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 →

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 →

I’m in San Francisco at the Wisdom 2.0 conference asking how to 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 of an elephant and describing what they discover. Touching the side, one… Continue reading →

bell hooks: I began writing a book on love because I felt that the United States is moving away from love. The civil rights movement was such a wonderful movement for social justice because the heart of it was love – loving everyone. It was believing that we can always start anew; we can always… Continue reading →

Ram Dass, speaking from his wheelchair, said: “It’s easier to go around the world to help cure blindness and build hospitals than to need someone to pick me up and put me to bed.” Even when we’re able-bodied, we know what he means. It’s easier for me to help you than to ask you to… Continue reading →

The Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn, my first teacher, spoke to us about the importance of having what he called “bone”. We intuitively understood what he meant: the inner strength that comes from having the courage to be fully present with experience as it’s unfolding. The bones of our skeleton create the structure for all… Continue reading →