Category: Dharma in Daily Life
Mentors: Spiritual Friends Help Guide the Way
My friends are teachers, as I am, but in both cases we are not trying to teach each other. Rather we are friends learning together.
Guidelines for Choosing a Buddhist Teacher
How do you go about finding a teacher (and by extension, a community) that’s right for you?
Radar of Compassion
Pico Iyer on the Dalai Lama’s unerring ability to home in on those who most need his love.
Lives Lived: Remembering Lisa Hilliard
Eve Rosenthal remembers the late Lisa Hilliard, a practitioner from the Shambhala sangha of Halifax.
Karen Armstrong unveils The Charter for Compassion
Author and former nun turned prolific religious historian Karen Armstrong is unveiling the words of her proposed "Charter for Compassion."
Bedside hospice volunteer Stan Goldberg on offering forgiveness
Stan Goldberg on how doing bedside hospice volunteering has taught him the importance of offering forgiveness.
Booze and drugs and dharma: What’s your stance?
Buddhism's Fifth Precept is to abstain from taking intoxicants. Does this mean a "real" Buddhist doesn't have a drink or a toke?
Talk about pest control.
Is there any creature more terrifying than the scorpion? They pack quite a lot of punch, despite their tiny bodies. And a lot of flavor, too.
Erring and Erring, We Walk the Unerring Path
If we use them as opportunities to work with our mind, all our mistakes, confusion, and difficulties become an unerring path of awakening.
Any Last Thoughts?
Andrea Miller interviews Simon Critchley, philosophy professor at the New School and author of The Book of Dead Philosophers.
Hard Times, Simple Times
When you sit, teaches Norman Fischer, "noticing the breath and the body on the chair or cushion, noticing the thoughts and feelings in the mind and heart and perhaps also the sounds in the room and the stillness, something else also begins to come into view." Life.
Sylvia Boorstein on death: Any day might be the day
Sylvia Boorstein recounts a story to exemplify the suddenness of death, and how we must confront that reality.
The Smoking Monk
Should Buddhists smoke? The fifth precept of Buddhism tells us to "refrain from taking intoxicants." This seems pretty clear.
For no mere mortal can resist…
Steve Silberman shares an anecdote about a Tibetan death ceremony.
Why We Need a Plan B
Norman Fischer says that when it comes to teaching the dharma in the West, it’s important to be open and flexible.
Nothing to Cling To
Narayan Liebenson Grady went to Taiwan just before Master Sheng Yen died, hoping to see him one last time. She reports on his final days.
Bakery wisdom
Between tasty tartlets and free sandwiches, Elizabeth Guia finds out what happens when the needy don't need more.
New Findings Suggest Compassion Meditation is Good for Your Health
A recent study that suggested that compassion meditation can have a positive effect on human response to stress and disease.
Nothing Special: The Dalai Lama in Berkeley — a report and photos from Steve Silberman
On Saturday, April 27, the Dalai Lama gave a talk on "Peace Through Compassion" at the Greek Theater, in Berkeley, California.