Zen teacher and Unitarian Universalist minister James Ishmael Ford offers a commentary about how we got to Charlottesville and where we go from here. If you’re not familiar with the run-up to the Charlottesville demonstration, let me briefly outline what has happened. It started with some people announcing a protest of the removal of a statue honoring a Confederate [...]
The Long Goodbye of Alzheimer’s
She’s no longer the grandmother you remember. Marguerite Manteau–Rao on how to love and accept your loved one as she is now. Question: What does Buddhism offer me about relating to my grandmother who has Alzheimer’s and is no longer the person I once knew? Answer: Buddhist practice gives you a place to acknowledge and hold your grief. The ambiguity of the slow, [...]
5 Ways Not to Bite the Trump Hook
Getting hooked by your habitual reactions isn’t going to help anyone, says Susan Piver. She suggests five ways you can respond more skillfully. Pema Chödrön famously introduced us to the notion of shenpa, which she defines as "biting the hook" of our habitual reactions. When someone leaves us, we may bite the hook of grasping. When something unfair happens, we may bite [...]
How Do I Deal With Painful Thoughts of Revenge?
You needn't give harbor to thoughts of ill will, says Lewis Richmond, no matter how justified they seem to be. Question: Someone did a real wrong to me recently and now I’m haunted by thoughts of revenge. Although I think they deserve it, I know I shouldn’t try to hurt them back. How do I deal with these painful thoughts of revenge while still recognizing the harm that was [...]
Practicing the Dharma in Uncertain Times
During times of pain and confusion, we arrive at the perfect place to deepen our practice of awakening. Following the results of the US presidential election, Jack Kornfield shares how to practice the dharma in these uncertain times. When times are uncertain, difficult, fearful, full of change, they become the perfect place to deepen the practice of awakening. After [...]
How to Welcome the End of the World
What is the best response to difficult and uncertain times? Welcome. John Tarrant, Roshi offers 10 Zen pointers on the practice of welcoming. Old pirates, yes, they rob I; Sold I to the merchant ships, Minutes after they took I From the bottomless pit. —Bob Marley Bob Marley’s version of a rough patch is that pirates snatch you from the slave pit, and then they rob you [...]
“You’re Never Happier Than Your Least Happy Child”
Meditation teacher and Lion's Roar contributor Sylvia Boorstein answers a reader’s question about how to be happy when her children are not. Dear Sylvia: In the May 2015 magazine's “Meet a Teacher” department, you said a motto that represents you is “You are never happier than your least happy child.” Is this always true? My children are chronically miserable for complex [...]
Failure Is the Name of a Song
Alternative rock bands belt out songs about it, great poets honor it, and all of us have smacked headlong into it. Sit with failure long enough, says Ellen Graf, and it always transforms. My father’s best friend was Gilbert the carpenter, whose right hand often had a hammer-purpled thumbnail and whose broad mouth was always almost laughing. One summer when I was a little [...]
It’s Okay. Really.
"The world I inherited was a broken, unjust world—a world unspeakably far from okay," says Jiryu Rutschman-Byler, examining what it means to be "okay". One chaotic day in the temple kitchen during the first years of my residential Zen practice, as I ran harried with a pan of food from the oven to the buffet table, my teacher stopped me in my tracks. As he walked through the [...]
Minding the News
How can we follow the news in ways that nurture – and don’t diminish – wellbeing? Author, Buddhist, and media scholar Holly Stocking offers some guidance. I began to think about the harm that mindless consumption of the news can do after hearing of a spiritual teacher who cautioned his students about going to the mall. The mall can be a place where we feed our afflicted [...]