When you find your peace there is one less person suffering. Swami Brahmananda Why is there so much discord, unrest, and uncertainty, in both our own lives and in the world at large? Why are so many of us dealing with depression, unhappiness, or discontent? We undoubtedly need more kindness, more consideration for each other, […]
10 Ways Meditation Frees Your Mind
Stillness is always there between our thoughts, behind the story, beneath the noise. What keeps us from experiencing this natural state of being is our habitual and ego-dominated monkey mind. Meditation enables us to see clearly, to witness our thoughts and feelings and reduce our self-involvement. Without such a practice of self-reflection there is no […]
Diving Into Your Fear
The saying goes that when the Buddha was confronted with fear he invited it in for tea. Fear is something we all feel at one time or another; for some it can be crippling, for others it is subtle and pervasive, possessing different faces and disguises. On the one hand, fear is a natural response […]
Dare You Be Ordinary?
Do you want to be well? Really? Think about it, about what it would be like to have nothing to complain about? To have nothing special about you? We have to be honest. Are we ready to have no specific reason why people should pay us attention? How many of us might prefer to take […]
Mother, Daughter, Son-in-Law: Three Paths to Awakening
We come from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean and couldn’t be more different if we tried—Ed from a crowded apartment in the Bronx, Deb from boarding school in the English countryside. But we both began the spiritual journey at the same time in the late 1960’s while we were young: Ed was a Latin […]
How Your Mind Affects Your Body
We are at last beginning to show that there is an intimate and dynamic relationship between what is going on with our feelings and thoughts, and what happens in the body. A Time Magazine special showed that happiness, hopefulness, optimism and contentment, “Appear to reduce the risk or limit the severity of cardiovascular disease, pulmonary […]
What We All Need Now
We have endlessly tried to bring peace to the world, creating organizations like the UN and NATO, we’ve had treaties and summits, and scores of meetings and programs, but still there are so many conflicts. Beliefs and egos battle, greed for power dominates over humanity, while ingrained hatred divides one against another. It’s a […]
Turning Fear Into Fearlessness
What is it that can make us shake, can make the strongest man kneel or make a tiger back off? Why is it so debilitating whether the fear is real or imaginary? Fear has many faces, many disguises. There’s fear that is a natural response to physical danger, but there’s also self-created fear, such as […]
Making Friends With Meditation
Meditation: a well-used yet so often misunderstood word. Yes, it is simple: just calm the mind and be still, breathe, pay attention and be present. But it’s not always so easy! The mind is notoriously resistant to being quiet, and as soon as we want to be still it seems to do everything it can […]
Transforming Negativity Into Positivity: Muddy Water Becomes Sweet Coconut Milk
Have you ever wondered how amazing it is that a water lily doesn’t grow in a pure mountain lake but in murky, muddy and dank pond water thick with weeds, and yet its beautiful flower appears on the surface totally pristine? All life starts in the dark, either in the earth, mud, or in the […]