Are You Bored Yet?
"I'm bored." Schoolchildren can be afflicted with it by the second day of summer; workers by the sixth month on the job;...
Practice Without Integration is a Waste
I once met Roshi Philip Kapleau, the author of The Three Pillars of Zen. He was one of the first Westerners to go to Japan and do intense...
Seeing Fully
We were poor monks who needed buildings. We couldn't afford to employ a builder — the materials were expensive enough. So I had...
To Be On A Spiritual Path
"To be on a spiritual path means to live mindfully, paying attention to the signs along the road and being conscious of our body...
The Dalai Lama: Why I Laugh
I have been confronted with many difficulties throughout the course of my life, and my country is going through a critical period. But I...
Your Life Cannot Go Wrong
In reality, your world is set up so that nothing happens to you, but everything happens for you - for your awakening, for your growth,...
The Power of Patience
If we can be quieter, more in the moment with what is actually happening, a world of perception opens up for us based on where we are,...
Fearlessness can Coexist with Fear
In meditation and in mindfulness practice, we are learning to replace fear with trust, not as an ideal or abstraction, but as a sense of...
What You See Is What You Get
When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to...
Deep Inquiry: Not for the Faint of Heart
Authentic spiritual inquiry reveals the joy of fresh insights and revelation, just as artistic or scientific inquiry does, but if we...
Attachment is Habitual Thinking
We all judge our experiences through the filter of habitual thinking. In other words, we are unconsciously driven by how we think,...
Aliveness and Harmony
A man is alive when he is wholehearted, true to himself, true to his own inner forces, and able to act freely according to the nature of...