Jules Shuzen Harris teaches Zazen, the meditation practice at the heart of Zen Buddhism. Illustrations by Tomi Um. What is Zazen? There are many forms of meditation that offer you the opportunity to cultivate stillness and open up space in your life. One such form, zazen, has both outward and inward instructions in how to engage your awareness in the […]
“Relax and receive, feeling the sensations of the body breathing.” The words washed over us as we sat in a circle on our zafus at the beginning of the five-day meditation retreat. Dr. Nikki Mirghafori, artificial intelligence scientist and Buddhist teacher at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California, sat toward the top of the circle, inviting us with these […]
In Tibetan, tong means sending or giving, and len means taking. What are we giving and taking? This is such a wonderful practice that we sometimes call self-antidote, self-transformation. We will do taking first, and then we’ll do sending. Let’s say you have kleshas, like maybe aversion, hatred, craving, jealousy, ignorance, confusion, or what we normally call suffering, meaning maybe […]
That cold, gray afternoon in Nashville, after months of listening to the whir of the oxygen machine that provided continual relief to my mother, a vacuum of silence filled her bedroom. Even though I had known she would die soon, when I stood at the threshold of life and death, I felt like one wrong move would send us off […]
The Dharma of Western Literature In this series on The Dharma of Western Literature, we’ve been considering classic works through the lens of the six paramitas, or sublime virtues: generosity, ethical conduct, patience, diligence, meditation, and wisdom. In this final installment we focus on wisdom, or prajna. Maybe you’ve seen these newfangled miracle-of-science frying pans they’ve got now, with a cooking surface so slick […]
Have you been practicing Buddhist for awhile? If so, what is your advice for people new to the path? The post Share Your Wisdom: What’s your advice for Buddhists new to the path? appeared first on Lions Roar. Source link
When writer Kai Cheng Thom felt like the world was collapsing, she posed a question to herself: What happens when we imagine loving the people—and the parts of ourselves—that we do not believe are worthy of love? Over the course of her career, Thom has worked as an activist, sex worker, psychotherapist, conflict mediator, and community healer. In each of […]
No matter your gender identification, you can do Green Tara practice and help bring yourself—and the world—into balance. Lama Döndrup Drölma offers step-by-step instructions. Painting Courtesy of Lucky Thanka, www.luckythanka.com Tara is awakened awareness manifest in a female form. She’s a beloved Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist figure whose countless devotees have invoked her compassionate presence since the late sixth century […]
In Buddhist circles, hope often gets a bad rap. Especially in times of crisis and emergency, it can appear light, frivolous, or even delusional. But writer Rebecca Solnit is determined to change this narrative. For Solnit, hope is inextricable from action and allows us to imagine alternate modes of being in the world. Over the course of her career, Solnit […]
If these years of COVID and environmental decline have felt like the zombie apocalypse, recent months have ushered in the age of mind-bending sci-fi. In the tech world, it seems to many that we may be nearing the so-called “singularity,” a technological turning point at which machines become vastly more intelligent than humans, permanently transforming everything. Furthermore, philosophers and physicists, […]
