10 Buddhist books everyone should read, as selected by the editors of Lion's Roar. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield (Bantam, 2000) According to Jack Kornfield, enlightenment does exist and is even pretty common. The rub is that after achieving it, day-to-day tasks and troubles still await you. This is a guide to translating our spiritual [...]
Fear and Fearlessness: What the Buddhists Teach
So much of our suffering—as individuals and as a society—is caused by fear. In fact, according to Buddhism, fear is at the very root of ego and samsara. Four outstanding Buddhist teachers discuss the vital practice of working with our fears. Starting on the Path of Fear and Fearlessness By Judith Lief It helps to explore how we can work with fear from the point of view of [...]
Stuck at the Airport?
What better place to work with your mind? Here is a practice I have been working with for more than a decade. I recite, usually silently, these two sentences: May I meet this moment fully. May I meet it as a friend. These blessing phrases cultivate and sustain a mind of peace and goodwill. For me, they represent the promise of practice. “May I meet this moment fully” [...]
One Simple Practice That Changes Everything
Making sure that your intentions align with your real values is one of the best ways to lead the life you want. That’s why, says renowned Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein, right intention is the key to the Buddha’s eightfold path. I’ll never forget my astonishment when I heard the Tibetan teacher Nyshul Khen Rinpoche say, “Everything hangs on intention.” I thought, “Of [...]
Practice: What Are My Intentions for Today?
A daily intention-setting practice, from Sylvia Boorstein. Read her full teaching on the power of the Buddhist practice of intention. Here is a set of intentions based on traditional Buddhist precepts. Some people I know have them taped to their bathroom mirror and say them aloud each morning: On behalf of myself and all beings, I intend to refrain from consciously hurting [...]
Sylvia Boorstein launches petition as skillful means against “skewed news”
Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein has launched a new Change.org petition. It's not pointedly concerned with Buddhism, though. Rather, its target is the Federal Communications Commission. Explaining how the petition, "Let Cable Media Know You Object to Skewed News" came to be in a post for her blog, she writes, in part: What [the Buddha] said, in contemporary language is, “Go [...]
How to work with the “Winter Blues”
"Perhaps," says Sylvia Boorstein, "these days of less sunlight are opportunities for more contemplative time, more looking deeply to see what can only be seen in the dark." These are especially hard days for people whose minds are burdened with the fatigue of depression, the grief of loss, even the relatively mild Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) that seems directly related [...]
Many Thanks
Sylvia Boorstein learns how daily messages of gratitude exchanged between friends can bring insight and the inspiration to practice. It’s a year now since Carol Wilson and I, sitting across the room from each other at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, heard our friend Jane describe her gratitude practice. Jane emails a colleague every day with a report of what she feels [...]
How do I develop insight through Buddhist practice?
We suffer, according to Buddhism, not because there’s anything inherently wrong with us but simply because we misunderstand the nature of reality. Sylvia Boorstein on developing insight into the way things really are. Includes a meditation for deepening our sense of interconnectedness. I was walking through the airport terminal when my eyes met those of a baby approaching [...]
The Buddha’s Four Noble Truths
Buddha Shakyamuni. India, Uttar Pradesh, late 6th century. Copper alloy sculpture with traces of paint. Via LACMA. The message of Buddha's Four Noble Truths is that paying attention and seeing clearly lead to behaving impeccably in every moment, out of love, and on behalf of all beings. The Buddha's First Teaching Accounts of the Buddha’s life, said to have been told by [...]