Zen teacher Brad Warner on the time he considered suicide—and the different kind of death he chose. I didn’t really know Tyler, but a lot of my friends did. And they were pretty sad when he killed himself last year. That led people to ask me—not for the first time—what the Buddhist view on suicide is. I gave the same answer I give when I’m asked about the Buddhist view on [...]
Set Your Intention & Rejoice in Your Day
Two candles, by Gerhard Richter. Thupten Jinpa teaches us two great practices to start and end every day. In the Tibetan tradition, we recognize compassion as both the highest spiritual ideal and the highest expression of our humanity. Even the Tibetan word for compassion, nyingje, which literally means the “king of heart,” captures the priority we accord compassion. In [...]
Matthieu Ricard’s Journey to Compassion
Scientist, monk, best-selling author, humanitarian—how Matthieu Ricard discovered that caring for others is the only answer. In a tent made of woven yak hair, a thirteen-year-old girl was stirring cheese in a cauldron over a clay hearth as blue smoke from the fire escaped through an opening in the roof. Her father had died the year before, and now her mother had tuberculosis [...]
How to Practice Metta with Children
You’re never too young to practice loving-kindness. Gail Silver on how to teach metta to your kids. When I returned home after attending my first silent retreat, I was overflowing with loving-kindness and found myself spontaneously reciting certain phrases of the metta prayer aloud: May you be happy. May you be safe. May you be strong. May you live with ease. “Did you [...]
How to Drop Into Your Body & Feelings
Photo by Helen A. Vink. A short drop-in practice from Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Relax deeply. Don’t hold onto anything. Completely let go of thinking and judging mind while gently maintaining the clarity and knowing aspects of mind. Now raise your arms to shoulder height, pause, and let them drop suddenly to your knees. As you drop your arms, breathe out forcefully. Then say, [...]
I’d like to set up an altar in my practice space. What should I include?
There are no hard-and-fast rules. Let your inspiration and a sense of offering be your guides. You might, for example, include a statue or image of a Buddha, a bodhisattva, or Buddhist deity that inspires you and connects you with awakened mind. People often put photographs of dharma teachers and other inspiring figures on their shrines, or pictures of lost loved ones. Most [...]
What are the Eight Worldly Concerns?
The eight worldly concerns classify the attachments and aversions that yoke us to samsara, the cycle of suffering. They are the four hopes and corresponding four fears, which we cycle through endlessly—until, that is, we discover enlightenment (which includes liberation from the eight worldly concerns). This list is from the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna, with comments by [...]
The Sex Talk
Artist Rima Fujita helps teach Tibetan kids the facts of life. Just like youth in the West, Tibetans are having sex at an increasingly early age. Never having received sex education in school, many of them are getting pregnant and contracting STDs. When the Tibetan government-in exile resolved to tackle this issue, they held a writing contest at Tibetan refugee schools, and [...]
Let Me Know When You See the Iguana
Melissa Myozen Blacker proposes that awakening isn't that complicated. It’s when we encounter something just as it is, without preconception. You know the feeling: you’ve lost something and suddenly you realize it’s been there right in front of you the whole time. Those missing keys or that misplaced hat were, as they say, hiding in plain sight. They seemed to be invisible and [...]
Meditation sometimes doesn’t feel pleasurable to me. Any tips?
As Thich Nhat Hanh has said, “You have to learn how to sit without fighting. If you know how to sit like that, sitting is very pleasant.” (And, he adds, if you can’t sit like that, it’s okay to not sit at all.) But he and other teachers do have some time-tested tips for us. First, when taking your meditation seat, take some big in-and-out breaths. This will “prime the pump,” as [...]
