Week 1 (10/6/2026)
Relating to All Things with Compassion and Wisdom. Experienced Practitioners – Week # 1
As you go about the day, be aware of moments of dukkha, meaning moments of fragility, vulnerability, uncertainty.
Recognize dukkha as dukkha, be it physical, mental, or emotional. Whenever you realize dukkha is happening, just know that it’s happening.
Instead of building stories about why it is happening, just pause and allow, without trying to fix or get rid of.
Do your best to keep it simple. Don’t employ strategies. Just acknowledge. Ah, this is what dukkha feels like here and now.
And then: respond with compassion, care, kindness.
Please come to class and be prepared to speak about how you have worked with this home practice during the week.
Week 2 (10/13/2026)
The home practice this week is to continue with the same practice as week #1, adding the practice of normalizing dukkha when you become aware of it.
“Normalizing” in this context doesn’t mean discerning whether a condition is right or wrong, good or bad, wanted or unwanted, whether it should or should not be happening…it means to know it as the nature of conditions. Don’t build stories or add to narratives – just recognize dukkha as dukkha. Keep it in the here and now.
Whenever you become aware that dukkha is happening, shift the attention to the body and feel it fully in your body. When you recognize resistance is occurring, can you feel it in your body? When anguish is happening, can you feel it in your body?
Gently and tenderly holding it, embracing it with care. You could even put your arms up, making the gesture of a virtual hug, extended inwardly to what you are experiencing, or put a hand on your heart to more fully connect with both dukkha and this response of compassion.
Week 3 (10/20/2026)
This week we are shifting the focus to impermanence.
Through the week, acknowledge impermanence and practice living in alignment with the changing nature of all things. Practice cherishing what there is to be cherished, without clinging and trying to make it last. Practice enlarging your capacity to accept imperfection (dukkha) and impermanence (annica), while responding with kindness and compassion. Be aware of the universal experiences of aging, sickness, and death and how it is a “we” as well as an “I.”