A man has only a hundred dollars in the bank and just got turned down for a job he thought he’d nailed. When his partner asks about it, he forces a smile: “It’s okay. Something better will come along.” On the surface, it sounds hopeful, but the words are a mask. He...
Last year, two major events occurred in my life: the first anniversary of my father’s fatal overdose and my tenth year of sobriety. That said, sobriety is like Zen—a process that starts over and over with each breath. Suzuki Roshi once said, “The most important thing...
Geshe YongDong Losar, a Tibetan lama who emigrated to Canada in his late twenties, decided that he wanted to learn how to play golf. Enter Jesse Moussa, professional golfer and private golf teacher. As the two men spent time on the golf course together, they came to...
Just before dawn, when the world is still and dark, we renew our devotion to compassion as our hearts turn toward light. A single candle flickers on the shrine, the air alive with presence and prayerful intent. In this threshold between night and sunrise, between...
Why meditate, and what will we learn from doing it? Is it just about reducing stress or finding a little more ease in our lives? Or is it something more? In the opening lines of the Dhammapada, which is a well-known collection of verses of the Buddha’s teachings, the...
Andrea Miller: You are an executive producer of the new documentary Wisdom of Happiness. As you define it, what is happiness? Richard Gere: We all want to be happy, but we have different definitions of what that is. That’s why we have these conflicts in the world: We...
1. Loving-Kindness Susan Kaiser Greenland leads us through metta meditation, showing how simple phrases of goodwill can dissolve fear and open the heart to connection. Buddhist tradition tells of a time, centuries before the common era, when five hundred monks set out...
“The wound is where the light enters you.” ~Rumi “I can’t do anything right. There’s something wrong with me.” My daughter said these words quietly, almost as if she didn’t want me to hear them. But I did. And the moment I did, something in my chest cracked open. I...
I arrived in Minneapolis at 10 p.m. I live in Madison, Wisconsin these days, but I grew up here. My mom lives here. My 20-year-old son is a student at the University of Minnesota, where I was an undergraduate, as were my father and my grandfather. I have deep roots in...
The sky stretched wide and bright above the golden cottonwoods of October. Nestled in the ancient Sangre de Cristo Mountains, I felt myself as much a part of the earth as the ravens, spotted towhees, and pinyon jays, as well as the flora—juniper, piñon, and...