This page offers a selection of resources that bring together Buddhist and social justice practices, both from within Buddhist communities, and from teachers and groups we find resonant with the core values of the Dharma. These lists are truly just a beginning. In this time of global crisis, we offer them in support of an equitable and reparative spiritual community, and toward the cultivation of wise action.

The Buddha’s path to happiness and freedom is a training of the heart. With wise action and meditation we interrupt the cycles of craving and reactivity, and grow in clarity about ourselves and the world. Craving manifests in the body as emotion and impulse, and in the mind as thinking: the wandering mind, judgment, worry, and all the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what is important. Meditation trains us to interrupt these stressful mental habits and cultivate in their place states of presence, focus, and agency through the practice of samādhi, the final limb of the Eightfold Path. Samādhi refers specifically to a series of four states of deep focus and stillness known as jhāna, or meditative absorption. While the jhānas take time and perseverance to cultivate, they are among the most transformational of all Buddhist practices.

At the very heart of the Buddha’s life, teaching, and building of spiritual community is enlightenment, also called awakening or liberation. Enlightenment is what makes a person a Buddha, literally “one who is awake,” and it is what we cultivate as we practice. The teachings on enlightenment insist that it is possible to uproot the causes of suffering fully from our own hearts and to live from a place of wisdom and compassion rather than delusion and reactivity. This is where the path leads, and no matter how far from “enlightenment” we may feel, if we are practicing sincerely, we are moving toward it.

In the core teaching of the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha taught that there is a cause for the dissatisfaction and suffering we so commonly experience. From ordinary discomfort to illness, mortality, the loss of those we love, and the fleeting nature of life’s pleasures, the distress we feel is rooted in craving—wanting things to be different than they are. This fundamental insight depends on the natural law of cause and effect, called “conditionality” in Buddhist philosophy.

The heart of Buddhist meditation is a quality of directed attention and investigation called sati, generally translated as “mindfulness.” The seventh limb of the Noble Eightfold Path, Right (or Wise) Mindfulness is a series of meditations exploring our experience of our bodies, feelings, and mental and emotional states. Though some aspects of mindfulness have become popular, with applications from therapeutic to educational settings, the Buddha’s original instructions reveal a depth and subtlety that have the power to truly transform our lives.

Spirit Rock is a spiritual training center that welcomes people of all backgrounds and faiths to practice and study the teachings of the Buddha. We are dedicated to bringing the wisdom of the Buddhist tradition to contemporary spiritual seekers at all levels of experience and practice.

Integrate wisdom and lovingkindness into all aspects of your life. As your practice unfolds, you’ll find here a rich foundation for engaged exploration and integration of the Dharma. Let our experienced teachers guide you further down the path to inner freedom and personal healing.

As we unfold through a life of practice, powerful qualities of heart and mind take root and grow in us. An ancient list of these wholesome inner qualities—one that spread beyond the Buddha’s teaching to become important in Yoga and other South Asian traditions—is the five spiritual faculties. Unusual among the lists, the five faculties are also known as the five powers, with the developing and mature versions of the same qualities understood as both the same and distinct enough to be listed twice.

We humans are animals, and we engage with the world through our senses and bodies. Everything about our lives—and everything our Dharma practice engages with—is embodied. When the Buddha discussed the experience of suffering, he talked about how we connect with the world around us and react in skillful or unskillful ways. Connection comes through the senses, but the Buddhist tradition conceives of the senses differently than just our usual five.

Develop a new practice of meditation and mindfulness, or refresh yourself on the basics. This guide lays out the fundamental teachings of the Buddha, with tools and techniques to cultivate compassion, learn meditation, and strengthen mindfulness.