[While I attend a dance class, my three-year-old updates my Twitter feed, above.]
A funny thing happened on the way to handing my phone over to my children: I realized I'm attached to the belief, my belief, that putting my kids (or any kids, for...
When I was seven years old, my first-grade teacher asked everyone to draw what they wanted to be when they grew up. I remember walking around my classroom during parent-teacher night with the room plastered with drawings, learning all about my...
Reddit, founded in 2005 and the dominant site of its kind since at least 2010, bills itself as “the front page of the internet.” It has a tiny staff - most of the lifting is done by hundreds of thousands of active “redditors” who post, comment, and...
A reporter at the Toronto Film Festival, which designated a Bill Murray Day, asked Murray: What is it like to be you? His answer is a gem, and a really good four-minute meditation.
It's a truth of existence that material things won't bring you lasting happiness. Things break. Or get outdated. Maybe the iPhone 5 brought you bliss -- but now the iPhone 6 is about to be introduced. And that might make you even happier. Until you...
When my three-year-old daughter walked into the room wearing her new gift, a pair of plastic, bedazzled play-heels, or princess shoes, as they're often called, I looked down at her feet and felt the urge to vomit. I was instantly overcome...
Sometime this summer I decided that things were out of control. My life was somehow no longer my own, and there was a heavy price being exacted in my health, mental and physical. It’s a realization I’d come to before, but this time I was resolved to...
We don't practice to become better meditators – we practice to become better people. We practice like a doctor practices medicine and like a basketball player practices free throws. We show up for practice, even when it seems silly. We practice like...
I find a cherished mix from '07 & awaken from a full nights rest only to realize while stirring some eggs that I have a teacup of coffee waiting to be sipped. I choose to take my vitamins at a later time & simply make my way to the...
Earlier this month, I wrote about why you might choose to take your meditation practice off the cushion and into the streets this coming September for the historic People's Climate March to address climate change. Now, with the march itself a month...
In June I participated in the Tutu Global Forgiveness Challenge in an effort to revitalize my practice. The Forgiveness Challenge is a 30-day interactive program that integrates videos, recordings, thought exercises, meditations and a personal diary...
I'm posting this on behalf of Thia Reggio, the Pastor of the Astoria First Presbyterian Church. The church has been generously allowing us local Queens residents to use their space for meditation.
Scientific research into meditation typically has focused on mindfulness meditation -- connecting to what's happening in the present moment, particularly the breath -- and has found that it calms the mind and the physical body, reducing the stress...
As I type, my computer sits on scraps of shaped construction paper and sticker-eyeballs spread about in disarray on our dining room table. The items are part of crafts projects our town library carefully assembles for children to take home...
Let's just say you were walking with a dear friend, a stranger, and an enemy, and a group of armed criminals stop you by force. They ask you to choose one person among you to be killed by them. Which one would you choose?
Sunday is a full moon. I could tell even before I checked the calendar, based on the phone calls that came in to the newspaper where I work. That's not unusual -- the callers range from those with tomatoes that resemble Richard Nixon to ones who...
Having conversations about Israel and Palestine is fraught, to say the least. (Jon Stewart nailed it the other week.) I find myself experiencing different kinds of quick reactions to articles, Facebook posts, invitations to attend demonstrations and...
I often feel that my kids are pint-sized Buddhas. They force me to get all sorts of uncomfortable and face things I'd love to distract away. They call me out on emotions I'm otherwise quick to dismiss or bury. And when I...
