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"Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten." ~The Buddha Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma

With palms together, Good Morning Everyone, The sun has not yet come up this morning and we are waddling around the apartment doing our morning things. I am very sore. Yesterday I dug a bunch of holes in what felt like concrete for soil outside our back door so that we could plant flowers and a few vegetables. I do not have solid shoes and wore my running shoes to pound on the shovel. Big mistake. Yesterday afternoon my knee began to ache. I tried a short run to loosen it up. Another big mistake. I stopped mid first interval repeat and walked gingerly back to my car. This morning I used Aspercreme and am favoring it considerably. No scheduled March for Babies for me this morning! Later this morning, though, we are scheduled to offer a meditation period to children at a mini peace camp in Anthony, NM. I am, as always, looking forward to this experience. Children are usually a delight to work with. We have sold the remaining texts for the Zen 101 Class and I ordered two more copies. They...

Post written by Leo Babauta . Today I turn 38 years old. Ive been on this earth for nearly four decades. Being in a city like Paris, where there are buildings that measure their age by the millennia, helps put that brief blink of the eye into perspective. But still, it amazes me that Ive been around that long I feel like Ive barely begun. Im not usually one to make a big deal about my birthday, but as always, it has given me an opportunity to reflect. I thought Id share a handful of lessons Ive learned as a helpful guide for those just starting out. This post is for my children, whom I miss greatly across the distance of a continent and an ocean. I hope this will shine a dim light on the streets they have to navigate ahead of them, though I know theyll still stumble as much as I have. This is for you, Chloe, Justin, Rain, Maia, Seth and Noelle. I apologize for the length. 38 Lessons Ive Learned in My 38 Years 1. Always swallow your pride to say youre sorry. Being too proud to apologi...

Hi Everyone! The weather is sunny and warming up here, so I don't want to spend all day hanging around on the computer today. However, there are some good blog posts I'd like to share before I head outside to play. First off, I have written two posts on my new relationship blog, including a different take on the British royal wedding that just occurred. Barbara O'Brien's recent post on perfection

Albert Einstein , one of the greatest minds to ever live, chose purposefully not to even memorize his own telephone number. He obviously had enough brain capacity to memorize a short series of numbers, but still, he chose not to. He viewed memorizing these digits as a waste of precious life energy. Instead, he used this energy to memorize more important things, which lead to revolutionary accomplishments in the field of Physics. The same principles of energy that Einstein acknowledged, apply to us. It is easiest to see the effects of this energy in extreme situations. If we are deprived of food for too long, our bodies won't have enough energy left to perform physical tasks. If we don't sleep for two days straight, we won't have enough energy to partake in a meaningful conversation. Not eating, or not sleeping will drain us of our energy reserves. We all understand this because it's common sense. But there are also many other negative habits, which we simply aren...

"The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze." ~The Buddha Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma

Here are some notes I made for the presentation I gave last night at yoga teacher training on aparigraha, or non-greed and non-grasping. At the end are some questions you can contemplate and offer answers to - if you're so inclined - in the comments section. Enjoy!Yoga Sutra II.39aparigrahasthairye janmakathamta sambodhahTranslation adapted from T.K.V. Desikachar:One who is not greedy is secure.

"Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine." ~The Buddha Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma

I have been considering for a long time having a blog to discuss dating and relationships. It's a subject I'm totally fascinated with, and have found myself reading more dating blogs, forums, and discussions in recent months. I'm not only interested in personal stories, but also the ways in which gender, shifting social scripts, and divisions between thoughts and actions play out on a larger,

"He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye." ~The Buddha Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma

Writing a book or a blog for beginners can easily fall into the bad habit of dumbing down Buddhism. As a consequence, what the beginner learns is not Buddhism. Here is an example of what I mean. In the book Buddhism for Beginners , Thubten Chodron answers the question, "What is the essence of the Buddha's teachings" with this: "Simply speaking, it is to avoid harming others and to help them as much as possible." Sorry, but that ain't the essence of the Buddha's teaching, especially, not when the canon can say what the essence is, and do it clearly. The following passage is the Patimokkha (S., prtimoksa ), which can be found in the Dhammapada and the Mahapadana Sutta of the Digha-Niakaya. Patimokkha , by the way, has to do with release/ mokkha from bondage. Forbearance and forgiveness is the highest kind of penance ( tapas ). Nirvana is declared to be the highest (object) by the Buddhas. A mendicant ( samano ) does not harm others. One who harms other...

