My Writing

Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh famously opined, "No mud, no lotus." We have to do a bit of trudging. We have to face our discomfort. We have to work through the difficulty. We have to get curious about the suffering. But he also said that it is okay to suffer. We shouldn't avoid it or be afraid of it. It is normal and natural to suffer. We just have to watch out for denying it or fearing it. That's the mud. Later, the lotus. Later we can experience freedom from sufferi

My eyes are getting softer. I can feel it. I know you know what I mean. In the third act of our lives, in the years of our retirement, or at least our semi-retirement, after the kids are launched, and the career winds down, we have the chance to consciously develop soft eyes. *We can develop a very deep relationship with ourselves. *We can hold those few special someones close. *We can see people through a lens of compassion and acceptance and detachment. *We can hone in on o

If you want to practice what I call kindfulness mindfulness and your mind is very noisy and unfocused, here are three more ideas I heard Matthew Bretsilver, meditation teacher extraordinaire, suggest. I’ve added my own twists. 1. Make sure you are at peak wakefulness when you are ready to sit on the cushion. Some squats or lunges or planks or wall push-ups or toe raises really help. 2. Go to the forest or park or your backyard, lay down on the ground and look up at the trees.

I love clean slates, tablas rasas, to begin again. Every morning is such a chance. I wake up and for a moment everything is new and fresh. I begin again. Rosh Hashanah is technically the birthday of the world. It begins the evening of Sept. 11th and ushers in 10 days of reflection, repair and renewal. The whole idea is to clear our personal slates, to ask forgiveness, to forgive, to reestablish our goals for the new year, and to find at-one-ment within. I love celebrating thi

September always seems like a good starting place for a tabla rasa of sorts. Maybe its because school starts up again; the harvest time gives us amazing jewels from the earth; the year is rounding its corner towards January; and the Jewish high holy holidays around this time promise a clean slate. So I am holding on to the kindfulness in my mindfulness practice. And holding on to a few helpful techniques for quieting my mind. 1. One helpful hint while sitting or even during p