“Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz I used to walk into a room and check everyone else’s emotional temperature before I noticed my own. A tightened jaw meant I should get quieter. A distracted answer meant I’d done...
As I’m nearing 94, in December, I’m finding my own relationship to age, sickness, and death has changed. When you read about the life of the Buddha, you may get the impression that meditation offers the key to freedom from all suffering. Well, that’s not quite true....
‘It's sometimes easy to confuse concentration for awareness.’ Buddhist meditation
Relief awaits. The post 15-Minute Neck and Shoulder Stretches to Ease Stiffness and Soreness appeared first on Yoga Journal.
On Monday I was honored to attend a gathering to mourn the passing and celebrate the life of a great American bodhisattva. Robert Thurman died on June 16 at his home in Woodstock, New York at the age of 84. He was probably the preeminent American Buddhist of our...
My mountain of a dog, Monty, is bouncing around the foyer, pawing at the door, whinnying and whining like a racehorse straining at the bit. We’ve just adopted this big guy—ninety-five pounds of pure strength and sweetness—and he’s eager to muscle his way past my legs...
When I was a child, I found a secret place in the bayberry bushes. In the summers my family floated free from the known world—the world that was measured by carpools and sidewalks—and went to the seashore. It was lonely for me there; I felt alone in my separate self,...
Soon after moonrise, Venus glistens awake to the southwest. An oil lamp is set aflame, a dim reading lamp is tugged to light. Prostrating on all fours, I touch my forehead to the cold oak floor. I stand, adjust a white chunni, or scarf, over my temples, and rest my...
As the Uganda Buddhist Centre (UBC) marks its 20th anniversary this year, a group of Buddhist teachers and supporters has organized to help the center secure a piece of land they say could determine its future — and protect a fragile ecosystem on the shores of Lake...
The dancers weave a graceful grapevine step, holding objects of enjoyment mounted on colorful ceremonial scarves — musical instruments, flowers, perfume. Wearing long, silk, Tibetan gowns in bright hues, we circle the ritual mandala in Tara Mandala’s prayer hall in a...