Sylvie Zuhorn – Retired

Around 2011, I reluctantly started to try meditation. I didn’t think it was for me, but a family member had repeatedly asked me to just try it and  surprisingly, I rather liked it. After having dabbled a bit in mindfulness meditation for a couple of months, I decided to look up where this mindfulness practice originated from. Then I came across a description of the Noble Eightfold Path and read a beautiful sutta, that was still practically applicable, even almost 2600 years later. I became a buddhist right then and there. 

One thing I realized immediately; I knew I had to follow what the Buddha said in the suttas. Unfortunately, many teachers coached more using the commentaries, or their own interpretations that weren’t in alignment with what the Buddha himself taught, so I went from teacher to teacher.

Over the years I tried many different practices, such as mindfulness, noting, several concentration practices and metta, but none were like the Buddha described them, nor did they deliver any of the results that were to be expected, such as a true fading away of all kinds of unskillful tendencies.

Just as I was on the verge of giving up finding someone who actually explained exactly according to the suttas, That's when I found TWIM. For the first time in my life, I started experiencing changes in my personality and found that I started inclining towards more wholesome actions. All the things that Bhante Vimalaramsi patiently clarified were in accordance with what the Buddha taught. I have never looked back since.

I have done a physical retreat, self-retreats, and several online retreats and found them very helpful. It’s such a great opportunity to have access to the online retreats.  

I live in the Netherlands. Not having to travel halfway across the world and to have the opportunity to practice right from our own homes is truly a great thing that sister Khema came up with!

The guides are here for you, so don’t hesitate to make use of them and ask them to clarify the things you don’t understand, want to know more about, or have difficulties with.

While this is a gradual Path, you will soon be able to start to see changes in yourself. We are very fortunate to live in a time where the Buddha's teachings are still accessible to us.

Now, I just live life in the Dhamma, as a new online retreat guide at Dhammasukha, working for the Suttavada Foundation, making short video’s explaining the practice, and participating in a TWIM support group on Telegram.

I can’t say I have any true hobby’s, but I love to read the suttas and to discuss the Dhamma, and I enjoy animals and nature, so you can often find me in the garden, handfeeding wild birds or trying to see which critters are swimming around in the little pond.

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My Immediate Inspiration

“Bhikkhus, if someone were to give away a hundred pots of food as charity in the morning, a hundred pots of food at noon, and a hundred pots of food as charity in the evening, and if someone were to develop a mind of lovingkindness even for the time it takes to pull a cow’s udder, either the morning, at noon, or in the evening, this would be more fruitful then the former. “Therefore, bhikkhus, you should train yourselves thus: ‘We will develop and cultivate the liberation of mind by lovingkindness, and make it our vehicle, make it our basis, stabilize it, exercise ourselves in it, and fully perfect it.’ Thus should you train yourselves.”
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Contact

​syl@suttavada.foundation