All I had to do was tell myself: if it doesn’t work, I only need the grit to start again—just like when my mind wandered in meditation.
You have a quote that I love. You say, ‘Most of one’s own troubles, worries, and sadness come from self-cherishing, self-centeredness.’ But don’t we need to be somewhat self-centered in order to succe...
We live so much of our lives pushed forward by these if only thoughts, and yet the itch remains. The pursuit of happiness becomes the source of our unhappiness.
Unlike many of the faiths I'd come across as a religion reporter, the Buddha wasn't promising salvation in the form of some death-defying dogma, but rather through the embrace of the very stuff that w...
Serendipitously, on the very night of my meeting with Ben, I had scheduled a dinner with Mark Epstein. In the taxi on my way downtown I called Bianca and told her how it’d gone. He’s right, she said....
RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification Recognize was self-explanatory. Using my David Westin example, in those moments after our—even in the best light—quite ambivalent meeti...
One of the most interesting discoveries of this whole journey was that I didn’t need my demons to fuel my drive—and that taming them was a more satisfying exercise than indulging them.
I’m thinking: Yes, right—there is a point to sitting around all day with your eyes closed: to gain some control over the mind, to see through the forces that drive us—and drive us nuts.
As best I could understand it, the Buddha’s main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won’t last. A central theme of the Buddha...
She nailed the method for applying mindfulness in acute situations, albeit with a somewhat dopey acronym: RAIN. R: recognize A: allow I: investigate N: non-identification Recognize
On retreat, with nothing to look forward to, nowhere to be, nothing to do, we are forced to confront the wound of existence head-on, to stare into the abyss and realize that so much of what we do in l...
How often are we waiting for the next pleasant hit of... whatever? The next meal or the next relationship or the next latte or the next vacation, I don't know. We just live in anticipation of the next...