I've been trying to explore my relationship with perfectionism. When I was a kid I loved getting straight A's, being the president of whatever club, being the perfect daughter. Lately I'm noticing my perfectionism in terms of being a "good spiritual...
Lots of schools are using mindfulness meditation to help students improve their focus and ease stress. There's both empirical and anecdotal evidence that it works. But one Ohio school system is moving the other way, dropping mindfulness instruction...
At the Interdependence Project, we support all types of mindfulness—mindfulness of mind, mindfulness of breath, mindfulness of emotions, mindfulness of eating tacos, and, yes, mindfulness of poop.
Pooping is an age-old art that almost all humans...
Financially speaking, I'm quite poor by many standards. I'm not ungrateful for many extraordinary experiences I've had and some of the unearned privileges I've benefited from (for example, attending top notch public school, being male, White,...
I am married to a writer. A screenwriter, to be precise. A man who is almost always thinking about the driving force beneath stories, crafting scenes and acts, beginnings and endings in his mind.
So when I started writing for the IDP blog about how...
I'm looking forward to the new class series that begins at the Interdependence Project, as well as an online course, tonight. I really enjoy talking about the tantric path in particular, primarily because it contains practices and...
"Peace is an internal process that begins with our own heart and hands in the way we touch other and interact with the community around us." -- Urban Zen website
(Click here for the first post in this series.)
As the ferry pulled out of the harbor, the black sedan icon on my GPS left the roadmap and drifted out into the solid blue of the bay. I watched with a grin, delighted by the cluelessness of the...
Hola from Costa Rica. I will be sitting with you all for Daily Sit at our regular scheduled time 9:00 am EST for the next two Saturdays from The Sanctuary at Two Rivers in Costa Rica. April 13 and April 20 I will be here practicing, teaching and...
I spend a lot of time thinking about what people need from each other in order to feel connected, cohesive, and resilient. Buddhism, historically, has not taken a developmental view of how we reach a healthy baseline of functioning in work,...
At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settledafter a night of rain.I dip my cupped hands. I drinka long time. It tasteslike stone, leaves, fire. It falls coldinto my body, waking the bones. I hear themdeep inside me, whisperingoh what is that...
In April of 2010 I went on my first weeklong retreat. It took place over Spring Break, so many of the folks in attendance were teachers like me.
I carpooled up to Barre, Massachusetts, home of Insight Meditation Society, with three other...
Ordinarily when we can't handle powerful feelings such as pain or fear we avoid them because they overwhelm us or make us feel bad. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle of anxiety and avoidance, guilt and shame. What I call Behavioral Buddhism is...
What what! Isn't sports all about passion, aggression, and achieving a goal (to defeat the other team)?
Not just. How about equanimity -- holding your (metaphorical) center in the most chaotic environment imaginable?
This is a love letter to everyone who has helped contribute in some way to my being able to go on a week-long meditation retreat at Karme Choling next week. I don't just mean the people who donated to my online effort to raise the funds...
Holy crap. It’s still cold outside. May I remind the seasons that it is now April, that flowers are waiting to bloom, children are ready to play outside and that all my sweaters are in dire need of cleaning.
In the class I am co-teaching with Ethan Nichtern and Miles Neale on Buddhism and Psychology: Spiritual Awakening NOT Spiritual Bypassing at the Interdependence Project, there has been a good deal of discussion — and...
Many friends and I have all checked out this great smartphone app called Insight Timer, which lets you keep really good track of meditation sessions and connect with other meditators around the world. IDP has several online...
THE NOW - It Shows Up Uninvited
But don't worry, we can shield ourselves from "The Now" by watching Channel 4 news! Or at least that's what is implied by this ad.
Caroline Brett conducts a detailed inquiry into how practitioners of Vajrayana, Zen, and Hindu Tantra natively distinguish between mystical and psychotic states.
