I first encountered the five remembrances when I was a chaplaincy student at the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies. Diana Lion, one of the teachers, handed us an altar card with five statements from the Upajjhatthana Sutta. Here they are in their blunt simplicity and...

Last week, while I was eating lunch with a friend, he brought up a subject many of us are talking about these days: we’re nearing the end of our lives and wondering what’s next. His brother-in-law had just lost his wife to pancreatic cancer; she died just weeks after...

  Going to a retreat or program is a wonderful way to deepen our meditation practice. But how do we stay connected with these waking-up practices when we go home to the myriad projects, emails, responsibilities, and distractions waiting for us? This is a question that...

‘When we are mindful and accept the way it is, then we are not creating hostility.’ Ajahn Sumedho

Years ago, I fell in love with a person I thought was my soul mate. We felt deeply for one another, yet we didn’t know how to make our relationship work. We would break up and make up, again and again. Sometimes he’d meet another woman, date her, and after some time...

‘Although the [Buddha's] teachings still exist, unless we follow them they can be of no benefit to us.’ Words of my Perfect Teacher

The Buddhist concept of mudita — sympathetic joy, or taking delight in the success of others — is headed to College Men’s Basketball’s Final Four. The Alabama Crimson Tide men’s basketball team has taken to the concept, as Chuck Culpepper reports for The Washington...

‘Just as any living beings depend on the great earth — so Bodhisattvas are all upheld by the perfection of wisdom.’ The Buddha

When someone is going through a big change in their life or facing something nerve-wracking, receiving a good luck wish from a friend can make a world of difference. I remember how supported I felt when my friends and family members personally sent me messages or...

Este verano, mientras visitaba a mi amiga y hermana de dharma, la Rev. Dana Takagi, me encontré con las enseñanzas del Daikoku. Takagi, maestra Soto Zen y profesora emérita de sociología en la Universidad de California en Santa Cruz, acababa de regresar de un viaje a...