One of the Buddha’s most frequent admonitions is to live a life motivated by ahimsa, or non-harming. Before his awakening, the state of the world obviously troubled him, as he described here: Violence gives birth to fear. Just look at people and their quarrels. Seeing people thrashing about like fish in little water and seeing…
I have been keeping company with two remarkable Buddhist nuns through their writing: Ayya Khema and Shundo Aoyama, Roshi. They come from very different worlds, but they meet in the same Dharma. Ayya Khema was born in Berlin to a Jewish family and fled the Nazis as a child, eventually finding her way to the…
Many of us first find our way to Buddhism through one of two doors. One looks like religion—robes and rituals, chanting, the promise that all this effort will bear fruit in another lifetime. The longest of long games, for sure. The other resembles the self-help aisle—mindfulness apps, eight-week courses, and the sense that, with enough…
We realize everyone is experiencing the same impermanence that we are. This is one Buddhist insight I hang on to. It feels comforting. These are not my words. They were written by Kathryn Schulz, a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of the deeply moving Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude,…
How do we live our life knowing that it’s temporary? We have this opportunity to live this life, and we don’t know for how long. And we don’t know what will happen next. I am guessing most who read this blog, like myself, would say nothing happens next. But let’s agree we don’t want to…
Did you hear the one about the person attending his first meditation retreat? He asked the teacher if he could check his email during breaks. The teacher said yes, but avoid attachments. So let’s look at this question of attachments. What exactly are they and why should we avoid them? Buddhist philosophy approaches many of…
I am frequently asked if someone needs to be a Buddhist to benefit from Buddhist meditation. My answer is a qualified no. I say qualified because if I simply said no and left it at that, then mindfulness meditation would be no different from mindfulness as therapy, workplace stress reduction or a way to get…
I spoke on the phone the other day with a dear friend I had not seen in 40 years. We talked about how similar we are– we both suffer from spiritual yearning. Then she told me of her stage four breast cancer. She asked about teachers and online meditation groups. When I confessed feeling incompetent…
It’s amazing to reflect how much we don’t know. And how consequential our open questions are. When, and how, will this pandemic end? How many more will die? Will any of our loved ones die?’ Will I die from this illness? In Honolulu, our mayor just announced a lock-down for two weeks. But it could…
As a species we seem to have solidified a very real revulsion for the inevitable, as well as toward the smaller slights along the way. We hide death and suffering like some grand failing; we distract ourselves into oblivion as if to avoid taking our predicament seriously. Another of my early teachers, Sharon Salzberg, tells…