Sylvia Boorstein on how to give our children — and ourselves — hope in a worrying time. Question: I grew up under the shadow of nuclear war. Today, my children fear for the future of the world because of climate change and Donald Trump — and nuclear war too! While I know that Buddhists are supposed to transcend hope and fear, I don’t think it’s good for children to grow [...]
Emptiness and Existence
The Dalai Lama takes us step by step through the famed logic of Madhyamika, the Middle Way that defeats all extreme views of reality. To generate the type of love and compassion that motivates you to seek buddhahood, not for yourself but for the sake of others, first you must confront suffering by identifying its types. This is the first noble truth. From the time we are born [...]
Up in Smoke: A Buddhist pot-smoker on quitting weed
Pot use is finding new acceptance across America. So why, after a long love affair with weed, has this Buddhist kicked it to the curb? I’m pretty pro-marijuana. Certainly people can have problems with it—people can have problems with just about anything—but lots of people are able to use pot more or less harmlessly, and have enjoyable, even fruitful experiences doing [...]
5 Reasons to Meditate
Yes, it's a strange thing to do — just sit there and do basically nothing. Yet the simple act of stopping, says Pema Chödrön, is the best way to cultivate our good qualities. Here are five ways meditation makes us better people. The mind is very wild. The human experience is full of unpredictability and paradox, joys and sorrows, successes and failures. We can’t escape any [...]
Doing Nothing
Karen Maezen Miller on how meditation helps her bring "doing nothing" into everything she does. There must be something in the connotation of the word "being" that makes it seem like the opposite of "doing." I say that because I'm sometimes asked how, as an avowed meditator, I ever get things done. Perhaps they picture me curled up in a corner. A regular meditation [...]
Lama Willa Miller’s advice for climate change activists
Lama Willa Miller talks to Lion's Roar deputy editor Andrea Miller about how to build a movement that can change the world. Lama Willa Miller offers advice for activists on working with emotion, community, and uncertainty. Read Lama Willa Miller's article from the May 2018 Lion's Roar magazine "5 Buddhist Practices to Face the Truth of Climate Change and Take [...]
Integrating Yogacara in Your Practice
Yogacara provides us with a useful conceptual framework for understanding the mind that can transform our thoughts and emotions, says Guo Gu. He offers a practical four-step process for integrating the Yogacara teachings in your practice. Buddhist practitioners are all too familiar with the ups and downs of meditative experience, but most have no idea why certain experiences [...]
Irish Buddhist Union established to represent Buddhists in Irish society
The newly-formed union is the first organization speaking on behalf of Irish Buddhists. Seven sanghas have come together to establish the Irish Buddhist Union (IBU), a new organization that will represent Buddhist ideals and principles in Irish society. “The IBU intends to lobby government to ensure that the Buddhist point of view is included in areas such as religious [...]
The Cage Fight in My Head
From a young age, Cameron Conaway was trained to channel rage into violence. Years later, he learned he could transform his anger into something else. Trigger warning: abuse. For many years, my childhood abuse simmered as rage within me at all times. Memories of feeling helpless and neglected haunted me. I couldn’t stop them from replaying in my mind and I didn’t have the [...]
The Suffering of Busyness
When life starts moving fast, Charlotte Rotterdam asks herself, “Can I just stop?” I grew up with the idea that the rich and powerful lounged on a beach all day, without a care in the world. Now, I feel like everyone proves their social status by flaunting how many commitments and responsibilities they have. A recent study found that busyness rivals wealth as a symbol of [...]
