Paramita is a Sanskrit word that means “gone to the other shore.” Whenever I read this definition, I imagine myself swimming out to sea, leaving behind what is familiar but limiting in search of a more skillful way of relating to my life.  The six...

At age eleven, I went to a massive, marvelous playground. Part of it was labyrinthine and low-ceilinged, and it was almost meditative to crawl around in there, my eyes on the floor. At one point, though, I realized I was about to bang into another little girl. I...

A few weeks ago, I saw a six-year-old boy whom I’ll call Joseph in the emergency department where I work in western New Mexico. He was brought in by a local foster care service. Before I went in, the temporary guardian accompanying him told me what had happened. The...

About thirty educators, researchers, school founders, publishers, and longtime Buddhist practitioners gathered at Forest Creek Refuge in Oregon this past April to explore a deceptively simple question: What might Buddhist education for children mean in the...

In the Samyutta Nikaya, the Linked Discourses of the Buddha, we meet the awakened nun Venerable Vajira. One afternoon, she went to the Dark Forest to meditate, and there she was approached by the trickster Mara, the personification of all the obstacles to...

My parents were devoted, hardworking people and generous providers. There was little I wanted, within reason, that they didn’t find a way to give. And yet, growing up, there was something they could not offer—not because they didn’t love me, but because they didn’t...

When I was working as a senior editor at HuffPost in New York, the HR department launched a poster campaign with the bold headline “Bring all of yourself to work.” On seeing it, I joked to a colleague that if anyone actually took their heart into their hands and...

Some of the most meaningful shifts in our lives don’t come from avoiding difficulty but from discovering a new relationship to it. What feels like an obstacle becomes part of the path. Difficult experiences reveal unexpected wisdom, and confusion begins to give way to...

“Waiting is not mere empty hoping. It has the inner certainty of reaching the goal.” ~I Ching  Waiting has a bad rap in modern Western society. It’s not surprising that I had to look to an ancient Chinese text (the I Ching) in order to find a suitable quote to begin...