For me to be able to present a workshop based on early mindfulness teachings is a big thrill. The material at the time was so juicy, and it still is. It's about making everyday life the root of your dharma practice, not just incidental events that happen while you're trying

Compassion is natural; you don't have to force it; just open to the difficulty, the struggle, the stress, the impact of events, the sorrow and strain in the other person. Read more: Buddha's Brain, Happiness, Neuroscience, Just One Thing, Rick Hanson, Contemplative

Wherever she went, whether it be in a small park in India, or a hospital in Europe, inadvertently people would feel drawn to her. Not knowing anything about her, people would inquire as to who the petite Asian lady in the wheelchair was, noting they felt a special presence. In his bestselling book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying," her nephew, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinp...

"After this, I think I can retire," said my friend Varun Soni, the Dean of Religious Life at USC. At 36 years old, he is one of the youngest deans in the country and the first Hindu to hold a position of this kind. I've known Varun for over ten years, since he attended Harvard University's Divinity School with my brother, and we've been friends ever since. A second-generation Indian ...

Japan, heretofore a land unto itself, soothed by a unique combination of geographic isolation and Zen-Buddhist equanimity, has discovered the world can be kind. If the nation's leaders take this opportunity to encourage citizens to "open up," to emerge from their spiritual shell, Japan will become more confident, more productive and forward leaning. If not, she will retreat even deeper ...

What's happened in Japan affects all of us. Perhaps, like me, you've noticed a sober backdrop of stunned sadness that's been pervading our collective psyche. If we are to become more conscious human beings then each moment can be taken as an opportunity to wake up. What can we learn so that this tragedy helps us deepen our understanding and become more awake? A central tenet of existen...

There is a famous Buddhist saying: "It is not the appearance that binds you, it's the attachment to the appearance that binds you." What does that really mean, and how might it apply to you and me? If you and I are anything alike, then I know there is a constant hunger in you that longs for something. Just stop and look for a moment, and you will find it. You may be successful, yet stil...

Over the past month, there has been some speculation among members of the global Tamil community on whether Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Texas to obtain cancer treatment in secret. The story in itself is not particularly interesting, but it does have relevance for the post-conflict situation in Sri Lanka. Many reacted to the news not with sadness, but with a sense that c...

"If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?" -- Rabbi Hillel "The problem which divides people today is not a political problem; it is a social one. It is a matter of knowing which will get the upper hand, the spirit of selfishness or the spirit of sacrifice; whether society will go for ever-increasing enjoyment...

"In the beginning was the Word," according to the Bible. God's words created the universe; He spoke us into being. Words created our world -- literally. Words have power -- to uplift or to tear down -- to inspire or to incite -- to heal or to hurt -- to create or destroy. Words define our reality -- for better or for worse. In the aftermath of the massacre in Tucson, we hear much debate ...

-out crowds at events in the United States, Europe and South America, has recently moved in a decidedly...

So who are "you" anyway? By "you" I am referring to your identity, or the thoughts, beliefs, ideas and positions that are the basis of your sense of yourself. These are the things that the brain uses to create the experience of being unique, an individual separate from everything and everyone. It is what allows me to say, "I am Mark, and you are you." Zen Buddhists refer to this as the...

A five-year-old boy has been enthroned as the Sixth Living Buddha after selection by draw in Lhasa supervised by China. The boy, whose secular name is Losang Doje, was picked as the reincarnation of the Fifth Living Buddha, who died in March 2000. There was no mention of the enthronement on the Dalai Lama's Website or other Tibetan sites not controlled by the Chinese. Living Buddhas t...

I was excited to be able to address Lafayette College's Class of 2010 on the topic of "Awakening the Buddha Within." This very well might be the first time in Lafayette's history that the Baccalaureate Sermon was rendered from a Buddhist perspective, so I was thankful for this unique opportunity. The Baccalaureate Sermon has a long and proud tradition at Lafayette College. On June 16th, ...

By Chris Herlinger Religion News Service NEW YORK (RNS) In a city tired and edgy from a sagging economy, terrorist threats and a cold and wet spring, comes the Dalai Lama with a sunny message of hope. Despite a seeming endless supply of disasters and global woe, humanity is generally doing a better job of things that it used to, the Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureat...

Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced Tick-Naught-Han), is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, author, teacher and peace activist. His efforts to generate peace and reconciliation moved Martin Luther King, Jr. to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 and to call him "an apostle of peace and nonviolence". Nhat Hanh currently lives in Plum Village, a Buddhist meditation practice center and mona...

