If I view [everyday chores] as tasks to rush through on the way to something more important, they become a crushing waste of time. But from the perspective of Buddhist teachings, each of these activities is a golden moment, an…
We try to turn a profit in practice—to get something from it. We try to get better. We try to get enlightenment. We try to get seen for doing it right. What are we being stingy with here? Wholehearted surrender…
It is important to have strong spiritual friendships—not spiritual in the rarefied sense, but in a really down-to-earth way, to have good friends in the dharma with whom you can talk things over, share experiences, share difficulties and whose spiritual…
Skillful speech begins by refraining from lying, slander, profanity, and harsh language. We should avoid language that is rude, abusive, disagreeable, or malicious, and we should abstain from talk that is foolish, idle, babble, or gossip. What remains are words…
Noticing the space around people and things provides a different way of looking at them, and developing this spacious view is a way of opening oneself. When one has a spacious mind, there is room for everything. When one has…
One specific method for practicing mindfulness of body sensations is to focus your attention on sounds. Sounds, like everything else, arise and pass away. Just by listening, you can experience the insight of impermanence, an understanding the Buddha taught as…
The pillar of skillful speech is to speak honestly, which means that we should even avoid telling little white lies. We need to be aware of dishonesty in the forms of exaggerating, minimizing, and self-aggrandizing. These forms of unskillful speech…
All phenomena, the Buddha once said, are rooted in desire. Everything we think, say, or do—every experience—comes from desire. Even we come from desire. We were reborn into this life because of our desire to be. Consciously or not, our…
Witnessing an atrocity, observing injustice in action, or otherwise directly encountering the things that have historically been invisible is a way of shining the light of awareness into the dark corners of our world—much as meditation shines a light into…
Let your every deed and word and thought be those of one who might depart from this life this very moment. —Marcus Aurelius in “The Present Moment” by Jack Petranker