Reflective Meditation is grounded in early Buddhist teachings and informed by Western psychology. Our practice evolved out of the Insight (Vipassana) tradition. This secular expression encourages meditators to include the full range of their inner experience: thoughts, emotions, sensations, and bodily awareness with a receptive, kind and curious attention.
After each meditation, practitioners take time to reflect and journal, describing what unfolded and the process of meditation itself. Through gentle dialogue with teachers and peers, these reflections become a shared inquiry that deepens understanding, compassion, and ethical clarity. This integrative approach supports a meditation practice that is both personally meaningful and grounded in everyday realities.
We’ve been writing short, evolving chapters that explore traditional Buddhist teachings alongside how we approach these teachings in Reflective Meditation. It’s becoming a conversation between what has been preserved and how it is lived, discovered, and reimagined in real time. Something more alive than a simple reinterpretation.
Each piece is a kind of inquiry: What happens when we hold these teachings not as fixed instructions, but as organizing principles we are in relationship with? How do they function in lived experience? What do they reveal when approached through reflection rather than repetition? If this kind of exploration resonates with you, we invite you to read along.
#1 New Release on Amazon
With its innovative narrative format, Linda Modaro and Nelly Kaufer’s Reflective Meditation: Cultivating Kindness and Curiosity in the Buddha’s Company sets out a conversation that comes from their deep and heartfelt care for meditators.
A unique, witty and compassionate conversation between authors and reader, Nelly and Linda’s voices are deeply rich, genuine, and touching, resonant with the feminine experience.
Gorgeously written, amid their dialogue the reader is invited to creative craft their own meditation practice, as well as getting a sensitive and intelligent overview of basic early Buddhist teachings.
Linda Modaro is spiritual director and lead teacher of Sati Sangha, an online meditation community. She also mentors teachers and offers ethical reflecting for Buddhist teachers. Formerly an Acupuncturist and master of Qi Gong, Linda created a bestselling four-part Qi Gong video series, Discovering Chi (1995).
Nelly Kaufer is founder and lead teacher at Pine Street Sangha, a meditation center in Portland, Oregon. A psychotherapist in private practice, she integrates Buddhist psychology into her clinical orientation as well as in continuing education workshops for mental health professionals. Nelly has co-authored several books, including A Woman’s Guide to Spiritual Renewal (Harper, 1994).
Please contact us for more information or a Welcoming Orientation.
The Welcoming Orientation includes a few one-on-one sessions with a Reflective Meditation sangha member.
Everyday Sublime | July 11, 2023
Linda Modaro + Nelly Kaufer | Improvising in Practice
TRICYCLE | February 17, 2023
Reflective Meditation: Let your mind run free in meditation – then write down what happened.
Everyday Sublime | January 27, 2023:
Linda Modaro + Nelly Kaufer | Reflective Meditation
Secular Buddhist Network | January 27, 2023
Rethinking the Dharma / Reimagining Community #41 February 2023
Secular Buddhist Network | January 25, 2023
An Interview with Nelly Kaufer and Linda Modaro on Reflective Meditation
Secular Buddhist Network | March 19, 2020
Responding to the coronavirus: reflections from the Pine Street Sangha and Sati Sangha
Secular Buddhist Network | November 4, 2019
Moving away from hierarchy and toward democratic sanghas
Secular Buddhist Network | October 23, 2019
Moving toward student-centric meditation teaching
Secular Buddhist Network | October 11, 2019
Linda Modaro & Nelly Kaufer on reflective meditation
Right Samādhi What Are We Really Cultivating? The Pāli word samādhi does not translate neatly into English, though a common translation is concentration. But when we look more closely, the meaning of samādhi is much richer and more subtle than the English word concentration suggests. Samadhi can also be translated as collectedness, unification, composure, calmness,…
“Be-ing with” the uncertainty of our times There are so many things to be upset, distraught, scared, angry about these days. What do we do with that? A slow syrupy mood comes over me this morning. I’m not sure where it came from but it’s distinct from the “out of control” mood that has…
Nelly: Podcast – May 19, 2024 Linda: Podcast May 20, 2024 (scroll down) Nelly Kaufer We do not guide meditation. We trust you can find your own guidance, your internal compass. There are times when you will skillfully guide yourself. On a Sati Sangha website this is characterized as “care” — learning to care…
