Every year, I attend the last church service of the year. At the end of December, the minister asks us to write down all the things we want for the coming year. We then draft a letter to ourselves that we will receive a year later (sent back to us...
When Buddhist teachers talk about sitting with intense emotions, they're generally speaking about ones we'd characterize as negative: loneliness, anger, sadness, grief, insecurity. I've never heard a teacher talk about sitting with happiness.
As the holidays unfolded, and every stop along the way brought more and more gifts for our little baby, I couldn’t help remarking that it was sad, in a way, that he wouldn’t remember any of this. Indeed, that this entire period of his life would be...
As someone who turns out several blogs each month, I am deeply grateful for the invention of the diner. It is at the diner--a true laboratory for human behavior--that I gather much of my material. This morning, eavesdropping again...
As one of the American pioneers credited for bringing Eastern spirituality to the West, Ram Dass had more than four decades of spiritual training to help guide him when he suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage in 1997. Nonetheless, in the...
Meditation can change your life and your very sense of who you are. There is a reason it has been around for thousands of years and practiced by people from all walks of life and all parts of the globe. There is a common myth...
Meditation can change your life and your very sense of who you are. There is a reason it has been around for thousands of years and practiced by people from all walks of life and all parts of the globe. There is a common myth...
My neighbor has a great big dog. It's a little smaller than a horse. You can't go outside with a dog like that without training it first. Otherwise, it'll just pull you down the street, terrifying every man, woman, and child along the way.
Our minds...
In Western culture we have an incredible neurosis. We rarely feel worthy. We are never quite satisfied with who we are and where we are in life. This menace appears in our careers, where we never feel competent enough. It shows up at the...
I am a runner—a reluctant runner. After nearly three decades of pounding the streets, my runner’s high has reached an all-time low, and unless I am filled to the brim with caffeine, I mostly grin and bear it, and wait for my run to be...
Last Friday afternoon, I was feeling a combination of things: first, I was feeling hungry; second, I had had a stressful week at work and was feeling strung out; and third, I was looking forward to quite a busy night that night. Before I could...
Our lives are an endless search—a search for something we call happiness. We continually gain it and then lose it, again and again. And yet, despite its inherently transitory nature, we continue trying to capture happiness, permanently,...
“Wisdom doesn’t look like one thing.” DPR
This is easy to forget. Today it looks like structure and ferocity. Tomorrow it may look soft and vulnerable. It may look like what naturally arises, but it may also be the opposing force to what seems...
Economics isn’t just about money and material benefits, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said. It is also about understanding and promoting “the enhancement of well-being.”
Every time I fall into thinking that something will make me happy, I fail. This might even be the definition of failure. Everything fails us when we expect it to cause happiness.
One thing I have heard a few times on Krista Tippet's show on NPR called On Being is that happiness is a practice. This idea inspires me and gives me hope that we can all be happy. It also highlights the fact that our society is confused about how...
Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It’s not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can’t grab if. Beyond mind you’ll never see a Buddha. The Buddha is a product of...
