Melvin Escobar on dealing with the loss of a virtual friend.
The First Noble Truth of Baseball
In the Baseball Sutra, recently discovered by scholar Donald Lopez, the Buddha explains why he created a game where suffering and failure are the norm.
The Right Way to Reach the Top
We have a whole system built on striving and it causes a lot of suffering—anxiety, competition, misplaced priorities. Brad Stulberg looks at ways we can change our stressful striving into right effort.
The Fifth Sight: The Suffering of Injustice
To the Buddhism’s traditional four causes of suffering we must now add a fifth: the suffering caused by racism, sexism, poverty, and all the other forms of human injustice. Only when seeing that clearly, says Ann Gleig, will our compassion will be complete.
The Heart of Good Spiritual Friends
When we are with others in times of suffering, says contemplative care expert Koshin Paley Ellison, we can take the four noble truths as our guide.
Tonglen: A Prayer That Rides the Breath
On the inbreath, says Judy Lief, take in what is bad, freeing others from it. On the outbreath, offer what is good.
Nonexistent But Precious
Sylvia Boorstein looks at the paradoxes and subtleties in the central Buddhist concept of no-self.
In Times of Crisis, Draw Upon the Strength of Peace
When we are called upon to help in a crisis, says Kaira Jewel Lingo, we must respond. But the way we do is crucial.
What Is Suffering?
Nine teachers explain what suffering is, how we feel it, and why it isn’t a condemnation — it’s a joyous opportunity.
Steadfast in the Midst of Samsara
Shinshu Roberts examines the suffering inherent in the bodhisattva path, what Dogen referred to as being “the blue lotus in the flame.”