Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It’s the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften…
Even in close relationships, spending time with a friend, even while helping others or doing other good works, if your attention is on what you are feeling, on what you are getting out of it, then you see these relationships…
To look for total satisfaction in oneself is a futile endeavor. Since everything changes from moment to moment, where can self and where can satisfaction be found? Yet these are two things that the whole world is looking for and…
Even on a small scale in daily life situations, such as when we feel bored or ill at ease, instead of trying to avoid these feelings by staying busy or buying another fancy gadget, we learn to look more clearly…
The force needed to empower wisdom is compassion. Both wisdom and compassion shift our sense of identity away from ourselves toward the wider human, biotic, and cosmic community to which we belong. —Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, “The Need of the Hour”
The recluse appears to be useless. He’s off in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing. And yet what he’s able to see because of his doing nothing is important for everyone. It would be nice if the shakers and the…
Like an umbrella, a mind is only useful when it is open. The first step toward maintaining an open mind is to understand the nature of mind or self. —Gerry Shishin Wick Sensei, “Zen in the Workplace”
If you really want to become skillful in your thoughts, words, and deeds, you need a trustworthy friend to point out your blind spots. And because those spots are blindest around your unskillful habits, the primary duty of a trustworthy…
Once you have located your own breath point with clarity, don’t deviate from that spot. Use this single point in order to keep your attention fixed. Without having selected such a point, you will find yourself moving in and out…
Lord Buddha says that all you have to know is what you are, how you exist. You don’t have to believe anything. Just understand your mind; how it works, how attachment and desire arise, how ignorance arises, and where emotions…