Do all the changes and demands of your everyday life make it hard to find time to simply be? You’ve read it right: to simply be is the way of Zen. It is easier said than done, so we have created formal meditation and all those rituals to help you ease into that habit. If…
Read MoreWe are creatures of habit. Young children, who have no sense of time, find great comfort in their routines. As older people, our routines become much more complicated. Instead of finding comfort in the simple routine of going to bed after brushing our teeth, our routines become much more intricate. Our routines must include doing…
Read MoreIf you are feeling stressed by this pandemic and want to ease your anxiety while practicing compassion for the world, please use this guided meditation. This is an exercise in loving-kindness and compassion which can help you acknowledge and approach your distress, then meet it with compassion. It starts with feeling compassion for yourself and…
Read MoreFor some unknown karmic reason, I had the fortune to visit or befriend a lot of Bikkhus from different Mahayana traditions this year, so I interviewed many of them about the renunciant monastic lifestyle. I then organized these conversations into notes and thought that the information might be interesting and useful for some others as…
Read MoreRegular meditation changes how you think. It changes the structure of your brain. It changes how you relate to yourself and others. Beginning immediately, and then cumulatively, over time, meditation alters your mind. To witness the immediate effects of meditation, take ten, ten-second breaths. Adjust your posture, so that your back is straight and head…
Read MoreThe idea of nirvana, enlightenment, an end to suffering is very attractive. It seems like a rare and special thing. It is like a transcendence from how things seem to how they are. It may take many lifetimes to recognize nirvana, but we may only get one lifetime. However that works, the time to recognize…
Read MoreIf you want to know if you are getting good yogurt, look at the expiration date on the container. If you want to know if you are getting good Buddhism, look for the three Dharma Seals. If you want to know why you are suffering, look out for the three poisons. The three Dharma Seals…
Read MoreAnnatta, the idea that there is no self, is a different way of thinking about yourself. The way you see yourself now is wrong. You have ideas about what you are that include all kinds of things that aren’t you and exclude lots of other things that are you. We strongly identify our bodies with…
Read MoreThere is a saying in Zen that if you have time, meditate for 20 minutes a day. If you don’t have time, meditate for an hour a day. A big obstacle to meditation is that it is hard to set aside the time to practice. Practicing for one minute, a few or several times a…
Read MoreZen teaching, the Dharma, passes from teacher to student, person to person, and has done so since the time of the Buddha, roughly 2,500 years ago. What each teacher passes to each student is a way of seeing things differently. The way we see things, with our eyes, with our minds, with our ears, can…
Read More
Recent Comments