It is embarrassing to admit that even after forty years of trying to practice without “gaining ideas,” I still catch myself believing that the real practice is happening somewhere else—on a cushion, in a cave, anywhere but here, standing at the sink with a pile of dishes and one small black pot with a layer…
This mind of ours is remarkable. Our cognitive power has carried us to the top of the food chain on this planet, and perhaps soon on others, as we plan the colonization of Mars. But the mind can also make us feel miserable, stressed, and confused. Our cat Piko does not seem concerned about what…
There is a story by Mark Twain about someone who dies and goes to “heaven” and gets a pair of wings and a harp. At first, they used the wings as a way of moving around the new place, and plucked on the strings of the harp trying to get some divine tunes out of…
The title here steals from Carson McCuller’s remarkable debut novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, published in 1940 when she was only 23. Our mind can easily turn into a lonely hunter when it thinks there is something to get or achieve in meditation.When we eat breakfast, can we just eat? Just taste the…
Asked once what a contemplative life had given him, the thirteenth century Japanese Zen teacher Dogen answered in four words: enlightenment is intimacy with all things. Mindfulness lets us see a flower, or watch a sunset, or eat a mango, with nothing standing between us and the experience. When we are this intimate with a…
I get a fair amount of my Buddhism from comedians. Garry Shandling, who spent years close to Thich Nhat Hanh’s community and died too young in 2016, used to tell a story about the day he told a joke to a room full of Buddhist monks. One of the monks was the Dalai Lama. The…
I read a story the other day, attributed to Nikolai Gogol, about a horse stuck in the mud. It struggled and struggled to free its hooves. When it finally did, a fly flew up from the horse’s tail to its head and said: We did it! I smiled. Yes, sounds like something I would say!…
I am often asked why is hard to meditate every day? Despite the utter simplicity of the practice itself, why is it so difficult to consistently sit down and meditate? One of the best answers I know comes from Diana Winston, who is the Director of Mindfulness Education at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center.…
The news. OMG, how to deal with the news? The horrors in Ukraine, and the suffering of forced migration are just one of multiple national and world crises, many impacting people of color and the LGBTQ communities + disproportionately. And yesterday the leaked draft U.S Supreme Court majority opinion that is likely to strike down…
When asked about the fruit of meditative life, the 13th century Japanese monk Dogen Zenji replied: “enlightenment is intimacy with all things.” Mindfulness allows us to intimately see a flower, or watch a sunset, or eat a mango, with nothing in between us and the experience. Breath by breath we deepen our connection with life…