If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
When we encounter situations that requires patience, can we look at it as an opportunity to be the person we already are?
This is the profound meaning of discipline: maintaining love, maintaining the hope that every living being will awaken, even in the most difficult or challenging conditions. It's a softening of the heart, a letting go of confusion, of anger, bitterness, and despair.
For his decades-long passion to bring together science and spirituality the Dalai Lama was awarded the Templeton Prize this week. I sat with him before the awards ceremony. Here is our conversation.
As I was listening to His Holiness, a question sprung full-blown to my mind: "Can, and if so, how, can those who have lost their compassion, or never had it to begin with, regain it?
Let's challenge ourselves to kick our practice to higher level by practicing generosity in our lives. How often and how far can we go out of our way each day? How does practicing generosity affect our own sense of well-being?
Don't look now, but something important just happened on Mad Men. A major character, someone with real talent in the field, just rejected advertising. Someone who happens to be ad guru Don Draper's bright and shiny new wife.
It is far less an appeal to reason, and far more a campaign to preach to the choir, to circle the ideological wagons of the members of the tribe, and rally the troops around Heartland's deeply conservative and libertarian ideals.
Breakthroughs in the neuroscience of empathy, emotions and our conscious control of the breath have radically changed our view of our nature, helping explain the stubborn power of spiritual imagery, prayers and ritual.
Every now and then, you meet someone who changes your world. For me, that most recent someone is a remarkably wise and compassionate colleague, Christopher Germer.
I've always had a hard time understanding the Buddhist concept of non-attachment but after hearing the Dalai Lama talk about his deep respect for both science and religion, I have a better grasp of it.
We can gain vital information about ourselves and what we believe about the world when we look honestly at our anger. But when we react unconsciously, repress our anger or get caught up in it, it becomes counterproductive and negatively affects our health and relationships.
Yidam Kyap was part of what was almost certainly the largest single group to escape into exile from the embattled eastern regions of Tibet in 1959. Here is part two of his two-part story.
If you really want to be a good student of the Buddha and you're willing to take on a difficult learning assignment, here's a radical suggestion: love your problem people. They can teach you lessons that wonderful people never can.
At every moment we have the power invested in us to touch another human, heart-to-heart, and affect their lives by conveying the truth of all truths: We are One. We have the power to bridge the illusion and pain of separation.
In April 2010, I interviewed a Tibetan monk named Yidam Kyap as part of the Tibet Oral History Project that documents the life stories of Tibetan elders living in exile.
