Like many Buddhist teachers, I’ve been busy for the past 6 months searching for a path of social activism that leads to both opposition and reconciliation.  Sweeping across the world’s democracies is a polarization of liberal and conservative ideologies, facing off against each other with anger and hatred.  In many First World countries, elections have

‘Tis the season of giving, and an excellent time to explore our capacity for generosity.  Being mindful of how it feels to be generous cultivates an open, loving heart.  This makes available to us the joys that come from recognizing what’s good in our world, and celebrating it through kindness.  In the Insight tradition of

The dharma, and mindfulness practice, offer us the best way to cope with the emotional firestorm that has followed the November 2016 elections.  Turbulent passions can make it hard to find wise speech and action that will be truly helpful.   When we take time to be with our inner experience and breathe through troubled feelings,

Recently my relationship with the dharma has taken me to topics that are politically controversial.  When I prepared a dharma talk on the second precept, about stealing, it seemed pointless to draw a boundary between theft between individuals and theft at the level of national and global societies marked by ever-widening inequality.   The principle of

There’s a saying that nursing a grudge is like taking poison and expecting it to make the other person sick.  Wishing bad things to happen to others does nothing to them, actually, but it does make us suffer.  The good news is that we can end this suffering. We seldom decide to have ill will. 

“Everything is always in transition, and we adapt.  Life is good,” I recently wrote to a loved one.  The past week has had an unusual number of daily-life problems, and I’ve done some serious adapting.  When I get knocked off balance, there seems to be three levels of recovery:  mindfulness, equanimity and serenity.  A very

When my Monday group met after the Orlando massacre, I read Thich Nhat Hahn’s poem about holding his face in his two hands to keep his soul from leaving him in anger.  Several people noted the hatred that must have motivated the shooting and how twisted the shooter must have been.  Then one woman spoke

When we understand that our journey on the Path is for the benefit of all, it transforms us.  It also uplifts all beings in a rippling effect from those touched by our lives, to all those they influence, and so forth, endlessly.  Good will is the cement that holds the dharma together.  It isn’t the

Loss is a constant part of life.  We lose car keys, cell phones, favorite sweaters and friends, sometimes those we dearly love.  We lose bits of health or abilities, and eventually, we lose life itself.  We take precautions and buy insurance to avoid losing things that are really important to us.  And like everyone else,

Take a moment and imagine that everything you do is done easily.  You live without tension or frustration.  You adapt effortlessly to the inevitable changes in life, guided by wisdom and kindness.  You live with ease. “Living with ease,” is a common phrase in metta practice, and an aspect of the teachings that is worth