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...
Buddhist monks in Burma are accused of inciting violence against ethnic Muslims that has killed 43 people, destroyed or damaged 992 buildings, including five mosques, and displaced 12,000 people in a town of 100,000.
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...
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Founder of Creative Commons and Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig, has a great Ted talk about a fictional country called Lesterland (named after a Simpsons character), where political realities...
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...
Recently my partner and fiancee of five years told me that he’d met someone else and was therefore ending our relationship. This was a complete shock to me as there’d been no signs of discord or discontent as far as I could tell, and while I may...
We all have people in our lives who have profoundly harmed us. Sometimes the situation with the other person has changed. You may have forgiven them and they may even have taken ownership and expressed remorse for their harmful actions. Other times...
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.
Last week was not so much fun, let me put it that way. In case you’re just tuning in now, I was struggling a great deal trying to figure out whether or not to take my Buddhist refuge vow this past weekend. Since the vow was taking place right...
In this post, "Maladjusted Buddhism," on Patheos.com, blogger Nathan Thompson argues that Westerners who have converted to Buddhism are too tied to psychology and its focus on bringing everything toward a norm. Psychology, he says, works with...
Memories are foundational for our sense of self. This is particularly true for early childhood memories (which the scientists tell us are the most unreliable of all).
