Tara Bennett-Goleman describes how the transforming power of mindfulness can be applied to our painful emotional patterns. ‘‘Each thing has to transform itself into something better, and acquire a new destiny,” Paulo Coelho writes in his novel The Alchemist. Coelho describes the world as only the visible aspect of God, with invisible spiritual forces at play that remain [...]
The Practice of Karma
Reginald A. Ray on how T'hrinlay Wangmo transformed an horrific incident into a situation of blessing through her understanding of karma. My previous column outlined the basic principles of karma. Now I would like to look at karma as a spiritual practice, and do so by considering an event in the life of T'hrinlay Wangmo, a woman of remarkable realization and power. T'hrinlay [...]
Do I Exist or Not?
"No one told us to see ourselves as solid entities. We came up with that on our own." "Some kind of voidness, the complete negation of everything-is that Buddhism? Well, Buddhism is more complicated than that: things don't exist, but they don't not exist either." On the Buddhist path, we look at our own experience. For example, people are always talking about their age. [...]
Visiting Mr. Paul
He even trimmed the few tufts of grass out back, with a sickle no less, one of the many little ways in which Mr. Paul linked you to a simpler time. "Don't try to invent characters. The almighty has given us enough." I found this quote scratched on a piece of paper lodged in an anthology of short stories I'd saved from college. The paper served as a bookmark for Isaac [...]
Yoga for Two
When we let our senses dominate, we relate to other people in a different way-sensitive, sensuous, physically awake, and alive like an animal! Who doesn't want a little more of that in their relationship? Often I begin my yoga classes by asking the students to sit quietly, with their legs crossed and palms down on their thighs in the mudra of calm abiding. I invite them to let [...]
Earth’s Original Face
"Thoreau called it "wildness" and "the preservation of the world." It's unobstructed nature, the earth prior to human intervention, the wilderness. It is earth's original face." Distant countries may be found within a few miles, or at most a few hundred miles, of every woman, man and child in the United States. These countries are remnants of the earth that have escaped the [...]
Meeting Shuddup Lama
Paul Maxwell gets married in Mongolia, and gets to know a most unusual lama. My fiancee and I were on our way from Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, to her family’s house in the desert, where our wedding would be held. She said we should bring a present for the old lama who lived near her parents, and I asked what would make a suitable gift. “Oh, you know lamas. They [...]
The Case for Contemplative Psychology
Han F. de Wit argues that spiritual tradition can be viewed as its own school of psychology. As such, it offers more effective techniques and profound goals than the "ordinary unhappiness" aspired to by conventional psychology. Why is it that some people become wiser and gentler during their lifetimes, while others become more hard-hearted and shortsighted to the needs of [...]
Among the Living and the Dead of Angkor Wat
Pico Iyer visits Cambodia's famed monument and ponders the conundrums of travel-cell phones and ancient spirits, killing fields and champagne breakfasts, beauties past and tragedies present. Eyes followed me everywhere I walked around the half-lit monuments of Angkor-out of darkened doorways, out of openings in the carvings of devils and dolls, out of little Buddhist shrines [...]
Without Center or Limit
The great Dzogchen teacher Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche on the primordial union of emptiness and awareness, the space-like nature of mind. Mind is not a thing that has physical form, sound, smell, taste or texture. Mind is empty. Space is also empty. No matter where you go in space, there is no limit, no boundary, no edge. If you were to travel in a space ship in a single direction [...]