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 with [...]
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 so. But [...]
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 [...]
Why famed feminist bell hooks reads patriarchal writing
bell hooks, one of America's most influential feminists, says some writing she loves is written by patriarchal men. In this clip, she explains why she reads it anyway. This clip is part of a conversation between bell hooks and Sharon Salzberg, sponsored by Lion's Roar in partnership with the Garrison Institute and the JCC Manhattan. Read the whole [...]
How RAIN Can Nourish You
Jack Kornfield teaches us the transformative mindfulness practice known as "RAIN." Mindfulness does not reject experience. It lets experience be the teacher. With mindfulness, we can enter the difficulties in our life and find healing and freedom. There are four principles for mindful transformation of difficulties that are taught in Western mindfulness retreats with [...]
I Vow Not to Burn Out
Mushim Ikeda says it's not enough to help others. You have to take care of yourself too. At the end of January, one of my close spiritual friends died. A queer Black man, a Sufi imam “scholartivist” (scholar–artist–activist) and professor of ministry students, Baba Ibrahim Farajajé died of a massive heart attack. He was sixty-three, and I’m guessing he had been carrying [...]
Awake in the Wild
Whether we're in a pristine rainforest or our own backyard, says Mark Coleman, nature is always available to deepen our mindfulness. When I moved from England to the U.S., I fell in love with America's vast wilderness and bountiful areas of natural beauty. As a longtime meditator, I had spent many years practicing indoors in meditation halls. But it wasn't until I began [...]
Going Outside
When life gets too busy, Kathleen Dean Moore remembers the childhood joy of nature. For many years, my life has been impossibly over-scheduled. I finally resorted to computerized, categorized, color-coded to-do lists. I so single-mindedly finished and deleted tasks from the list that the consonants wore off the delete key on my laptop, leaving only e e e, and then the [...]
Pema Chödrön & k.d. lang talk Buddhism, creativity, and “gapaciousness”
The beloved Buddhist teacher and famed singer joined Sounds True founder Tami Simon for a lively and insightful conversation about meditation, learning from hard times, and what it means to get “gapacious.” The evening was a benefit for the Pema Chödrön Foundation and Tools for Peace. Tami Simon: Pema, you’re turning seventy-nine in July. I’d love to hear about the things [...]
The Do-Nothing Farmer’s Guide to a Perfect Harvest
Mark Frank’s five steps to successfully doing nothing — in your garden or any other part of your life. I discovered “do-nothing” farming in my reading of Masanobu Fukuoka, author of One Straw Revolution and one of the pioneers of natural farming and permaculture. After farming for six years with his words in my heart, I have found that Fukuoka’s “do nothing” does not mean an [...]
