Happy New Year! Wishing us all a new kind of 20/20 vision—an awakened vision that is broad and deep. May we begin to see and sense ourselves–every part of ourselves, even the wounded and raging parts—as part a greater whole. Recently, in my local meditation circle, we have been talking about difficult things, including racism…
“My guru told me ‘Be like Gandhi,’” Ram Dass told me once during an interview. “Gandhi said, ‘My life is my message.’” The words came haltingly, short phrases followed by long pauses. The former Dr. Richard Alpert, the once eloquent spiritual seeker and psychedelic rebel, sat in a wheelchair, hunting for words, often coming up…
The Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn taught people to take good care of their anger, not to push it away but to hold it with kindness, as we would a wounded child. This is a pretty good description of the practice of mindfulness: we offer ourselves the gift of nonjudgmental awareness. This is awareness is…
Why not begin 2018 with forgiveness? And why not start with you? Forgiveness, like gratitude, is a practice that can be cultivated one moment at a time. Forgiveness is the opposite of indulgence, grounding us, reconnecting us to humility and humanity. In forgiving ourselves, we remember that we are human, subject to causes and conditions.…
Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the day when the North Pole is tilted farthest from the sun. Ancient people observed this day, watching the stars and the shortening days, patiently abiding and taking note until one day…it changed. They learned that the darkest day is followed by a little more light.…
This path of awakening is a process. The truth we seek is not a concept or philosophical formula. It is a felt experience of living, of consciously joining our experience, whether it is grief or laziness or anger, feeling it and seeing it from the inside. The truth begins to appear in those moments when…
