Within the Japanese Buddhist community, this week marks a special Zen Buddhist celebration across Japan called Obon.

Have you experienced times of deep hardship and suffering? It's in those moments that peace can often feel elusive, leaving us asking: can peace and suffering coexist?

Like most of us, you probably find yourself scrambling to catch up to your life. It doesn’t matter if it’s with your job, the kids and all of their activities or even the laundry. There never seems to be enough time in any given day to feel somewhat accomplished. And then I realized the importance of […]

Here’s a great practice to incorporate to bring mindfulness into your daily life. Essentially, it’s “meditation in action.” I like to say that when we meditate on the cushion each day, it’s more of our “formal practice” but that the rubber hits the proverbial road when we are out in the world practicing mindfulness and […]

How can we access love, compassion and wisdom? I always tell my practitioners and clients that the entry into this is already within us. But what about when we aren’t feeling particularly compassionate, wise, or loving? How can we go about accessing these parts of ourselves that seem distant and somehow “out there” and unattainable? […]

Part 4 of 4 If you’ve been following this series over the past three weeks, we’ve been taking a very rudimentary look into the first three of the most basic and most fundamental of all Buddhist teachings: the Four Noble Truths. This fourth post brings us to Buddha’s prescription for how we embark on the […]

Part 3 of 4 In this third part of the Four Noble Truths, we’ll explore the truth of how to cease suffering. It’s in this third Noble Truth that we can find hope! You might remember from the First and Second Noble Truths that we begin to understand that life involves suffering. It’s only then […]

Part 2 of 4 Last week, we discussed the very foundation of Buddhist teachings, the Four Noble Truths (see Part One of this series to get caught up!). We explored the reality that life includes “suffering.” It’s simply part of what it means to be human. In essence, our suffering can only be caused by […]

Part 1 of 4 It's your soul that's hungry, not your body. Many of us are curious as to what Buddhism is all about. In my view, Buddhism is not a religion but rather a way of life.  In this four-part blog series, we'll explore the foundation of Buddhist teaching, the Four Noble Truths. Over […]

One of the greatest gifts we could ever give to our family, friends, co-workers, and even our pets is the gift of presence.  What does that mean? The gift of presence? You know the typical scenario we can find ourselves in: emails galore, text messages that need to be returned, kids, work, and family obligations […]