What is Vipassana meditation and how does it differ from other forms of meditation? Trudy Goodman: All meditations have something good to offer. That’s important to know. The only bad meditation is the kind you don’t do. What I appreciate about Vipassana, or Insight...

Let’s have a taste of mindfulness. Take an apple out of your refrigerator. Any apple will do. Wash it. Dry it. Before taking a bite, pause for a moment. Look at the apple in your palm and ask yourself: When I eat an apple, am I really enjoying eating it? Or am I so...

A friend or family member shares the news of a life-threatening diagnosis or we see them stumble on a curb or over their words, and in that moment we realize that we’re about to become a companion to someone facing death. Perhaps it’s a conscious choice. Maybe we feel...

Here’s my spiritual practice these days: moment-to-moment I try to be mindful of the arising of ill will in my mind and try to meet it with clear, compassionate response. This reflects the Buddha’s basic instruction on how to work with our negative patterns:...

When we investigate the experience of anxiety, the Western approach takes the experience itself as its starting point. What triggered the anxiety? How can we work with it? How can we make it go away? We can never solve our lives. Life is not a thing that can be broken...

Life is stressful. Although some people claim that contemporary life is especially stressful, I am skeptical whether that is so. Living beings have always had to struggle for food, for shelter, and for safety. They have always had the stress of finding a mate and...

There She Was Emily France on Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway follows a single day in the life of a British socialite in 1923. The plot is simple. Mrs. Dalloway buys flowers in a London shop, has a visit from a former suitor, and hosts a party. But...

According to the Buddha, the basic nature of mind can be directly experienced simply by allowing the mind to rest as it is. How do we accomplish this? Let’s try a brief exercise in resting the mind. This is not a meditation exercise. In fact, it’s an exercise in...

‘If only beings would recognise their own true face as that of the Tathagata whom they so eagerly seek.’ Shen Hui

‘Everything is True nature. If you apply effort to anything other than finding it, even the smallest amount is a waste.’ ManGong Sunim