 5-day retreat on The Four Foundations of Mindfulness, one of my favorite topics! FYI: This retreat is about 3/4 full and has been filling quickly, but there is still time to join us!

2) The June 8 meditation retreat is full, but there is still an online option available, and still room in the next retreat, “True to Your Heart” on Aug. 17!

In the meantime, I’m sending many kind wishes, and my hopes to see you soon! 

~ Shell 🙏🏽💕😊

Just recently, one of my new managers and I were having a follow-up talk about a retreat she just helped me with, and the question that naturally arose was: 

“How do we flow back and forth between occupying our role as either teacher, or safe space holder, and then back again into a sense of self that is more defined as ‘me.’?”

I really loved her question, because the answer truly applies to all of us.

It involves asking ourselves: “How can I flow between all the different roles, hats, or identities that I place on myself every day … and that kind, wise, compassionate presence within me that is actually ‘free’ of all of those often limiting identities, or beliefs about who I think I ‘should’ be?”

And if we think about it, this is really exactly what our practice is urging us to do: to start to identifying more and more with that part of us that is experiencing the whole of our life from a place of wisdom, compassion, and openness, rather than from some sense of identity, or from some label we’ve stamped on ourselves as “someone,” or “something” – which as we know is never really the same, or even accurate.

So, for this month’s talk, “What Would Buddha Do? Taking Refuge in the Beloved,” I thought I’d expand on my answer a bit, and dive into an exploration of how we might use our meditation practice to loosen our strong grip on all of our toxic “shoulds,” and uncover and find comfort in what is often called our Buddha Nature, or, the truth of who we really are. 

It includes a brief meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, a special heads up!:

Spots have been filling quickly for the MAY 2-6 RETREAT “Keep Calmly Knowing Change,” – just three weeks from now! at the beautiful, peaceful Peterkin Conference Center in Romney, WV, our newest residential retreat venue.

I’m so excited to be back there! Please see some testimonials about this wonderful center, below! I hope you can join us. 

With joy and kind wishes, and my hopes to see you soon! 

~ Shell 🙏🏽💕😊

🙏🏽 A few weeks ago, a dear friend of mine and I were talking, and after many hours of sharing a seemingly-never-ending lists of all the things we want and don’t want, all of our fears and regrets, we recognized that what we’re truly longing for is a sense of acceptance or ease with what actually IS … right now, in the present. 

In other words, a sense of contentment (or passaddhi, in the Pali language).

After we’d named this, my friend shared a quote she’d recently learned about from the artist Pablo Picasso, who apparently said, “It takes a long time to grow young.” 

This not only rang true to me, but immediately reminded me of a story about the Buddha’s enlightenment, which as the story goes happened very soon after he’d remembered what contentment had felt like to him, as a young child. 

In fact, this very memory is what suddenly made all the difference, and led him not only to enlightenment, but to the profound teachings of The Middle Way itself – the whole thing.

So, for this month’s talk, “It Takes A Long Time to Grow Young: Nurturing Contentment,” I thought I would explore how the Buddha was led to this understanding, along with some of his teachings on how we can train ourselves to experience even more of this precious quality in our lives. It includes a 10-minute meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, just few heads up! 

1) In just 2 months from now, I’ll be offering a new 5-day retreat “Keep Calmly Knowing Change,” at the beautiful, peaceful Peterkin Conference Center in Romney, WV, our newest retreat venue – which was very well-received in October, and has been filling! The center is excited to have us back, and has hired a host of new kitchen and facilities staff to help grow and care for this wonderful center. We are so joyful to be a part of this!

2) I’ve finally honored my longtime promise to record the “Either Way, I Am & Really Will Be Okay” meditation – a 30-minute retreat favorite, designed to help us get in touch with the quality of equanimity (or upekkha, in the Pali language) which is considered the “fruit” of our practice. I hope it will serve!  

With joy and kind wishes, and my hopes to see you soon! 

~ Shell 🙏🏽💕😊

Traditionally, the holiday season is a time when we’re asked to remember and honor our intention to nurture a sense of peace within ourselves, our families, and our world. 

Yet as we all know, sometimes being with others can trigger the very opposite of this quality – especially when we feel in some way hurt, disrespected, or insulted.

According to the Buddha’s teachings, though,this is exactly the time when our practice can really help us hone our intention, especially as it involves our response – even if this is only in our own minds and hearts.

This is so important: because if our answer is even more aversion, unkindness, or maybe retaliation, we only need to look to history to know where this will lead – which is to more pain, harm, and division.

