Shaila Catherine

About Shaila Catherine

Shaila Catherine is the founder and principal teacher of both Insight Meditation South Bay, a meditation center in Silicon Valley, and Bodhi Courses, an online Dhamma classroom. She has been practicing meditation since 1980, with more than eight years of accumulated silent retreat experience. She has taught since 1996 in the USA, India, Israel, England, Europe, and New Zealand. Shaila has dedicated several years to studying with masters in India, Nepal and Thailand, completed a one year intensive meditation retreat with the focus on concentration and jhana, and authored Focused and Fearless: A Meditator’s Guide to States of Deep Joy, Calm, and Clarity, (Wisdom Publications, 2008). She has extensive experience with the practice of metta, including seven months exploring metta as the meditation subject in retreats. Since 2006, Shaila had continued her study of jhana and insight with the guidance of Venerable Pa-Auk Sayadaw of Burma. She authored Wisdom Wide and Deep: A Practical Handbook for Mastering Jhana and Vipassana (Wisdom Publications, 2011) to help make this traditional approach to meditative training accessible to western practitioners.

Going home as refuge

I was poking in the Pali-English dictionary yesterday to prepare for a dhamma talk on taking refuge in the Buddha. The Pali term sarana is usually translated as refuge, but also may be translated as house, protection, and shelter. This morning I am contemplating taking refuge in the Buddha, taking refuge in the potential of [...]

2010-10-14T06:59:10-07:00October 14th, 2010|Ruminations, The Buddha, Uncategorized|

Metta without self

In the Loving Kindness (metta) class last night, Drew made an important point that brought out the essential nature of metta practice—metta practice cultivates an openness open toward all beings without imposing a strong position of self. The "near enemy" of metta describes what metta is not, but may be confused with, that is, attachment [...]

2017-02-16T09:34:59-08:00September 24th, 2010|Loving Kindness and Compassion, Not-Self, Uncategorized|
Go to Top