By John Pendall Like most red-blooded Americans, I am quite stubborn when it comes to what I perceive as subjugation. This stubbornness has led me from Zen teacher to Zen teacher, usually dispersed with periods of lackluster practice and cognitive dissonance in between. But it is entirely possible to practice Buddhism without a [...]
By Tammy T. Stone One morning recently, I got up early, at 5:00 a.m., to meditate. It was the first time in awhile I’ve successfully managed to greet the day in its dark infancy---an empowering feeling once the deep longing to return to sleep subsided. My mind raced the entire hour. I tried [...]
By Heidi Bourne “I want this…I don’t want that.” How often this goes through our minds and drives our actions. We are masters of perpetually seeking what we like and rejecting what we don’t like. If we could pause long enough to see what’s right in front of us---really check it out, we may [...]
By Rick Hanson See Part 1 here. Brain and body benefits of meditation The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a brain region that is ground zero for a lot of very important functions. For one, it's the part of the brain that manages what's called "effortful attention," which is basically paying attention in a deliberate [...]
By Daniel Scharpenburg Of all the things my teacher transmitted to me, he emphasized Hua Tou Meditation as the most important. It was the favorite meditation style of Master Xu Yun, who was my teacher's teacher's teacher. It was a favored practice of a lot of Chinese Zen Masters, but Masters in other countries usually [...]
By Nina Rubin No matter how much hipster font is used, how many hashtags I see, I still can't help but feel left out. Like most people who wake up and check social media, I'm bombarded with well-designed memes, inspirational stories, personal words of affirmation, Deepak Chopra's exquisite mantras and other social media trends [...]
By Andrew Peers Woke up this morning, put my body and mind on and stood up. Opening the window for some fresh air, I bend through the knees a couple of times with arms stretched out at chest level. "Anda... one, anda two, anda... in, anda out... and in…and to hell with this!" The fresh [...]
By Daniel Scharpenburg "Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." ~ Dr. Seuss Buddhism is an umbrella term that describes several different beliefs and practices that are designed to bring us closer to enlightenment. "What is enlightenment?" is a question beyond the scope of this article, but I'll just say it's [...]
By Andrew Peers In his book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1973) the young monk Chogyam Trungpa, friend of fellow Trappist monk and writer Thomas Merton, wrote about the dangers of what he called ‘spiritual materialism.' The materialism of the economy appears to drive souls together in a collection of separate units [...]