And of course, this is true whether we’re talking about political party vs. political party, nation vs. nation, citizen vs corporation, or individual vs. individual …

It all comes down to how we work with protecting our own hearts from hurt, aversion, and hatred – which in turn is going to protect others as well.

So, for this month’s talk, “It’s All Yours – Responding to Insult and Disrespect,” I thought I’d dive into the Buddha’s wise trainings in morality – or sila, in the Pali language – because they include precise instructions for exactly this.

As the teachings show us – over and over – even though it can be incredibly difficult, we never ever want to let another person’s disrespect, anger, or meanness harden our own hearts.

Instead, we want our practice to serve as a kind of guard for our hearts – a strong shield that can protect us against the power that other people’s unkind behavior can often have over us. 

It includes a meditation/inquiry at the end. 

As always, I hope it might serve.

Also, just few heads up! 

1) There’s only one week left to join us for the upcoming 8-week course on The Four Foundations of Mindfulness  JAN. 7 – FEB. 5, 2024 in Winchester, VA. This is my very favorite workshop! And it will be the last one I’ll be offering in 2024 – I really hope you might join us!

2) The next daylong retreat on Sat., Jan. 27, “Living From Your Deepest Intention“ is now more than half-full! Save your spot! 

With joy, and kind wishes for a blessed 2024! 

~ Shell 🙏🏽💕😊

As we head into the holidays and new year, not only are our metaphorical plates likely full right now, our minds might also be filled with various goals for ourselves – for what comes next. 

It’s just a very natural time for us to do this. 

For me, I’ve always felt this pull acutely,since December also happens to be the month of my birth, and my husband’s, along with about a handful of other close friends and relatives who all chose this busy end-of-the-year month to be born.

So especially when I’ve been meditating lately, what I’ve been noticing is how much my mind has been leaning forward into the future.

And while the Buddha assured us that it’s healthy to be aware of all our different intentions, he also suggested that once we’ve planted the seeds of our plans, our practice becomes surrendering to any determined outcome – to truly let go, of all of it.

Not easy! Which is why this teaching lies at the very heart of our practice, because ultimately, it’s exactly what we’re training ourselves to do – to let. go. 

This month’s talk, EMPTY OF EXPECTATION: Exploring “Beginner’s Mind”, is aimed at helping us to let go more and more often by inviting us to see all things as new – including all situations, people, and especially ourselves – rather than clinging so tightly to our preconceived beliefs and expectations, which tend to keep us stuck.   

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, just few heads up!

1) I’ve recently made the decision to give myself a little more time next year, for rest, and will only be offering one in-person workshop next year … an 8-week course on The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Jan. 7 – Feb. 5, 2024 in Winchester, VA. Spots are limited! 

2) The Dec. 9 daylong retreat in Berryville, VA, “FULL SURRENDER: Learning to Ride the Waves” is now FULL with a short waiting list.

3) The next daylong retreat on Sat., Jan. 27, “Living From Your Deepest Intention“ is open for registration! Save your spot! 

With joy, and kind wishes for Happy Holidays and 2024! 

~ Shell

During a 5-day meditation retreat I led in West Virginia earlier last month, I had an interesting insight:

After speaking with many different students, what occurred to me is that no matter what each of us is currently struggling with, we all seem to be seeking a sense of balance in the midst of all the chaos – whether this is our own personal chaos, or the chaos that’s happening all around us.

I also noticed a related struggle, which involves our ongoing effort to strike a good balance between being there for others, while at the same time being there for ourselves.

And, in almost all cases, what’s actually the most helpful for us is to find and nurture a place of rest, right in the center of all of it – good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant.

So, since that retreat ended, I’ve been thinking a lot about what the Buddha called The Middle Way, which is actually how he described the entirety of his teachings.

In fact, the Middle Way was not only what he discovered when he became enlightened, but it was also the way that he got there, to enlightenment itself.

And the idea is that: the more we practice the Buddha’s Middle Way, the more realize that contentment resides at the very center of our wanting and not wanting, and, at the center of our indulgence or deprivation. 

This month’s talk, Content in the Center: Exploring the Buddha’s Middle Way, addresses how we can use our meditation practice to “walk in the middle” more often, and discover more joy, ease, and balance in our lives. 

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, just few heads up:

1) After many years, I’ve finally and happily given in to requests for a WEEKLONG RETREAT, and will be offering one next year Sept. 26-Oct. 2, 2024 at the wonderful Peterkin Conference Center in Romney, WV: 5 WAYS TO LET GO: Releasing the 5 Hindrances. Registration is now open!