Socrates was a pretty fearless guy -- even death didn't faze him. In fact, about the only thing that scared the gadfly of Athens and father of Western philosophy was the new technology of reading and writing: He never put pen to papyrus, fearing that reading would foster forgetfulness and thwart the quest for wisdom. How do we know this? Because Plato, Socrates' star pupil, embraced re...

I know you are thinking I am going to write about some play group confession -- about how I did or did not join in singing The Wheels on the Bus and why that permanently impaired my children -- but today, in honor of Mother's Day 2010, I am going to take up the subject of most of the women I know who are now in play groups of another kind. The ones with our 85-year-old mothers who hav...

Provided you are an average westerner and not a news-addicted consumer, hearing the name Jerusalem probably evokes positive feelings in you. You imagine a city with a rich and glorious past, and the great people who walked its streets. It is the cradle of both biblical and western civilization, the city about which history's most touching poems were written and a destiny of eternal longin...

"I'd like you to join me in singing a Sanskrit ah," said Jack Kornfield, an olive-skinned man with bony cheeks and a salt-and-pepper mustache. And so, following his lead, 500 voices filled the Sheraton Hotel's Metropolitan Ballroom in a single, resonant tone: aaah ... "Now let's try harmony," he cooed into his microphone, quickly demonstrating a major third and perfect fifth before return...

Can you tell me What is Wisdom while standing on one leg? This was the challenge put to a rabbi of old. King Solomon said that wisdom was the knowledge and judgment to know right from wrong. He received his vaunted wisdom from God in a dream; would that we too had such dreams! "Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for he is more profitable than silver a...

If the totalitarian nightmare portrayed in George Orwell's 1984 strikes you as an implausible portrait of state control and repression, a single viewing of the Oscar-nominated documentary Burma VJ; Reporting From A Closed Country will quickly jerk you into reality. Using raw, eyewitness footage captured by underground, internet-equipped video journalists--members of Burma's gutsy Democrat...

"I'd like you to join me in singing a Sanskrit ah," said Jack Kornfield, an olive-skinned man with bony cheeks and a salt-and-pepper mustache. And so, following his lead, 500 voices filled the Sheraton Hotel's Metropolitan Ballroom in a single, resonant tone: aaah ... "Now let's try harmony," he cooed into his microphone, quickly demonstrating a major third and perfect fifth before return...

Did you ever wonder why we resist something that connects us to peace of mind and inner happiness? Isn't it ironic how often the best things for us can be what we avoid the most? Something like meditation, for instance, that can bring us such joy can appear as unimportant, boring, and we have little time for it. Yet this is like being addicted to poison while resenting the anecdote! Som...

"I'd like you to join me in singing a Sanskrit ah," said Jack Kornfield, an olive-skinned man with bony cheeks and a salt-and-pepper mustache. And so, following his lead, 500 voices filled the Sheraton Hotel's Metropolitan Ballroom in a single, resonant tone: aaah ... "Now let's try harmony," he cooed into his microphone, quickly demonstrating a major third and perfect fifth before return...

Did you ever wonder why we resist something that connects us to peace of mind and inner happiness? Isn't it ironic how often the best things for us can be what we avoid the most? Something like meditation, for instance, that can bring us such joy can appear as unimportant, boring, and we have little time for it. Yet this is like being addicted to poison while resenting the anecdote! Som...

Heaven, may I be a Yurikamome amid Chrysanthemum flowers at Gion Matsori? High over Yasaka, show me a bird's eye view of Kannon, the god of mercy Bosatsu. Eleven faces has Ju-ichimen; see them in The hondo of 33 bays at Rengeo-in. Kiyomizu Dera, inspired by Enchin. Let me ride on the wind like gails of Fujiin. Before I pass on I aim to seek 33 disguises peek by peek. Their piercing crys...

Heaven, may I be a Yurikamome amid Chrysanthemum flowers at Gion Matsori? High over Yasaka, show me a bird's eye view of Kannon, the god of mercy Bosatsu. Eleven faces has Ju-ichimen; see them in The hondo of 33 bays at Rengeo-in. Kiyomizu Dera, inspired by Enchin. Let me ride on the wind like gails of Fujiin. Before I pass on I aim to seek 33 disguises peek by peek. Their piercing crys...