I’m spending this month at Jack’s house on a writing retreat. Yesterday I finished a piece I’d been working on and, I had to admit, it’s not very good. This is the opinion of the inner critic, my own personal editor who looks over my shoulder and remarks, “No one would want to read this,… Continue reading →

Teaching our Deepening Your Practice class a couple weeks ago, Elizabeth Rice shared an inspiring Ted talk on climate change by a then 15-year-old Swedish girl named Greta Thunberg. Incredulous and outraged that adults are doing nothing to stop the warming of our planet, Greta went on a school strike for the climate! Now 16… Continue reading →

Last night I came home from teaching an unplanned retreat with my godson, Will Kabat-Zinn, filling in for my dear friend Sharon who got sick at the last minute and couldn’t go. One of the participants wheeled himself into the meditation hall in a wheelchair. His name is Leon Ford, a 25 year old African-American… Continue reading →

As long as my mother was alive, she sent her children a Valentine’s Day card. The envelope was adorned with red heart stickers and on the back, in increasingly tremulous handwriting, she would write S-W-A-K (sealed with a kiss). The sweet wishes didn’t vary from when we were children to my being a grandmother. It… Continue reading →

The Buddha encouraged his community to meditate in the forest at the foot of a tree, beginning a long tradition of reverence for nature in Buddhism. Spending time in nature, we can sense the intimate connection between the natural world and our own nature. There’s a circuitry between the health of the environment and our… Continue reading →

Just home from traveling halfway around the world for a couple weeks of meditation retreat. Since there are wonderful retreat centers right here in California – Spirit Rock, Big Bear, others – why go spend weeks in the heat of Southern India, in an austere ashram accompanied by clouds of mosquitoes, swarms of ants and… Continue reading →

After my divorce from a husband I adored, I was in shock. How could someone I trusted so completely have turned out to be different from what he appeared to be? During the course of our marriage, I’d occasionally had the sense that something was wrong, and I would ask him about what I was… Continue reading →

“A spiritual tradition is not a shallow stream in which one dips one foot and retreats to the shore, it’s a mighty tumultuous river that rushes through one’s life.”– Bhikkhu Bodhi   As one year morphs into the next, it’s a good time to pause and ask what you most want for 2019? Asking an… Continue reading →

Today is the solstice, the first day of winter, when Earth’s axis tilts the Northern Hemisphere farthest from the sun’s warmth. It’s the shortest day and the longest night of the year. This year a full moon (called the Cold Moon, or the Long Night Moon, by Native Americans) coincides with the solstice, along with… Continue reading →

For years, my vision couldn’t be corrected properly with glasses. Unlike most people, I’ve been waiting eagerly for the time to have cataract surgery where a new lens can be put into the eye. Usually it’s a simple, routine procedure, but with some damage to my corneas, it’s trickier. Thursday was the surgery on the… Continue reading →