What happens when you look at someone?
The Practice:
See beings, not bodies.
Why?

When we encounter someone, usually the mind automatically slots the person into a category: man, woman, your friend Tom, the kid next door, etc. Watch this happen...

I had a lightbulb moment recently: I was feeling stressed about all the stuff I had to do (you probably know the feeling). After this went on for a while, I stepped back and kind of watched my mind and could see that I was...

Your brain evolved in three stages (to simplify a complex process):

• Reptile -- Brainstem, focused on AVOIDING harm
• Mammal -- Limbic system, focused on APPROACHING rewards
• Primate -- Cortex, focused on ATTACHING to "us"

With a fun use (to me, at least) of animal themes, the first JOT in this...

Your brain evolved in three stages (to simplify a complex process):

• Reptile -- Brainstem, focused on avoiding harm
• Mammal -- Limbic system, focused on approaching rewards
• Primate -- Cortex, focused on attaching to "us"

The first JOT in this series -- "Pet the Lizard" --...

As the nervous system evolved, your brain developed in three stages:

• Reptile -- Brainstem, focused on avoiding harm
• Mammal -- Limbic system, focused on approaching rewards
• Primate -- Cortex, focused on attaching to "us"

Since the brain is integrated, avoiding, approaching and attaching are accomplished by its parts working together....

Each Thanksgiving holiday, we are reminded to be thankful. When times are tough, finding reasons to be thankful may be challenging or even seem inappropriate or impossible. Let's think about the myriad benefits to saying thanks, and how to truly savor the opportunity, no matter what.

What do you...

Think of times you've been truly wronged, in small ways or big ones. Maybe someone stole something, turned others against you, broke an agreement, cheated on you or spoke unfairly or abusively.

When things like these happen, I feel mad, hurt, startled, wounded, sad. Naturally it arises to want to...

Friendliness is a down-to-earth approach to others that is welcoming and positive.

Think about a time when someone was friendly to you -- maybe drawing you into a gathering, saying hello on the sidewalk, or smiling from across the room. How did that make you feel? Probably more included, comfortable,...

Compassion is essentially the wish that beings not suffer -- from subtle physical and emotional discomfort to agony and anguish -- combined with feelings of sympathetic concern.

You could have compassion for an individual (a friend in the hospital, a co-worker passed over for a promotion), groups of people (victims...

I've always liked lizards.

Growing up in the outskirts of Los Angeles, I played in the foothills near our home. Sometimes I'd catch a lizard and stroke its belly, so it would relax in my hands, seeming to feel at ease.

In my early 20s, I found a lizard one...

Everyone knows what it's like to care about someone. Remember being with a friend, a mate, a pet: you feel warmly connected, and want him or her not to suffer and to be happy.

On the other hand, you've probably had the sense, one time or another, of not being...

Everyone messes up. Me, you, the neighbors, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, King David, the Buddha, everybody.

It's important to acknowledge mistakes, feel appropriate remorse and learn from them so they don't happen again. But most people keep beating themselves up way past the point of usefulness: They're unfairly self-critical.

Inside...

In every life, reminders arrive about what's really important.

I've recently received one myself, in a form that's already come to countless people and will come to countless more: news of a potentially serious health problem. My semi-annual dermatology mole check turned up a localized melanoma cancer...

In every moment, you and I, and everyone and everything else -- from quantum foam to fleeting thoughts, intimate relationships, rainforest ecosystems and the stars themselves -- are each a kind of standing wave. We are like the ever-changing, though persistent, pattern of water rising above a boulder in a...

Once upon a time, a scholar came to visit a saint. After the scholar had been orating and propounding for a while, the saint proposed some tea. She slowly filled the scholar's cup: Gradually the tea rose to the very brim and began spilling over onto the table, yet she...

This practice is definitely a case of teaching what you need to learn: I've been working through a big bucket of tasks lately with little chance to rest. I console myself with knowing that the bucket is emptying a lot faster than it's filling with new tasks.

Sometimes you can...

We spend so much of our time trying to get somewhere.

Part of this comes from our biological nature. To survive, animals -- including us -- have to be goal-directed, leaning into the future.

It's certainly healthy to pursue wholesome aims, like paying the rent on time, raising children well,...

One Christmas I hiked down into the Grand Canyon, whose bottom lay a vertical mile below the rim. Its walls were layered like a cake, and a foot-high stripe of red or gray rock indicated a million-plus years of erosion by the Colorado river. Think of water -- so soft...

We all know people who are, ah... challenging. It could be a critical parent, a bossy supervisor, a relative who has you walking on eggshells, a nice but flaky friend, a co-worker who just doesn't like you, a partner who won't keep his or her agreements, or a politician you...

What are they feeling?

Why?

Imagine a world in which people interacted with each other like ants or fish. Imagine a day in work like this, or in your family, aware of the surface behavior of the people around you but oblivious to their...