I was talking to my daughter recently and found myself saying something that would have been unimaginable for most of my life: "I don't need certainty the way I used to." The moment the words came out of my mouth, I realized how much I had changed. For most of my life, I thought I […]
Generosity is the practice of giving freely and wholeheartedly—without expectation, condition, or agenda. When you give from the heart, something naturally opens. Compassion deepens. Loving-kindness expands. But when giving is tied to receiving something in return, it loses its purity. True generosity asks nothing back. In its essence, generosity dissolves the fear of scarcity and […]
What Is Detachment? Detachment allows you to become free from the mind’s natural tendency to want more of everything — more love, more food, more space, more achievements, and more accomplishments. When you practice detachment, you no longer get caught in the negative emotions that arise from unfulfilled desires. Instead of clinging to outcomes, detachment […]
In the Buddhist teachings, the Buddha identified what are known as the Eight Fundamental Realizations — insights designed to help us live in harmony with universal laws rather than in resistance to them. These realizations address common human misconceptions that create suffering. The First Realization is the Law of Impermanence. At its core, the Law […]
The Law of Least Effort is a timeless spiritual principle rooted in the wisdom that nature’s intelligence operates with effortless ease. Just observe: we don’t force the sun to rise, the flowers to bloom, or the tides to flow. Nature unfolds perfectly and spontaneously—without struggle or resistance. This law is also known as the principle […]
The only time we suffer is when we are arguing with what is. We believe that life—or people—should show up a certain way. When they don’t, we get upset. We throw all sorts of assumptions on top of their behaviors, their words, their choices... and we believe those assumptions to be the truth. Rarely do […]
When we embark on a meditation practice, we begin to notice when our mind strays into life’s obligations, personal stories, and anxieties. It’s only by noticing that we can change anything. This is why I always say that meditation is the art of building our “noticing muscles.” But growth and transformation aren’t limited to the […]
How we choose to use these last few days of 2024 will set the tone and determine next year. Many sit down at about this time of year and for the most part, simply make a list of “resolutions” of all the things they want to do differently in the upcoming year. It ends up […]
Self-sabotage occurs when the beliefs and desires we have about ourselves haven’t caught up with the beliefs and desires that our higher self has for us. As a result, when an opportunity for growth, happiness and fulfillment shows up in our life, our ego comes in to sabotage it. Usually, self-sabotage comes in the form […]
In the Buddhist practices, there are teachings to help ordinary people like us with connecting to our heart with openness and softness. These are called lojong teachings. The basic notion of lojong is that we can make friends with what we reject, those things we see as “bad” in ourselves and in others. At the […]