Mindfulness entails trying to get the mind to look at the mind, trying to observe how our operating systems are running. Using the analogy of software, you will quickly realize how difficult it is to get your Windows 8 or Mac OS X operating system to debug itself. You normally...

Intellectuals will immediately recognize any discussion on the objectification of women in yoga as a recapitulation of the immemorial Apollonian/Dionysian debate also found in Death in Venice, Lolita and other artworks. As you are already aware, the Apollonians are admirers of form and beauty, while the Dionysians simply wish to...

Last year I was on a panel at a yoga conference where Arun Deva stated, "Yoga and business are like oil and water." I taught yoga at 24 Hour Fitness for three years and I quickly learned to reframe teaching 40-75 students per class as seva, seeing I was only...

You are meeting a college roommate at noon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. You haven't seen her in twenty-five years and you were surprised when she sent you a friend request on Facebook. She's driving into the city from Greenwich and you're going to take the subway uptown. You're...

"We have art lest we perish of the truth." -- Nietzsche

A few months ago my dear friend Agapi Stassinopoulos invited me to a screening of Decoding Deepak, and during the Q&A Deepak Chopra humbly announced the manner in which he sees his vocation. "I'm part of the...

"It is not true that money can't buy happiness. It can, that's the good news. The bad news is that it's someone else's happiness." -- Nick Hornby

The holidays can be a uniquely misery-inducing time for some people -- Noah Levine says that the Judeo-Christian holiday season is tantamount to...

Watch the TEDTalk that inspired this post.

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

In his...

Watch the TEDTalk that inspired this post.

I used to get peeved when I called Federal Express and their voice answering system said, "Please hold. A representative will be with you momentarily." I thought, "Well, that won't do much good. I won't be able to say...

A buddy of mine got fourth row center seats to Bruce Springsteen at Wrigley Field last month -- sans any inconvenience charges -- so I reached into my bucket of frequent flier miles and flew to Chi-town.

"Because the Night" is one...

Call me jaded, but in my workshops on authentic relationships I sometimes joke that, "Marriage for life was a fantastic idea in the 13th century when the average lifespan was 27. But now that the average person gets married at 26 and lives until 77, committing yourself to one person...

Two of my favorite texts from university explore the impending chaos that would erupt with the fall of the Judeo-Christian ethos. In The Second Coming, Yeats states that "mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." In The Greatest Danger, Nietzsche states that "the greatest labour of human beings hitherto has...

"It is not true that money can't buy happiness. It can, that's the good news. The bad news is that it's someone else's happiness." -- Nick Hornby

Spoiler alert: The last line, the summation of my new experiential documentary Mindfulness for Urban Depression is an ebullient "Happiness is a choice!"...

"There are only two responses to the world, fear or love. Your life depends on which one you choose." Deepak Chopra.

"Fear is the absence of love." Osho

I often hear Republicans complaining about their tax "burden" due to "big government." However, I rarely see them marching down streets (paid...

"God has given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God's creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance." -- Hamlet, Act III, scene 1

As sentient beings we yearn to be loved unconditionally, and we were raised in a highly...

I have many clients -- mostly artists, musicians, filmmakers and writers -- who come to me with existential questions. For them, I compiled a list of tools for creating a meaningful life:

10. Be a citizen of the world. Know as much as possible about what is going on in...

A few months ago I received the following Facebook message from a guy I had never met and whose photo I did not recognize:

Hi Ira,
I'd love to get together with you for coffee or something if you have time. We seem to know a lot of...

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." -- Hamlet, Act II, scene 2

I never realized what an idiot I was until I started meditating. Let me rephrase that: I never realized how limited my mind was until I tried practicing mindfulness meditation.

As...

Any time we wish something transpired differently in our lives, that engenders a resentment.

Whenever we hear the words "should have" or "should not have," that is the manifestation of a resentment.

For example:

"I shouldn't have been in that car accident."
"My wife shouldn't...

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." -- Albert Einstein

Mindfulness meditation is simple to explain and difficult to practice.

A popular type of mindfulness mediation is when we learn to observe our thoughts. But what does it entail to be able to...

There is a wonderful sketch in Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl where four Yorkshiremen are trying to best each other regarding who survived the most indigent and treacherous childhood. Douglas Coupland referred to a similar phenomenon that occurs at AA meetings as "onedownsmenship."

There is a...