Video: Learning to Surf
With mindfulness, we are learning to observe in a new way, with balance and a powerful disidentification. We can begin to sense and observe the...
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Enacting Mindfully
Another means for working with difficulties is called Enacting It Mindfully. Let’s face it, we act out most of our desires anyway. In this way,...
Balancing What is Reactive
What is it that is reactive? Our minds are reactive: liking and disliking, judging and comparing, clinging and condemning. Our minds are like a balance scale, and...
Practice: Recognizing Our Mind States
You can begin to study the effects of the states of mind that fill your days. To start, it helps to become deliberately aware of...
Sacred Perception
The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible...
Optimal Mental Health
“With wisdom let your mind full of love pervade one quarter of the world, and so to the second, third and fourth quarter. Fill the...
The Two Dimensions of Consciousness
But this mirror is only one aspect of consciousness. Consciousness, like light, has two dimensions. Just as light can be described as both a wave...
The Primary Feelings
Buddhist psychology helps us distinguish two critical aspects of feeling. The first and most essential quality is called the primary feeling. According to this perspective,...
How to Begin Naming
Begin by sitting comfortably, focusing awareness on your breathing. As you feel each breath, carefully acknowledge it with a simple name: “in-breath, out-breath,” saying the...
Happiness of Being
Japan’s most beloved Zen poet, Ryokan, was known for being unpretentious and wise. Like Saint Francis he was a lover of simple things, of children...
Vulnerability and the Tender Heart
Several years ago some friends arranged for the Gyuto Tantric Choir, the Tibetan monks famous for their deep multivocal chanting, to perform in San Quentin...
Awakening Inner Wisdom to Navigate Through Difficult Times
by Diane Williams When the path ahead is unknown and may even appear menacing, how do we move forward with courage? Is it possible not...
