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...
I really feel that some people neglect and overlook compassion because they associate it with religion. Of course, everyone is free to choose whether they pay religion any regard, but to neglect compassion is a mistake because it is the...
As it turns grey again here in Seattle, after a long sunny summer, I noticed that I slipped quickly back into melancholy. I am a moody person. Working with myself in the Buddhist context has taught me not to take my moods seriously. This means that...
I'm terribly late, a fact which my 18-month old son Oscar apparently does not understand. The whole morning is like nails on a chalkboard played in slow motion. In need of coffee, I set out from home under clear skies.
A good friend of mine once wondered: “Ever Feel as though achieving depth can only be when you grab a hold of the sand at ocean bottom?”
The process of arising to descend or descending to ascendis an impermanent reversal proving thatThe Ideal...
The Human Route
by Zen Master Seung Sahn on Sep 1, 1981
Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed — that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Mindfulness is not what you do in your spare time. Mindfulness is what you do all the time. Mindfulness is being in touch with the present moment, with your original nature, which is always present but gets buried under busyness and thoughts of what...
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,...
Tonight is the first presidential debate of the 2012 election. Can you listen without solidifying into a self that can't see the humanness of the other?
Can I just take a moment to express my love and gratitude for The Interdependence Project? At the beginning of summer I started volunteering here on a regular basis. I started doing Seva work with IDP because I felt it was the next step in my...
"The Mindful Activist" is where I attempt to share what I experience as my Buddhist practice converges with my political and social interests. If any fellow "activists" (also called engaged citizens, bodhisattvas, or humans) want to highlight issues...
The Buddha and his posse of monks once traveled to a town where the Kalama people lived. They told him how many other spiritual teachers had been there before him and they just weren’t sure which of their teachings were true and which were not.
The...
Right around this time three years ago I started working one-on-one with a teacher. This is not the Tibetan Buddhist guru-student relationship, but what is described as a spiritual friend or mentor, the kalyanamitra.
