Aware of Suffering

Gil Fronsdal wrote the wonderful words of wisdom for us to be aware of suffering in Tricycle Magazine recently. He has been practicing in the Soto Zen and Vipassana traditions since 1985 and guides the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. I have read many of his articles and met him one day several […]

Love By Nyanaponika Thera

Love By Venerable Nyanaponika Thera Love, without desire to possess, knowing well that in the ultimate sense there is no possession and no possessor: this is the highest love. Love, without speaking and thinking of “I”, knowing well that this so-called “I” is a mere delusion. Love, without selecting and excluding, knowing well that to […]

Taking Refuge In Kindness

Taking refuge in kindness is coming home to yourself with a gesture of kindness when you are feeling anxious, lonely, depressed, and down on yourself. Tara Brach teaches us to have a little self-compassion: The way of healing and homecoming begins with what I call “a gesture of kindness.” You might for instance put your […]

Forgiving Ourselves And Others

Last week, I wrote an article titled,  A Wise And Understanding Heart. In this article, I reported on my Bar Mitzvah speech in which I asked God for “A wise and understanding heart to discern between good and evil.” Today, I read an article in Tricycle Magazine about The Power of Forgiveness by Gina Sharpe. […]

Is There A Quickest Path To Enlightenment?

When Shinzen Young is asked, “Is there a quickest path to enlightenment?” he says, “Perhaps, but I don’t think it’s currently known by humanity. In our current stage of spiritual science, different approaches seem to work for different people. That’s why I like to give you folks a wide range of contrasting techniques to choose […]

We Like Pleasant Meditative States

These words of wisdom came Joseph Goldstein in the Tricycle Daily Dharma for August 11, 2013. Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield are the founding fathers of vipassana in the West. He has taught Buddhist meditation worldwide since 1974. A co-founder and guiding teacher of the International Meditation Society (IMS), he also helped envision and establish […]

If You Want To Change Your Life…

If you want to change your life, you have to change yourself. So how do you go about doing this? Phillip Moffitt may have some good answers for you. In his DharmaWisdom e-Teaching, which I received today, he talks about fundamental changes, not just job, car, house, etc. He says that according to the eightfold path, […]

Love Letter To The Earth

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (known as Thay by his beloved followers) and Parallax press have announced the publication date of a new book titled, “Love Letter to the Earth.” The book will be published on Tuesday, June 11. The publication coincides with a meeting of International Vipassana Teachers at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, […]

Happiness And The Experience Of No Self

Polly Young-Eisendrath is a scholar of  Buddhism and Western psychology. She gave this Tedx talk at Middlebury University on Getting Free Of Self-Importance Is The Key To Happiness. The gist of her talk was that self-consciousness and self-centeredness lead us into the experience of self conscious emotions. She lists shame, guilt, envy, and jealousy as the […]

Three Frames Of Insight From Zen Master Albert Einstein!

I bet you didn’t know that Albert Einstein was a Zen Master! How did I come to this conclusion? Buddhists talk about two broad types of meditation: samatha (calming) and vipassana (insight). One develops samatha and that leads to vipassana. The insights in these frames can be the results of insight meditation. They came naturally […]