David Nichtern

It is not recommended to use meditation as a way of repressing our emotions by forcibly silencing them in order to achieve a superficially imposed sense of peace and quiet.

Maybe we can mix some of the wisdom our ancient cultures with our unprecedented modern knowledge and create the ground for happiness and fulfillment in our lives.

Where has our joy gone? I have come to feel lately that joy is an expression of our own truest nature.

Full-blown empathy is when you can feel another person's walk, their energy, their breath, their anxiety, their wisdom, their suffering, their confusion, their brilliance, their hopes and fears.

At the intellectual level everybody knows we are going to die, but what does death really mean? One interpretation is that we suffer because we do not understand or fully relate to impermanence.

Life is marked by impermanence and change. When we become a poet of uncertainty we are developing the art of moving with the dance of life and learning how to be creative within that movement.

We do live in a culture where faster, more and easier seem to govern a lot of our choices. Are there any advocates of doing something fully, in depth and completely mastering the subject, whatever it is?

the fundamental mistake we make (which causes all kinds of trouble and suffering) is the assumption that we exist as a permanent, unified, independent being.

Participating in an intensive meditation retreat and then returning to our ordinary life can provide an extremely vivid transition, offeringa chance to see our habits and patterns in high relief.

Language is translatable but we also have to be aware of the subtle shades of meaning, beyond literal translation, that cultural settings impart.

Is it possible that we have, by constant repetition in our culture, created a social norm in which gluttony and craving have replaced contentment and satisfaction?

this week I'm on tour playing guitar with Krishna Das. Hanging with KD and the posse is always about dharma and music mixed together --- my favorite combo.

For those who are beginning to explore meditation practice, allow yourself to actually experience this "hot boredom" and not just jump off the cushion when that kind of restlessness is experienced.

We are recommending a kind of meditation that could be called non-meditation. It is based on the barest kind of instruction orienting us toward relaxing our active agenda-driven existence.

We rarely if ever look at the "I" that's making our everyday assumptions. Our meditation practice, rather then being theoretical or metaphysical, is extremely personal and direct -- it's highly experiential.

It is essential that the teacher is thoroughly trained herself and completely personifies what is being presented. Sometimes the teachings at this level are called transmission or "ear whispered."

As we stumble through the fog of our sometimes overly discursive mind and say "I want to meet Buddha," if you shift that a little and say "I want to meet the awakened state of mind," then we have clarified what it is that we are looking for.

Lately I've been having an ongoing discussion with students regarding the Buddhist idea of karma. It's a complex and multi-faceted subject. I've foun...

In training ourselves through meditation, it is very practical to start with mindfulness practice to pull the mind in from a habitual state of distraction into a focused and clear state.

I wanted to jump in and participate in the ongoing discussion of sleep, but what I came up with, after contemplating the whole topic for some time, was to look further into what it means to actually be awake.

I think it's fair to ask ourselves early on, why are we afraid of just sitting still? Why are we terrified of that?Actually it's for you to find out. But I would like to suggest the possibility that we are afraid of ourselves.

My teacher, Gelek Rimpoche, always says -- "Drip, drip, drip, the bucket fills." He means that if we meditate a little bit everyday, eventually our mind and heart shift toward more kindness and clarity.

It occurred to me that many folks here in the West may not really know much about the Buddhist tradition and what it has to say about redemption, salvation, or anything else for that matter.

Without a clear view of the whole process of meditation, it's possible to just roam and fumble around for decades or lifetimes for that matter.

The benefit to meditation is that we become more synchronized in body and mind and begin to relate to our world in a less distracted and more wakeful way.