Blog: Notes on Healing and Awakening

Blog: Rare and Precious Joy

Blog: Rare and Precious Joy

When I talk to people about how much they experience joy, most say, “Not so much.” Joy is not a frequent visitor, and when it does appear, it’s fleeting. Joy arises when we are...

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Compassion

Compassion

This is one of my favorite little stories: One afternoon, a tired-looking dog wandered into my yard and followed me through the door into the house. He went down the hall, lay...

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Blog: A Heart That Is Ready for Anything

Blog: A Heart That Is Ready for Anything

A Heart That Is Ready for Anything ~ When the Buddha was dying, he gave a final message to his beloved attendant Ananda, and to generations to come: “Be a lamp unto yourself, be...

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Blog: The Mystery of Who We Are

Blog: The Mystery of Who We Are

I heard a story when my son was in a local Waldorf school, and I loved it. The children were in art class seated in different tables, working hard at their projects. One little...

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Blog: Emptiness Dancing

Blog: Emptiness Dancing

This entire living world - including these forms we call self - is a creative arising and dissolving of empty awareness. I love the Zen phrase “emptiness dancing,” because it...

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Blog: Happy For No Reason

Blog: Happy For No Reason

Happy for No Reason - For years I’d heard that qigong was an ideal meditation for physical healing, and when I first experimented with it, I did find that the practice helped me...

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Blog: The Three Qualities of Awareness

Blog: The Three Qualities of Awareness

About 2,600 years ago, when Siddhartha Gautama (the soon-to-be Buddha) sat down under the bodhi tree, his resolve was to realize his true nature. Siddhartha had a profound...

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Blog: The Backward Step

Blog: The Backward Step

Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa once opened a class by drawing a V on a large white sheet of poster paper. He then asked those present what he had drawn. Most responded...

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Blog: Defending Against Loss

Blog: Defending Against Loss

The Buddha taught that we spend most of our life like children in a burning house, so entranced by our games that we don’t notice the flames, the crumbling walls, the collapsing...

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Blog: “Please Love Me”

Blog: “Please Love Me”

Indian teacher Sri Nisargadatta writes, “The mind creates the abyss. The heart crosses over it.” Sometimes the abyss of fear and isolation is so wide that we hold back, unable to...

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Blog: Prayer in the Face of Difficulty

Blog: Prayer in the Face of Difficulty

Ask the friend for love Ask him again For I have found that every heart Will get what it prays for most. Hafiz When offered with presence and sincerity, the practice of prayer...

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Blog: Meeting Our Edge and Softening

Blog: Meeting Our Edge and Softening

It’s another morning, another day of having to live inside a hurting body inherited from a little known, rare genetic condition. I try not to think of how it used to be. I can...

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Blog: Deep Listening: Ear of the Heart

Blog: Deep Listening: Ear of the Heart

Most of us consider listening a great virtue. We love having others listen to us with interest and care, and we hope to be good listeners ourselves. But for most of us, listening...

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Blog: Learning To See Past The Mask

Blog: Learning To See Past The Mask

My friend Richie and I met when we were juniors in college. A shy, thoughtful African American man, he was known for carrying his camera everywhere, listening as others poured...

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Blog: Awakening Through Anger

Blog: Awakening Through Anger

One evening after my Wednesday night meditation class, Amy, a member of our D.C. meditation community, asked if we might talk for a few minutes about her mother, a woman she...

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Blog: Entrusting Yourself to the Waves

Blog: Entrusting Yourself to the Waves

I was drawn to my first Buddhist mindfulness retreat during a time when my son, Narayan, was four, and I was on the verge of divorce. During a slow, icy drive through a winter...

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Trusting the Gold: Uncovering Your Natural Goodness

Trusting the Gold by Tara Brach

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