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Clearing the Heart for the New Year

Something I like to do as we head into the end of a year is spend some time in reflection. We do this practice of meditation as a spiritual path, developing our hearts and minds to try to be good people in the world. Cultivating the mind is important be... Read more

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Turning Toward the Light

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMkEDMuwQ1Q With the coming of the winter solstice, it’s a natural time—an invitation—to quiet the mind and tend the heart. We live in a culture where the speed and the way life is organized can almost be described as th... Read more

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Friendship as the Path

For a long time before I started practicing, I thought of Buddhism as something solitary—almost a practice of isolation. I imagined Buddhist practice as something you do alone in a cave: you meditate, you withdraw. It didn’t feel like it had anything to... Read more

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The Happiness of Generosity

Dear Sangha, The Buddha called dana—generosity—the first perfection of the heart and the beginning of the path. He taught that when we give with a joyful mind, free of expectation, something extraordinary happens: We loosen the grip of greed and f... Read more

Changing the Channel of the Mind

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ubHyrLdvhE[/embed] How do we take the Buddhas teachings farther than just learning to calm down and self-regulate? The Buddha points us toward something deeper in the Devitaka Sutta, where he describes two kinds... Read more

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A Celestial Call to Unplug

The awe-inspiring Northern Lights have recently graced much of the United States, visible as far south as Arizona. In a world often dimmed by screens and headlines, this rare spectacle serves as a poignant reminder of the untamed wonder in our natural... Read more

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The Path Upward

[embed]http://youtube.com/watch?v=es2QfA8tWlc&feature=youtu.be[/embed] Dear friends, In a world that often feels divided, the timeless wisdom of the Karaniya Metta Sutta offers a powerful reminder of the transformative power of loving-kindness. This c... Read more

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Practicing with Clarity

If you had to guess, how frequently does the mind go negative? Psychologists say its about 80% of the time. So much of our day our minds are in a place of worry, anxiety, or some kind of judgment of ourselves or others. All of these thoughts are states ... Read more