Blog: Saying Yes To Life As It Is

Blog: Saying Yes To Life As It Is

Zen teacher Ed Brown is a brilliant cook and founder of the Greens Restaurant in San Francisco, famous for its natural foods cuisine. But during Ed’s early days as a cook at the Tassajara mountain retreat center, he had a problem. No matter what recipes or variations...
Flusso e Presenza

Flusso e Presenza

Che cosa si frappone tra noi e la felicità? Si tratta di un’indagine importante nella nostra vita. Quando sei davvero felice, prova a chiederti il perché. Cosa sta succedendo dentro di te? Troverai che ci sono due dimensioni. Una è quella della presenza. Quando...
Part 1 – Freedom: Seeing Who Is Looking Through the Mask

Part 1 – Freedom: Seeing Who Is Looking Through the Mask

We suffer when we are identified with our egoic conditioning and unable to recognize the spirit – the love and awareness – that animates our own and all beings. In this talk we explore how recognizing our vulnerability and basic goodness helps us to see through the mask and realize who is here.

Blog: Pain Is Not Wrong

Blog: Pain Is Not Wrong

Many years ago when I was pregnant with my son, I decided to have a home birth without drugs, assisted by a midwife. My hope was to be as wakeful and present as possible during the birth, and while I knew the pain would be intense, I trusted that my meditation and...
Cultivating Equanimity (Duck Meditation)

Cultivating Equanimity (Duck Meditation)

Equanimity, the mindful presence that neither grasps nor resists experience, is the grounds for unconditional love and wise action. This talk explores the conditioning that entraps us in reactivity, and two primary pathways for coming home to this natural state of balance and presence.

Committing to Joy

Committing to Joy

What makes joy rare? How do we awaken this beautiful capacity to embrace life? In this talk we explore the obstacles to joy and the attitude and practices that free us to “love what is.”

Inviting Mara to Tea

Inviting Mara to Tea

  This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!… The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door...

Cultivating Compassion

We each have the potential to live with a compassionate, open heart. In this talk we explore the conditioning that closes us off to authentic caring, and the ways of deepening our attention that help us live to include widening circles of beings in our heart.

Inquiry and Naming: Practices to Dispel the Trance

Inquiry and Naming: Practices to Dispel the Trance

Sometimes, when our carefully constructed lives seem to be falling apart – when we get a divorce, lose a business, or are laid off, for example – we can torture and berate ourselves with stories about how we’re failures, what we could have done better, how no one...
Creazione di un “altro irreale”

Creazione di un “altro irreale”

E’ facile rimanere indifferenti a storie che leggiamo sul giornale, su Internet o vediamo al telegiornale su persone che soffrono a causa della disoccupazione, della perdita di persone care, della guerra o di disastri naturali. Sempre più, nel nostro mondo,...