In this classic essay from 2006, brain-science writer Daniel Goleman describes how we are hard-wired from kindness—and why that impulse is sometimes short-circuited. Our brain has been preset for kindness. We automatically go to the aid of a child who is screaming in terror; we automatically want to hug a smiling baby. Such emotional impulses are “prepotent”: they elicit [...]
The Bodhisattva
The bodhisattva—the renowned ideal of Mahayana Buddhism—is not a god or deity but a way of being we can all aspire to. As Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche explains, those who take the bodhisattva vow make one simple commitment: to put others first, holding nothing back for themselves. The bodhisattva vow is the commitment to put others before oneself. It is a statement of [...]
The Vomit of a Mad Tyger: Allen Ginsberg tells his spiritual story
Lion's Roar presents this exclusive autobiographical account from the late poet and cultural icon Allen Ginsberg, narrating his spiritual journey from Blake to the Buddha. We’ll begin at the beginning, because what I’d like to do is trace what spiritual inklings I had that led to interest in Tibetan Buddhism and guru relationship. I was in love with a high school fellow who [...]
Richard Gere and Matthieu Ricard on Happiness
A monk and a movie star: two very different lifestyles and so, you would think, two different paths to happiness. But actor Richard Gere and the French author and monastic Matthieu Ricard share a serious commitment to Buddhism, and they agree that real, lasting happiness is beyond conditions and circumstances. They held this lively, insightful conversation on the true nature of [...]
Howl of Resistance
British writer Stephen Mooney says we need the Beats’ example of resistance to oppressive conformity more than ever. Who were the Beat Generation writers? A grouping certainly, but as Michael Davidson points out in his 1991 examination of mid-century poetics, The San Francisco Renaissance, there was no unified “Beat” picture in play. The San Francisco scene, he writes, was [...]
It’s All in Your Mind
The mind is where we live, says Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, it is how we experience things. Through the practice of meditation, we see past the superficial waves of discursiveness and discover the noble qualities that are the true nature of mind. Whether we are on the busy streets of New York or in the solitude of a mountain cave in Nepal, our happiness and contentment are [...]
