There’s a Zen meal chant that says in part,
“This food comes from the efforts of many workers, past and present,
And its advantages give us health and well-being and promote strong practice.
Seventy-two laborers brought us this...
I think that relationships are tricky. Lovely, certainly and vital, yes, but tricky. For most relationships have stories - stories of shared experience and expectation. This is normal and, frankly, human. The roles within which we are embedded -...
“I want someone on this path with me”
“That’s’ codependency”
I just spent a weekend in New York with a group of people I am happy to call my sangha. A sanhga is a community of meditators. They may not be...
Instead of fixating on the news about Hurricane Irene all weekend, I decided instead to check out the natural disaster going on inside of my brain: the feelings, sensations and thoughts that go along with panic and fear, and what they...
Last week I participated in a real oxymoronic situation. It was a week-long urban retreat, the first ever organized by the New York Shambhala Meditation Center. We spent the whole week commuting between the center and individual home in a...
Karma is often described metaphorically as planting a seed. When you plant tomatoes, you get tomatoes, not peas. When you plant seeds of craving, jealousy, anger in your mind, they blossom into attitudes that color your life. It's the law of...
The Internet is a pretty magical place. Yes, there are problems - of addiction and procrastination, of distraction and dilly dallying. But. Within reason. It's a preeeettty magical place. And yesterday I was turned onto a new site that -...
My mind is stuck. For roughly two years I’ve had the same plaguing thoughts at least once a day, with no relief around me. I consider a small miracle if I go a few hours without struggling with certain hurts and discomforts.
This spring, Kelsang Wangmo, a German nun, became the first woman to earn a Geshe degree in Tibetan Buddhism. The Geshe title is conferred on nuns and monks who have completed an advanced course of study, which takes 16-20...
I’ve never been a patient person. Patience, as they say, is a virtue, quite a powerful and important one. Sadly, though it’s one that does not come easily for me.
"...you know our minds are pretty fixed, even if we’re basically nice people, our mind is set in its way with many layers of habitual tendencies. " - Acharya Eric Spiegel
Right now in in 21st century Nepal, it is actually considered debatable as to whether or not a Buddhist nun raped by five men on a bus should be allowed to return to her monastic life or not.
"The religious dictum requires a nun to be...
it is ceaselessly curious to myself that i am entangled within the academic world of political science and yet have done everything in my power to change its traditional contours of legitimate inquiry. notably i've been invested in religion,...
This weekend I went to Portland and was invited to a potluck dinner at a farm being built up by friends of a friend. One of the hosts was a remarkable woman, TJ, who grew up with experienced gardeners for parents and was excited to be...
The state of the institutions in the Harry Potter series directly reflect the mindstate of the majority of individuals who make it up. As Voldemort's influence in the wizarding world grows throughout the series, these institutions...
