Kim Allen has been practicing Insight meditation since 2003, and has trained intensively in the U.S. and Asia with cumulative years of silent retreat. She has practiced with primary teacher Gil Fronsdal and other Western teachers, Theravādan monastics, and a few Mahāyāna teachers, and now offers retreats, sutta study, and experiential Dharma engagement. A teacher and author, Kim aims to bring classical Dharma to a modern context and to encourage lay practitioners in fully living a life of Dharma. Her education includes a PhD in physics and a master’s degree in environmental sustainability, and her website is https://www.uncontrived.org.
The human tendency to want can range from highly unskillful or harmful forms of grasping and compulsion, through ordinary desires of life, into beautiful forms of aspiration and care. Buddhist teachings show how we can develop the more skillful forms of desire, such as wanting to be ethical, to practice meditation, or to awaken. Interestingly, moving into skillful wanting is an act of letting go.