This is a guest post from Courtney Carver of Be More with Less When I started living with less, I had no idea that my closet would be such a big part of my transformation. There used to be a time when I thought an overflowing closet and a mountain of debt was normal. Student loans, car debt and credit cards were just part of life and shopping was a recreational activity. Everyone around me wanted more, so I wanted more too. After reading books like Your Money or Your Life , and blogs like Rowdy Kittens and mnmlist , I learned that the answer to happiness is not more. It is less. How I started living with less Paid off debt. I knew the #1 way that I could simplify my life was to pay off my debt. Last summer, my husband and I paid our last debt. We said no to extravagant vacations and other luxuries and focused all of our financial efforts on eradicating our debt. The freedom that comes with no monthly payments is powerful. Stopped buying stuff. I used to shop when I was bored, or fee...

With palms together, The morning opened like a flower today. The sky is clear and the sun has risen over the mountains. Our mountains here are rarely blue. Instead they are often magenta. I love this color. It is so warm and passionate. I see these mountains as warm and passionate, yet know, when deep inside them, they are brilliant, active, and often forbidding. Life exists in these mountains, as one behind the other, they rise into the New Mexican sky offering cover and safety for those creatures who reside in them. We have an obligation, it seems to me, to care for them. A local Representative, Steve Pearce, has decided to introduce a bill in the House that would ease or eliminate many of the protections of our delicate desert and mountain areas. We must ask, where is his mind? Ranchers and Four Wheeler enthusiasts love him. After all, the land is for us to use, is it not? No, Steve, it isnt. It is there of its own, with its own life and we are its enemies or its stewards. The choic...

First written when he was only nineteen, Alan Watts' book, The Spirit of Zen (1935), is a much different book when compared with most books written by contemporary Western Zen writers. At nineteen, Watts apparently did his homework and had enough insight into Buddhism to at least see the scope of Mahayana Buddhism, and on the same track, but more importantly, realize that Mahayana did not deny the Self as did Hinayana Buddhism. He wrote: "The Mahayana, on the other hand, considers that a true Self is found when the false one is renounced. When man neither identifies himself with his person nor uses it as a means of resisting life, he finds that the Self is more than his own being; it includes the whole universe. The Hinayana, realizing that no single thing as such is the Self, is content with that realization; hence it is a denial of life, conceiving Enlightenment only as the negative attainment of understanding that all separate entities are anatta without self, and anicca w...

"We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize." ~Thich Nhat Hanh Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma

I managed to lock myself outside of my house early this morning while investigating some birds sitting in the pine tree out in front of our house. I was wearing my pajama shorts and a t-shirt with my hair all wild looking from just waking up. And, I was barefoot!! I ended up walking a mile and a half on a rough, dirt path to reach my wife's place of work to get the spare key and a ride home!! As I was walking across the prickly path and sharp stones, I contemplated what it must be like for those who don't have shoes or socks to wear on a daily basis . I reflected upon my time living in Africa and remembered that many Africans walk barefoot everyday while carrying heavy loads of goods; usually in blazing heat. Yet, despite all that hardship, they never complained in my presence or indulged themselves in self-pity; and often they were in good spirits. I was so impressed by those Africans that I donated my shoes to friends there upon my departure--as well as my clothes. I litera...

Here's a new work, 24"x 24". As time goes on I find I like to work on bigger surfaces. An interesting admission from someone who started their art career on 5"x7" card stock! I was so intimidated by large surfaces but now I find small ones constraining. Another hard left for the guy in the impermanence corner! "All things arise and they pass away," as the the little chant goes that we

Even though I have other things I would rather talk about, I feel compelled to share the current response from the Kanzeon Zen Center board in regards to the Genpo Merzel debacle. It's quite a detailed letter, which offers some clarifications that those following the story need to have. But honestly, after reading it, I just feel sad for those folks. The broken sangha. The loss of revenue. The

Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. ~Henry David Thoreau Post written by Leo Babauta . We are not consumers. We are people. We are not living lives meant to earn money in order to support a shopping habit, or a large home and two cars, or lives of luxury eating and entertainment. We are not living to support the corporations. And yet, if you were to take an objective, outsider look at our society, it would seem that we are. We spend our childhoods precious years that are far too fleeting in schools geared to give us the best chance at getting a job. We then graduate and are highly pressured to go to college (getting into large debt in the process) so we can have the best chance at getting a good paying job. Then we claw at each other for the coveted but limited good paying jobs, and the winners are rewarded with big homes and SUVs and nice clothes (and lots of debt to go with all that). The losers are s...

"I promise myself that I will enjoy every minute of the day that is given me to live." ~Thich Nhat Hanh Technorati Tags: Buddha Buddhist Buddhism Meditation Dharma