Sometimes I walk around the East Village in the evenings after work and see all the young people my age strolling around with their lovers, groups of friends chatting happily in cafés, cute guys dressed up for a night out on the town, families...
Yesterday on the N train, a man who was standing in front of me suddenly reached over and punched the open window above me in order to close it. I had just put down my book and was in this in-between state, still sort of in the world of my book,...
Damian Echols spent 18 years in prison for murders he didn't commit and was freed nearly two
years ago. He lived on Death Row, and he suffered physically and mentally, he says. To cope with that, he learned eastern methods of working with the body...
Buddhism isn't what you do in meditation; that's meditation. Buddhism is how you walk in the world. I heard that phrasing from a teacher at one of the first Buddhist retreats I attended several years ago, and it stuck with me.
Daily Sit invites you to practice meditation with a live online community tomorrow morning. Each week there will be an opportunity for anyone who wants to participate online in a community sit.
In the most recent Zen Habits entry, Leo Babuta acknowledges inevitable blurs in personal growth by stating we are making choices all day long, with no one to tell us whether they’re right or wrong —
It is amazing how this mind of ours works, and how little control we have over it sometimes. Even when we sit on our cushions we may find our mind creating epic Oscar-worthy motion pictures in our heads instead of helping us focus on the breath. And...
"Try, Try, Try for Ten Thousand Years"
From this day forthuntil I attain the very heart of enlightenment,12 pm T-storms1pm T-stormsAnd did you get whatyou wanted from this life, even so?
Daily Sit invites you to practice meditation with a live online community tomorrow morning. Each week there will be an opportunity for anyone who wants to participate online in a community sit. Join me and others on Saturday, June 8, at 9 a.m. EST...
To let it be or not to let it be? That is the question. In a prescient article titled “You Think You Lost Your Thought, Well I Saw Her Yesterday-ay” published on Tuesday, Emily Herzlin asked another wonderful question: if we have a creative idea...
This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life is a witty and thoughtful meditation on living an ethical life in a challenging world.
Q: How do I explain Buddhism to my religiously conservative parents?
I remember being in a bar one night and a newer meditator asked me about coming out to their parents as a Buddhist.
"You make it sound like you're telling them you're gay," I said...
I have both a meditation and a writing practice, and sometimes if I’m not careful I attempt to multitask and write while I meditate. Well, not actually write, but think about writing, think about my writing, and come up with the most brilliant ideas...
During the retreat at IDP this past weekend, IDP Lineage Mentor and teacher Sharon Salzberg asked us to reflect on all the people in our lives who had led us to be here, sitting on the meditation cushion today.
I thought about the subway car...
Many years ago my family was visiting friends on Memorial Day. My youngest child was an infant; the older one was 2. My friends' sons were marching in her small midwestern town's Memorial Day parade. Another visitor offered to stay at the house with...
Please let's include in our practice tomorrow a dedication of merit for the families and people near and far affected by the tornado in Oklahoma. If you would like to have a direct person in mind for your dedication, please watch this clip of a...
I’ve been contemplating my aspirations for practice. Why do I meditate? Why do I practice the precepts? Do I have faith in the path of the Buddha? Do I feel compelled to attain enlightenment?
A tornado in Oklahoma killed dozens of people Monday and flattened whole neighborhoods in certainly the most destructive tornado in decades. Winds faster than 200 miles per hour were recorded, and at one point, the tornado measured over...
When the Buddhist path becomes a template for bypassing it becomes essential to loosen its tight grasp as an absolute illusion catering to a ”save one//save all” salvation & notice it as an alternative approach, flowing toward some...
When I set out to blog about how my meditation practice changed after marriage and motherhood, I started with some stories from after the wedding and early pregnancy. In this post I’m picking up where I left off, a few months before our...
