Last night the moon rose huge and round, the third Supermoon of the year, coinciding with the Spring Equinox and Purim. The Book of Esther in the Old Testament tells the tale of this Jewish holiday. In a nutshell, the anti-Semitic Prime Minister dec... Read more

Teaching our Deepening Your Practice class a couple weeks ago, Elizabeth Rice shared an inspiring Ted talk on climate change by a then 15-year-old Swedish girl named Greta Thunberg. Incredulous and outraged that adults are doing nothing to stop the ... Read more

After his enlightenment, the first thing the Buddha told his fellow monks was that he renounced the extremes of his former life as both a pampered prince and an ascetic. Both, he said “are painful, unworthy and unprofitable.” Instead, he advoc... Read more

This last Sunday, March 3, was an “unobserved” holiday in Japan called, “Hina Matsuri.” It is a day to celebrate “girls.” The tradition is that a few weeks prior to this date the families who have daughters would display the set of “Hina Ningyo” (Hina... Read more

Last night I came home from teaching an unplanned retreat with my godson, Will Kabat-Zinn, filling in for my dear friend Sharon who got sick at the last minute and couldn’t go. One of the participants wheeled himself into the meditation hall in a wh... Read more

The Buddha encouraged his community to meditate in the forest at the foot of a tree, beginning a long tradition of reverence for nature in Buddhism. Spending time in nature, we can sense the intimate connection between the natural world and our own ... Read more

Just home from traveling halfway around the world for a couple weeks of meditation retreat. Since there are wonderful retreat centers right here in California - Spirit Rock, Big Bear, others - why go spend weeks in the heat of Southern India, in an ... Read more

“Noble friends and noble conversations” are mentioned often in the suttas of the Buddha’s teachings, as supports for practice, and as the antidote to every obstacle on the path to freedom. Where are these “noble friends to be found? A sitting gro... Read more

I will never forget the first time I experienced the presence of the Ven Ayya Tathaaloka. She walked into a Advanced Practitioner Program retreat at Spirit Rock that I attended, and she literally lit up the meditation hall. Before she uttered a word... Read more