Resting is a very importance practice, says Thich Nhat Hanh. Our physical body needs rest to restore itself, and our consciousness is no different. My dear friends, suppose someone is holding a pebble and throws it in the air and the pebble begins to fall down into a river. After the pebble touches the surface of the water, it allows itself to sink slowly into the [...]
How the Three Jewels Healed My Heart After Abuse
In the midst of an abusive relationship, Buddhist practitioner Ray Buckner says Buddhism's three jewels were painfully absent from their life. By taking refuge in each precious jewel — buddha, dharma, and sangha — they've found healing for a fractured heart. When I think of my experience with sexual assault and domestic abuse, I think of the three jewels of Buddhism. Years [...]
Beginning Anew
Thich Nhat Hanh on how to make the meaningful ceremony of "Beginning Anew" part of your life — including his unique practice of mindfulness, "hugging meditation." Beginning Anew is not to ask for forgiveness. Beginning Anew is to change your mind and heart, to transform the ignorance that brought about wrong actions of body, speech, and mind, and to help you cultivate your [...]
bell hooks and John Perry Barlow talk “prana in cyberspace”
From the Lion's Roar archives, a 1995 conversation between digital activist and lyricist John Perry Barlow — who died on February 7, 2018 — and social theorist bell hooks. John Perry Barlow: "On paper, you are my polar opposite [bell hooks: iconoclastic feminist, leading African-American intellectual, progressive Buddhist, self-proclaimed homebody], yet I feel none of that [...]
We Are All Wayfarers
Sylvia Boorstein considers metta practice in the words of Nyanaponika Thera: “love that embraces all human beings, knowing well that we are all wayfarers through this round of existence and that we all experience the same laws of suffering.” It's very easy to get annoyed, particularly with our loved ones. I’ve been married to someone for fifty-three years and in a close [...]
A Zen Priest at Harvard Finds the Key to Happiness
Robert Waldinger is a Zen priest and leader of the longest-running study of human happiness. As Andrea Miller tells us, he’s found that science and Buddhism agree on what makes life happy and meaningful. What makes life worth living? What really makes us happy? As a Zen priest and leader of the one of the most important studies of human happiness ever undertaken, Robert [...]
Intimate Relationship as a Spiritual Crucible
Living with someone we love, with all the joys and challenges, is one of the best ways to grow spiritually. But real awakening only happens, says renowned psychologist John Welwood, in the charnel ground where we acknowledge and work with our wounds, fears, and illusions. As seen inside the September 2017 Lion's Roar magazine. While most people would like to have healthy, [...]
Growing Together
Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how we can use loving relationships to cultivate the seeds of buddhahood inside us. To commit to another person is to embark on a very adventurous journey. You must be very wise and very patient to keep your love alive so it will last for a long time. The first year of a committed relationship can already reveal how difficult it is. When you first [...]
The Four Highest Emotions
Ayya Khema on cultivating loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — "the only emotions worth having." When we think of love, we have ideas that are purely personal and, on the whole, quite fanciful. They are based in general on our desire to be loved, from which we expect fulfillment. In reality love fulfills only the one who loves. If we understand [...]
Revisiting the Traditional Buddhist Views on Sex and Sexuality
When it comes to sex, Western Buddhists tend to be fairly liberal. But as scholar José Cabezón explains, Buddhist tradition takes a much more conservative approach, prohibiting, among other things, oral or anal sex, male homosexuality, and even sex during daylight hours. He challenges us not to dismiss traditional Buddhist views on sexuality but rather to critically examine [...]
