Dieting Away Unhealthy Emotions – Gaining Control of One’s Mind March 9, 2014 As human beings we have emotions. Obviously, we can’t live our life without emotions. We enjoy them! We ought to keep emotions in our diet. But if we do not have a way to limit our unhealthy emotions, they can take over our whole mental state. We can’t just throw away our unhealthy emotions suddenly, Read More »
Daytime, Sleep, and Dream – Part III: Dream February 25, 2014 In the first part of this series, we explored the importance of staying awake and present during the daytime hours. This practice can help you experience the richness and value inherent in each, individual waking moment. In the second week we were introduced to the meaning of “striking the gong of the alaya,” or falling Read More »
Daytime, Sleep, and Dream-Part II: Falling Asleep, “Striking the Gong of the Alaya” February 7, 2014 Last week we learned that the experience of authentic joy lies, simply, in our ability to persistently observe the continuity of change. How can we facilitate this practice when we fall asleep, and maintain this view even while dreaming? If we are unable to stay present during the day, we often become tired and irritated, Read More »
Daytime, Dream and Sleep: Part 1 – Waking Up January 30, 2014 Daytime, sleep, and dream correspond to life, death, and the intermediate (bardo) state. Waking up to a new day is a lot like waking up as a newborn baby. When we first open our eyes in the morning, we do not immediately feel we are waking; there is no real sense of self and other, Read More »
Spanking your Ego – Finding a Sense of Humor and Finding your Path January 14, 2014 A student told me my talks made her feel “never good enough”, and she also asked, “When am I going to get this right?” Maybe it is true that we will never be good enough, however, we try our best. And we may wonder, “When will I get it right?” but the goal is not Read More »
Shenpa: Part 4 of 4 – Leaving Rome, Moving Out of Self-Defeat January 8, 2014 Many people are intelligent but they don’t have the freedom of addressing their shenpa. Many people are smart and skilled, with resources to do whatever they want to do, but it still doesn’t give them the sense of the deep self-empowerment that a person can have by being able to honestly, sincerely, and tenaciously able Read More »
Shenpa: Part 3 – A Recipe for Disappointment January 1, 2014 As human beings we will have some sense of attachment. If we could simply wave a wand and get completely rid of it to be like the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, that would be wonderful, but this is difficult because we do need to function in our world, and we find that we need to have Read More »
Shenpa Part 2: The Fly in the Soup December 29, 2013 As a practitioner, I’ve come to realize how crucial it is to understand the concept of shenpa in order to make any progress in this path. As we’ve noted before, the Tibetan word, shenpa is traditionally translated as “attachment.” But the idea of shenpa is very broad and very subtle at the same time, so Read More »
Shenpa: Part 1 – The Juice of Self-Centered Emotions December 14, 2013 Since our experience of both happiness and pain depends upon the mind, demystifying the relationship we have with our thoughts and emotions is the essence of the Buddhist teachings. It is like switching on the light in a dark room: no matter how long that room has remained in a state of darkness, once we Read More »
Determined Focus – Avoiding Self-Destructive Tendencies on the Buddhist Path December 5, 2013 In Tibet there is a family of teachings called “Lojong,” which means “mind training.” This type of teaching has a long history, which dates back over a thousand years. Within the Lojong teachings there is a set of practices which have been explained and elaborated by many great teachers. One of these practices is, “Train Read More »