The most compelling part of my practice right now comes in the form of my writing. For a long time, I've focused my teaching and writing on lovingkindness. Now as I look more deeply into lovingkindness, I find that it actually rests on another foundation, the expression of faith.
Faith is the topic I am exploring most in teaching and writing. Today there is a tremendous upsurge of interest in a new kind of faith, based on a practice where people can experience a direct spirituality, one without rigid dogma or compulsory belief in a specific cosmology. This is a spirituality that rests on personal transformation.
Vipassana allows us to take a method of mind training and craft a way of life that is more compassionate, more ethical and more powerful than our unawakened lives. The Buddha's teachings give us an immediate experience of what we can do to change. Faith in the teachings means we align ourselves with a vision of our greatest possibilities. This is the heart of the practice.
At the peak of his career, former social work professor and founder of War Child Canada, Steven Hick dove into the Dharma full-time in 2005. He has since founded the Ottawa Insight Meditation Community and now teaches insight meditation with an emphasis on reducing the stress in our daily life. He is Director of MBSR Ottawa where he established MBSR teacher training in Manitoba, Newfoundland and Alberta. Steven is the author of numerous books including Mindfulness and Social Work and Mindfulness and the Therapeutic Relationship. He holds a PhD in social work, and is a father and activist. Steven has been practicing meditation and yoga since 1979 with a variety of teachers, including Matthew Flickstein, Adyashanti, Bhagavan Shanmukha and Thich Nhat Hanh.
