Welcome dear friend, So honored that you have taken the time to visit. For those who do not know me, my name is Trudy and I’ve been practicing mindfulness meditation for many years. Sitting in stillness has helped me sustain joy through all the ups and downs of life. On this site you’ll find an abundance of… Continue reading
One of the things that strikes you the most about being around the Dalai Lama is his playfulness, his joy. He comes right out and says it. He says, “You know, if I go around and feel like ‘I’m special, I’m the Dalai Lama,’ it’s terrible and I don’t ever think that way.” He’s really… Continue reading
In this video, I offer the first of three teachings I want to share with all of you from the time I spent with the Dalai Lama. People everywhere find inspiration in his life and in his teachings – you certainly don’t need to be a Buddhist. The philanthropic work we do through our Insight in… Continue reading
Decades ago in the ’70s, before the Dalai Lama became famous, his smiling face was on the cover of a newspaper called The Snow Lion. The quote under his photo struck me so powerfully that I cut out the cover page and stuck it on a kitchen cupboard where it yellowed and tattered over the… Continue reading
At the beginning of each of our retreats for professional caregivers who work at the bedside of the critically ill and dying, I tell a true story about the nurses and doctors who saved my daughter’s life when she was 2 ½ and I was 24. I was studying with a developmental psychologist named Jean… Continue reading
These words from the Buddha say it all: “Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with their thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of their awareness.” In other words, what we choose to pay attention to, becomes the inclination of our hearts and minds. (The word he used in teaching is “citta”, which means heart-mind). He… Continue reading
The Power of Connection: Kindness and Compassion in the Digital Age | Jack Kornfield & Trudy Goodman at Wisdom 2.0 2018 How do we bring wisdom and compassion to our use of technology? There are many competing views on this. It is like the ancient story about six people who are blind touching different parts… Continue reading
Not one more. We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to make a choice to jump in front of an assault rifle to save the lives of students. We cannot allow one more family to wait for a call or text that never comes. Our… Continue reading
Each morning this week, His Holiness the Dalai Lama walks from his residence in Dharamsala, India, across a courtyard to the temple where participants in the 33rd Mind & Life meetings stand with palms together awaiting his arrival. Two men walk in front of the entourage; a maroon-robed monk swings a big censer of smoking… Continue reading
We left Kyoto’s budding plum blossoms and camellias opening under grey skies, a smattering of tears falling as I looked out the rain-streaked window of the train to Osaka airport. Although we were here for less than a week of rare, liberated wandering through Zen temples, gardens, ancient sculptures, paintings, walks, I felt completely at… Continue reading
The Buddha’s original instructions for meditation, or dhyana, ask us to go into a secluded forest and sit under a tree, a quiet place to allow deep concentration. If you’ve ever meditated outside in nature, you can feel the support of plants, landscape, the earth, just as you are buoyed by different energy when you… Continue reading