Category: Articles by Teacher

Theodore on the shamanic journey: stepping outside cognition into non-ordinary reality, where time and space dissolve and the world is experienced as both form and formless.

Theodore on meeting global suffering: why pain does not require understanding to be valid, and how remembering that we are part of the natural world lets us respond with compassion rather than despair.

In this frank interview with Buddha Weekly, Theodore discusses when meditation helps and when it can harm — with depression, psychosis, and cognitive decline — plus teacher-student ethics and what to do when a teacher breaches trust.

Why we practice together at SLMC, and the three tools that support the journey: meditation itself, study to build understanding, and faith to carry us through the moments when nothing quite makes sense.

A concise look at why we meditate: cultivating stillness to see clearly past the stories we tell ourselves, loosening rigid thoughts and bodily tension, and moving toward a deeper sense of our true nature.

Being kind to ourselves isn’t optional — it’s the foundation for kindness to everyone else. Theodore explores both the gentle and the tough sides of self-compassion, and why simply acknowledging our experience, without judgment, is where real kindness begins.

An opening retreat talk on why sitting together in silence is rare and valuable, the experience of connection Theodore calls ‘One Mind, One Body,’ and why a retreat isn’t about achieving bliss but facing our lives honestly, exactly as they are.

Spiritual crisis often arrives not from tragedy but from sincere practice itself. Theodore explains why these periods of doubt and upheaval are a sign of real inner work, the importance of a trustworthy guide, and practical ways to find steadiness until the storm passes.