One of the most intense spiritual experiences I’ve ever had was at a loud rock concert in the middle of an amusement park. In 1986, at age eighteen, I went with my sister to see The Smiths one drizzly evening at Canada’s Wonderland, outside of Toronto. Our family had...

It’s eighth-century India. On the vast, steamy Indo-Gangetic Plain sits Nalanda University, a Buddhist center of learning that’s also a monastery with some ten thousand students and two thousand teachers. Among them is a young monk named Shantideva. While other monks...

‘A teaching stripped of depth may become a mere fashion, a temporary adornment rather than a transformative force. While these applications are not without merit, they fall short of the practice’s true purpose: liberation from Dukkha.’ Everyday Buddhism

‘It mostly requires a deliberate effort to identify oneself with the joys and successes of others.’ Ajahn Chah

‘Finding joy in the happiness and success of others, has not received sufficient attention either in expositions of Buddhist ethics, or in the meditative development.’ Ajahn Chah

‘Followers of the Way, do not seek for anything in written words. You will tire your heart and inhale icy air without profit.’ Zen Master Rinzai

The Meaning of Human Dignity It’s hard to lay down a simple definition of human dignity that everyone would agree with. Human dignity is an idea we seem to understand intuitively rather than through a formal definition. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

'The deep source of realisation comes with constancy.' Hongzhi Zhengjue

My work in caregiving, both in hospice and at Rikers Island’s jails, has brought me face-to-face with pain, sorrow, loss, terror, fear, frustration, and anxiety. Since shutting down is not an option—I have found that I cannot serve without feeling—I am well-steeped in...

I recently sat down with my son to watch an old season of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One episode begins with Splinter, the mutant rat sensei and adoptive father of the Ninja Turtles, standing in a meditation posture. He’s just beginning to settle into the...