It’s our second date. We talk animatedly over Darjeeling and scones. I’m struggling to focus on his words, distracted by his ocean-blue eyes and wondering what our first kiss will feel like. Suddenly he leans across the table and kisses me slowly and very, very well....
On a very basic level all beings think that they should be happy. When life becomes difficult or painful, we feel that something has gone wrong. This wouldn’t be a big problem except for the fact that when we feel something’s gone wrong, we’re willing to do anything...
The global pandemic that began in 2019 has upended almost every facet of our lives, from our health to our homes, from our sustenance to our livelihood. An initial wave of job losses in 2020 became a wave of job leaving in 2021. But whether we lost our job or quit our...
Consider the comfort of your bed. Are you enjoying it, or are you mentally somewhere else, stressing about something that happened during the day or might happen tomorrow? Mindfulness practices promote being in the here and now over being in the past or the...
On the eve of New York City’s lockdown for the pandemic, I felt the fear of the unknown that was in the air. So I meditated with a crooked tree with branches snaking out sideways, and insights from that tree meditation helped me weather the pandemic over the next...
‘Between mind and mind there is no gap. They all flow into the sea of original nature.’ Nan-yüan
Everyone, no matter how privileged, has moments when their world falls apart. Fear, despair, and grief can overwhelm us as we struggle with debilitating illness, economic insecurity, or the death of a beloved spouse or child. If we are members of a marginalized group,...
Ever since I can remember, I’ve battled a deep and insistent melancholy—an undercurrent of sorrow that seems almost intrinsic to who I am. Growing up I countered this sadness with a lot of effort, a lot of doing. I was always pushing—pushing to be the first, to be the...
1. Mindfulness of Breath While there are many variations of this practice, this simple version is common to many Buddhist traditions and is a mainstay of the secular mindfulness movement. It is a foundation of the path to enlightenment and offers immediate benefits to...
‘The word 'self' denotes the same thing which the word 'Buddha' denotes.’ Manjushri