Last week I tried something different. At the end of the summer, I often sit a retreat at the Insight Meditation Society. But this year, the center’s schedule and my own weren’t compatible, so I decided to undertake a stay-cation of sorts and do a self-retreat at home, in the middle of Cambridge. The plan was […]
Minute of Mindfulness: My blog on the teachings of the dharma.
Wise Effort 2/3
Continuing with the theme of Wise Effort in meditation, I wanted to pick up on a thread from Ajahn Sucitto. He writes: “Energy has to be sustainable. For this reason, it’s good to assess if there are things you’re doing that you don’t need to do, so that your resources don’t dissipate. Even as you […]
Wise Effort 1/3
Last week, I was visiting with a friend who is passionately involved with a project to bring sustainable energy to the millions of people on the planet without adequate energy access. He was calling the initiative Sustainable Energy For All (SEFA) [Acronym, mine]. As I listened to him rattle off jaw-dropping facts and figures, my […]
Wise Livelihood
The theme of Wise Livelihood is something that I think about, a lot. Again and again, it raises its head, like a koan. What does a life of integrity and purpose look like? Back in college, I didn’t have a clue what to do with myself. I could see my peers ramping up towards respectable […]
Wise Speech
Ok, back to Wise Speech. No doubt, bringing mindfulness to habits of speech is one of the trickiest, hardest and rewarding domains of practice. I was raised in family and school environments where the art of verbal ju-jitsu was not only required for self-preservation but also a highly-esteemed character trait. The perfectly-timed, razor-sharp, dryly-delivered insult […]
The Intention of Compassion
Here, in New England, we’re bracing ourselves for a winter blizzard. Unfortunately, because of the nasty storm predictions, I decided to reschedule this weekend’s Yin training at Fresh Yoga, in New Haven, CT, to July 11-14. Alas, safety comes first. But this gives me a moment to carry on with the contemplations on the Eightfold […]
Thoughtless Thoughts
Over the years of practicing and sharing meditation, I’ve long believed that attaining a thoughtless state is not the goal of practice. Rather, the aim of practice is to bring mindfulness to thoughts, effectively disempowering them and liberating oneself from their tyranny. I still, more or less, believe all that to be true, but have […]
The Intention of Good Will
Before I continue with reflections from the Eightfold Path, I wanted to indulge in some shameless name-dropping. If you’ve been to my classes, you’ve caught wind of this. But during my last retreat at IMS in December, I re-met, an intellectual hero of mine, Robert Wright. I say re-met, because 8 or 9 years ago, I bumped into […]
Thoughts on Thinking
From the previous discussion of Wise View, we move along the Eightfold Path to contemplate Wise Intention, sometimes referred to as Right Intention. The Buddha describes Wise Intention as a threefold subdivision: the intention of renunciation, the intention of good will, and the intention of harmlessness. Each of these is meant to provide the antidote to […]
A Mind With a View
In the last Minute, I gave a brief overview of the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path and how it works to uproot problematic patterns within the mind and leads to an experiential peace beyond the scope of conditioned existence. At first glance, the process seems to unfold in a stepwise progression. The path begins with forms of […]
Radiant and Pure
A frequently cited passage from the Buddha’s teaching is this: “the heart’s nature is intrinsically radiant; defilements are only visitors.” (A 1.61) The term ‘defilement’ is slightly anachronistic. But used here, it refers to the spectrum of mind-states that obscure the heart-mind’s essential radiance. So anything from greed, hatred, delusion, to irritation, restlessness, jealousy, doubt, distress, depression, etc… […]
When The Zen Hits The Fan
I hope this finds you well, relatively cool, and relaxed. In spite of my name, I find the summer to be the most challenging of seasons. It’s the heat, you see. It makes sleep problematic. It’s hard not to sweat profusely, all the time. It’s hard to stay cool-headed. Or as a modern idiom might phrase it: […]
Stop Making Sense
I know, I know. I KNOW. You’re probably wondering where the hell I’ve been! I apologize. Again. Many of you have taken notice of the gaping swaths of time that have passed between these newsletters. To quote Wodehouse: “I [can] see that, if not actually disgruntled, [you] are far from being gruntled.” I’m sorry. Of […]
The Buddha's Resolve
Last week, I encouraged you to consider the difference between aspirations and goals, particularly as they relate to your New Year’s intentions and meditation practice. This week, I’ll look a little more closely at the optimal mindset for the cultivation of those aspirations. And this will consider a second definition of ‘resolution’: the mental state of […]
Inspired Aspiration
Here we are again. Composing – on paper or in the hopeful recesses of our mind – the list of personal shortcomings to sort out this coming year. Diet, fitness, money management goals often topping the chart, articulated in well-meaning phrases: “Lose 10lbs by February”, “Get exercise everyday”, “Set up a retirement plan”. Whatever the […]
Food For The Heart
If I may begin with a cliché, the holidays are upon us. Round about now, many folks brace themselves for an onslaught of Dionysian disportment while at the same time a chaste eye is cast towards January first, marking this date for when they might begin undoing a month’s damage to their waist-lines and dietary […]
Detachment vs. Non-attachment
Have you ever found yourself in a yoga or meditation class, listening (while you can) to the soporific voice of the teacher waffle on and on about the spiritual merits of ‘letting go.’ The injunction, “Just let go!” ranks high amongst the reigning spiritual cliches. An inner-voice might pugnaciously rebel: “Hello no! I’m clearly a […]
Equanimity: Balanced Poise
This week, we come to the third of the stabilizing factors of mind: Equanimity. Ajahn Thanissaro employs a useful analogy for this factor of mind: “There’s a passage in the Canon where the Buddha’s teaching Rahula how to meditate, and he starts out by telling him to meditate with a mind like earth. When people spit […]
The Peace of Non-Agitation
On this beautiful Fall afternoon in New England, I wish to share with you some reflections on the Sixth Factor of Awakening: Tranquility (Passaddhi). In general, I would hazard to guess that most students of yoga or meditation arrive at the threshold of the spiritual life with a strong desire for an increased dosage of calm […]
Concentration: Moment To Moment
From single-pointed concentration (ekaggata samadhi) to moment-to-moment concentration (khanika samadhi). Once the mind gets reasonablyestablished on the breath, it’s important to shift the focus to include all aspects of the present moment, not just the breath. I say reasonably because this is a rather arbitrary moment in practice — the moment when one feels, “Yes, the mind is […]