I’ve always loved that old song, “Try a Little Tenderness,” performed so memorably by Otis Redding, who died far too young at the age of 26. It begins so quietly—almost like someone sitting across the table, offering a bit of simple, hard-earned advice. The song notices a kind of tiredness.…
I have been keeping company with two remarkable Buddhist nuns through their writing: Ayya Khema and Shundo Aoyama, Roshi. They come from very different worlds, but they meet in the same Dharma. Ayya Khema was born in Berlin to a Jewish family and fled the Nazis as a child, eventually…
Many of us first find our way to Buddhism through one of two doors. One looks like religion—robes and rituals, chanting, the promise that all this effort will bear fruit in another lifetime. The longest of long games, for sure. The other resembles the self-help aisle—mindfulness apps, eight-week courses, and…
For my seventieth birthday, a dear member of our sangha handed me a book called This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom by Martin Hägglund. It’s a dense read — more philosophy than bedtime comfort. And it’s had me thinking deeply about what we’re really doing when we take our…
After decades of practice, I’ve come to one firm conclusion: mettā is the bee’s knees. Possibly the elephant’s knees. You see, the story goes that the Buddha once stopped a charging elephant with mettā — or unconditional goodwill — which suggests it may be more powerful than we give it…
I was texting yesterday with a friend I met in Sri Lanka. He wrote that on the local news there, they were showing a group of monks walking from Texas to Washington, D.C., carrying signs about peace and mettā, moving step after step along the highway. I pictured their feet…
We are acquainted with complication. We know the feeling of being tangled, knee-deep in old resentments or lost in anxiety, listening to the compelling arguments of our reactive mind. In these moments, we are, in a way, disconnected from ourselves. Being tangled up obscures the inner peace mindfulness is meant…
Life for me right now is good. I returned from two months of intensive practice in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. My health is OK. I even went to the gym yesterday. Yet stuff comes up. Not because of anything in particular. I’m sitting here typing this and I sense some…
Now, while loving-kindness and compassion might sound like these grand ideas, they’re actually really practical meditation practices. When you put in the effort, they truly transform your heart. Think of it as a master gardener bringing dead soil back to life. These practices can do the same for parts of…
What makes it so hard to stick with a simple meditation we do every day? What gets in our way, and how can we make meditation a regular part of our lives? The instructions are so simple: relax and just be aware of what is happening in the present moment.…