Why Do We Suffer?

If you understood my last post, you may remember that there are many ways we cause ourselves to suffer. What we don’t realize is that often the suffering is momentary and we get lost in the story instead of recognizing the impermanent nature of our sensations, feelings and thoughts. Once we understand this, we can […]

“The Happiest Man in the World”

Last Thursday night, my wife and I attended a fund raising event for the American Himalayan Foundation with guest speaker, Matthieu Ricard, “The happiest man in the world!” Matthieu Ricard has a PhD in biochemistry and became a monk in the Tibetan tradition shortly after receiving it. He is also a humanitarian, advocating altruism and […]

Taking Care of Anger

At a recent meeting of our Mindfulness In Healing sangha (meditation group) we discussed the Mindfulness Training #6, Taking Care of Anger. This training reads, Aware that anger blocks communication and creates suffering, we are committed to taking care of the energy of anger when it arises, recognizing and transforming the seeds of anger that […]

Practice Kindness

One of the many things that you can do for your happiness and the happiness of others is to practice kindness. Kindness has the capacity to spread like wildfire. If you are kind to the grocery clerk who checked you out, he or she will be kind to the rest of the people she serves […]

A Song For All Beings

Last Saturday night, I attended a performance of A Song For All  Beings to a packed house. Composed and produced by Jennifer Berezan and friends, A Song For All Beings is based on the Buddhist practice of metta and the four immeasurable minds or Brahma Viharas (divine abodes) of loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and […]

7 Ways to be More Grateful

These 7 ways to be more grateful in life were written by Luminita Saviac – The Purpose Ferry. I find them to be very useful in light of my daily practice of gratitude. If you are not practicing gratitude on a daily basis, maybe you should begin. It is one of the fastest ways to […]

What is a Hero?

What is a hero? Do you really know? Is it someone strong and vibrant who goes off and slays your enemies and upholds your friends? Or is it a football quarterback who wins the Super Bows in the last second with his “hail Mary” throw? Christoper McDougall doesn’t think it is any of these.   […]

How to Navigate this Crazy World

These words of wisdom on how to navigate this crazy world came to me today from Dr. Lissa Rankin from her The Daily Flame email. I think that this is an important one to share, especially because we have been discussing deep listening and loving speech in our Mindfulness in Healing sangha for the past couple of […]

The Goddesses of Knowledge and Wealth

We don’t often think of the Goddesses of Knowledge and Wealth, but when we do, so says Deepak Chopra, we should think of the Goddess of Knowledge, Sarasvati. But from what I’ve seen in his daily emails, is his online programs pay homage to the Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi. In these emails, he is ABS […]

Man is Not the Enemy

With lots of unrest in the world and in the United States about the inauguration we have to remember that man is not the enemy. So who or what is the enemy? I would say that greed, aggression and delusion are the enemy – the three poisons taught by the Buddha. For example, in Tanzania, […]