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.

Reflective Meditation

Cultivating Kindness and Curiosity in the Buddha’s Company

#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.

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Meet the Authors

Linda Modaro

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

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).

Connect with Us

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.

Listen to our Podcast on Apple

Reflective Counsel

Pine Street Sangha

Sati Sangha

Reflective Meditation Reviews

D. Donovan, Sr. Reviewer

Midwest Book Review

From considerations of Buddhist concepts of vulnerability and suffering to how meditators grapple with challenging characteristics of existence and experience, Linda Modaro and Nelly Kaufer craft a dialogue of possibilities that ultimately transcends much of the average reader’s concepts of what meditative practices can reveal…The dialogue portion of the practice is just as essential for understanding and success as the meditative process itself. Conversations about experience, intention, mindfulness, and more permeate insights about the bigger-picture thinking meditation can unfold in a dance of mental origami.

Josh Summers

host of the Everyday Sublime podcast

You may discover, as I did, a gentler, kinder and more ethically integrated doorway into the heart of the Middle Way.

Carol Newhouse

co-author of A Women’s Guide to Spiritual Renewal and Country Lesbians

You are invited into the room as two dharma friends, highly accomplished meditation teachers, engage in intimately reflective conversations on topics such as power, feminism, and the many causes and conditions of their lives.

Sharon Salzberg

author of Lovingkindness and Real Change

How do you share your experience of meditation? Linda and Nelly share their personal journey of meditation and offer ways to relate that completely fit in everyday life.

In the Media

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

AUDIO & VIDEO

Blog

Along With Us: Right Speech

Read along with us Right Speech: Speaking with Awareness and Care In the early discourses—such as the Samaññaphala Sutta—Right Speech is described as part of the ethical foundation of the path. Right Speech is presented clearly and concisely. One who practices it abstains from lying, from creating division, from abusive language, and from frivolous talk.…

Right Livelihood

What do I want to do with this life? We’re focusing on Right Livelihood — sammā-ājīva. The Pāli word ājīva means “that by which one lives.” It refers to sustenance, to the means by which life is maintained. In Reflective Meditation, we widen the meaning of ājīva beyond the traditional definition of livelihood as “work”.…

Introducing the Ennobling Eightfold Path

In early Buddhist teachings, the Eightfold Path appears as the final element of a larger framework known as the Four Noble Truths. In the early discourses preserved in the Pali Canon, the Buddha describes four fundamental insights about human experience: that suffering exists, that suffering has causes, that it can cease, and that there is…