Video: Courage in Our Difficult Time

The value of our harshest difficulties is how honestly they cause us to question, how they intensify our courage and bring alive our deepest inner...

Audio: The Return Of Joy

If we cannot be happy in spite of our difficulties, what good is our spiritual practice? There is an unquenchable human spirit born anew in each...

Heart Wisdom – Ep. 106 – Responding to Fear, Tragedy & Injustice

For this episode, we went back into the archives to just a few weeks after the events of 9/11 for a lesson on how we...

The Courageous Heart

As children, many of us were taught courage in the form of the warrior or the explorer, bravely facing danger. In the Buddhist understanding, however,...

Fear of Freedom

People often prefer a very limited, punishing regime—rather than face the anxiety of freedom. — Jean-Paul Sartre Along with the joy of freedom is a...

Vulnerability and the Tender Heart

“Ultimately it is on our vulnerability that we depend.”—Rilke As children, many of us were taught courage in the form of the warrior or the...

Speak the Truth and Stand Up for Justice

The opposite of aggression is not passivity, it is true strength. When we have lost a sense of our innate nobility,we mistakenly believe in our...

Lean into the Wind

You are part of the web of life, so you don’t need to hold on so tightly. Ultimately, who you are is awareness itself. No...

Time for Truth and Reconciliation

I imagine that one of the reasons that people cling to their hate and prejudice so stubbornly is because they sense that once hate is...

Taming Addictive Tendencies of the Mind

Restraint serves as a counterbalance to the addictive tendencies of mind. There is a story in the Buddhist texts of a monkey living happily and...

Video: Inner Strength and Kindness: Practices for a Wise Life

You Will Survive

One of the world’s greatest examples of how to survive difficult times is Nelson Mandela, the first president of modern South Africa. After twenty-seven years...