2) The next daylong retreat in Berryville, VA, on Dec. 9, “FULL SURRENDER: Learning to Ride the Waves” is now more than 2/3 full!

3) I’ll only be offering two in-person workshops next year … starting with an 8-week course on The Four Foundations of Mindfulness Jan. 7 – Feb. 5, 2024 in Winchester, VA. Spots are limited!

In the meantime, I hope you might join me soon!

With joy and kind wishes, ~ Shell

“Anyone who has probed the inner life, who has sat in silence long enough to experience the stillness of the mind behind its apparent noise, is faced with a mystery. Apart from all the outer attractions of life in the world, there exists at the center of human consciousness something quite satisfying and beautiful in itself, a beauty without features. The mystery is not so much that these two dimensions exist – an outer world and the mystery of the inner world – but that we are suspended between them, as a space win which both worlds meet … as if the human being is the meeting point, the threshold between two worlds.” ~ Kabir Helminski

I so love the above quote, which reflects a vital practice and qualitythe Buddha called Noble Silence – something precious and multi-faceted, like a jewel, and not simply about being quiet. 

For those who are new to practice, trying to enter this more sustained silence can often feel frustrating, or maybe even impossible.

On the other hand, those of us who have experienced the incredibly calming, healing, and transformative aspects of being in the silence for longer periods can very often need a strong reminder to step back into it.

It’s like … even though we’re aware of the great benefits of being in and nurturing the silence, we tend to get so caught up in the swirl of our busy lives that we either neglect it, or, sadly, sometimes forget about it completely.

For this month’s talk, “The Sacred Healing Power of Noble Silence,” I thought I’d explore not only how we can experience the Noble Silence more often, but how we can slowly learn to live our lives from within this peaceful space of silence.  

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

Also, just few heads up:

1) The next daylong retreat in Berryville, VA, “FULL SURRENDER: Learning to Ride the Waves” is now almost half full. I hope you can join us!

2) The date for the 5-day spring retreat at one of our new retreat centers, Peterkin, has been changed to May 2-6, 2024: KEEP CALMLY KNOWING CHANGE: Embodying the 3 Truths. I’m really looking forward to plunging into this retreat topic, one of my favorites.

3) I’ll be offering another 8-week, in-person workshop, THIS IS IT: The Four Foundations of Mindfulness, in Winchester, VA Jan. 7 – Feb. 25, 2024. Spots are limited! (P.S. Because this is truly a summary course of our whole practice, it really is designed for all!)

In the meantime, I hope you might join me soon!

With joy and kind wishes, ~ Shell

A confession: the theme of this month’s newest talk resulted in large part due to a difficult experience I had in the recovery room of the hospital, following a surgery I had in late June. 

In fact, my resistance was so fierce, so un-wielding, and so persistent, that it surprised me. It was an intensely powerful sense of just. NO – of not wanting, not accepting — on any level — what was actually happening. 

Sadly, this aversion was aimed directly at my own body, and what was happening within it – which was a strong sense of “unpleasant.” 

And of course, as the Buddha tells us, this quality of not-wanting – or, not accepting what’s happening, not accepting the reality of the moment, which might be unpleasant – is one of the main ways that we create suffering (or dukkha) … not only for ourselves, but also for others. 

In the Pali language, the spoken language of the Buddha’s time, this quality of resistance or aversion to what IS is called dosa. 

And because this dosa tends to cause so much unnecessary pain and stress in our lives, the teachings urge us to use mindfulness practice to get to really KNOW our dosa, at all levels – from the most minor ways that we resist to the most troubling, and destructive. 

This month’s new talk, “What You Resist, Persists: Working With Aversion,” explores all the many ways that we can start to notice when we’re in some way resisting, and start to let BE, instead of being so aversive to other people, life itself, and of course, ourselves.

It includes a 10-minute meditation on dosa at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve. 

P.S. Please take a look at our newest retreat center in Romney, WV! I was finally able to obtain a few new photos of this beautiful residential campus, which includes 1,400 acres of forest, mountain streams, and miles of hiking trails. 

I’m really excited about being there this Oct. 5-9, when I’ll be offering a 5-day retreat on nurturing the heart practices, “LOVING YOURSELF (*update: it’s now more than 3/4 full.) 

I’ll also be offering another 5-day retreat there March 14-18,  KEEP CALMLY KNOWING CHANGE: Embodying the 3 Truths. 

I hope you might join me! 

With joy and kind wishes, ~ Shell