Sylvia uses stories from popular culture to teach that, no matter what has happened in people’s past, there is the potential to achieve peace in the future, through the compassionate support of others.

This talk explores the pervasiveness of the judging mind and how to work constructively with it through mindfulness, metta, understanding and inquiry.

What is the role of concentration on the Path... Why is it important, how to develop it on & off the cushion and what are the obstacles.

Guided by several key teachings, particularly how we might bring together wisdom, compassion, and courage, we explore some of the issues raised in reflection on the last ten years. A focus is the parallel between personal practice and responding to larger social issues.

Howard Thurman, the great African American activist, mystic, and theologian, once said: “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” In the spirit of this guidance, we continue exploring how to understand and respond some of the core issues related to the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. We are further guided by (1) understanding the inter-relationships between individual, relational, and collective domains of practice; and (2) taking wisdom, compassion, and courage (and responsiveness) as three touchstones of our practice, both more inner and more outer.