If it’s negative, just don’t do it again.   That’s how to purify your negative karma: repenting, turning away from it and vowing never to do it again.  Learn your lessons.  Cultivate the positive.  That will purify us, without need for guilt or fear. What’s gone is gone. We can be free and clear now […]

Interbeing “When we look deeply into a sheet of paper, we see that it’s full of everything in the cosmos: the sunshine, the trees, the clouds, the earth, the minerals, everything—except for one thing. It’s empty of one thing only: a separate self. The sheet of paper cannot be by itself alone. That is why […]

We Can’t Overlook Our Bodies There are two truths in Buddhism; one is relative and one is absolute. We tend to want to be in the absolute, where we are all the same, we are all one. But that is not where our suffering lies. Our suffering lies in the relative truth, in how we […]

“People who dwell on this perceived instability are likely to experience greater uncertainty than those who dwell on fixed categories. For some, such uncertainty represents an absence of personal control. From a mindful perspective, however, uncertainty creates the freedom to discover meaning. If there are meaningful choices, there is uncertainty. If there is no choice, […]

The Weary Advocate’s Guide to Happinessby Heather Lyn MannFor twenty-five years I worked on the front lines of environmental justice. Thirteen years ago I adopted Buddhism as a spiritual practice. In many ways daily meditation, Sutra study, and retreats with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh transformed my advocacy methods and goals, but the stress and […]

Good Impatience, Bad Impatience Impatience can be very good by helping us not put up with tyranny, but it can distort our view of what is possible and how to bring about change. We have to cultivate patience so that our perception isn’t distorted. – Paul Ekman, “The Best and Worst of Us”