In this episode, I'd like to focus on awareness, or vipashyana  •  while mindfulness refers to stabilizing, grounding, and focusing the mind, vipashyana is about clarity, openness, curiosity, and inquisitiveness  •  vipashyana is a natural outgrowth of mindfulness practice: as the mind settles, it begins to naturally clarify  •  vipashyana draws us outward; it is based on taking a genuine interest in the details of our life, in the details of our perception, and in the details of our own...

The Eightfold Path is one of the early teachings the Buddha gave after his enlightenment  •  they are guidelines for living in accordance with the Dharma; they are guidelines for how to comport yourself, how to relate to one another, how to be in the world in a way that's more wise, more skillful, and more accurate  •  the first of the eight is right VIEW — cultivating clearer seeing, cultivating the ability to see for yourself, be curious, and to look deeply into the nature of your...

As a student of Chögyam Trungpa, I heard the phrase “back to square one” quite a lot  •  he implied that doing something over and over again is very important — in our dharma practice, in our meditation, and in our studies  •  throughout his teachings, Trungpa Rinpoche put a great deal of emphasis on building a strong foundation, and on going back to the very earliest teachings of the Buddha, in particular to the teachings of the Four Noble Truths: the reality of suffering, the causes of...

Buddhism is often referred to as a path; not as a set of beliefs or a doctrine, but as a trail, a path, a walkway  • it's a direction, or a guideline, or a map of sorts; you have an idea of trying to get somewhere, but you can't see where the destination is  •  so there's a quality of faith that if you walk along this path, you'll get where you'd like to go  •  walking on a path teaches you about your own resilience, your own strengths, your own fears and hesitations  • you're confronted with...

Walking meditation is often introduced in the context of group practice: you're sitting and a gong rings, and then you stand up and begin walking; then another gong rings and you go back to sitting  •  this brings up a couple of interesting things  •  how do we transition from one state to another without losing it and needing to regroup on some subtle level?  •  we are brought face to face with the challenge of having a more continuous sense of mindfulness and awareness, rather than turning...

In this episode I'd like to explore the topic of walking meditation  •  in some ways walking meditation is a link between stillness and movement; it is a bridge between the quiet and peaceful state of sitting meditation and the activities of daily life  •  but in walking meditation, we're not trying to get somewhere; the walking itself is the point  •  in walking meditation, you place your attention on the contact of your feet with the earth or the floor  •  you pay attention as your balance...

In this episode I'd like to explore the role of self reliance on the Buddhist path  •  the basic idea is that nobody can walk your path for you; even if we encounter the wisest teachers and most supportive community that ever existed, fundamentally, at some very deep level, each of us is on our own  •  we must confront our own mind, our own emotions, our own habits; each of us must discover what this journey of awakening is all about  •  the quality of self reliance is very much related to a...

Today I'd like to explore the question of sacredness  •  there is a tendency to think that there are certain special things in life that are sacred, and then there's the rest of life, which is secular  •  is sacredness something that exists out there, or do we decide what is sacred?  •  in Buddhism there's an emphasis on seeing sacredness in the most mundane aspects of our ordinary life  •  viewing things with a sacred outlook has the power to reconnect us with a quality of wonder, a quality...

This episode focuses on the faults and shortcomings we see in ourselves and in other beings:  how do we become friends with ourselves, with all our faults, without excusing them and without concealing them?  •  why is it so easy to see everybody else's faults and so hard to look at our own?  •  I was inspired in part by a traditional poem called “Calling to the Gurus from Afar”; it's an example of a student being willing to show up as they are  •  here is the stanza I’m referring to: “My...

In this episode, I'd like to focus on meditation in action, and particularly on speech  •  in Buddhism there is a tremendous respect for the spoken word  •  speech is powerful; it can be beneficial, and it also can be harmful  • because speech plays such a large role in our lives, it is an excellent basis for meditation in action, for cultivating our mindfulness and awareness  •  so I'd like to introduce what are called the six points of mindful speech — six things to pay attention to when...

Loving kindness – known in Sanskrit as maitri – is a cornerstone of the entire Buddhist path  •  without loving kindness, no matter how much you meditate or how much you study the dharma, it will lack ultimate value  •  maitri is the valve through which the power of the dharma can flow  •  it is the foundation of true spiritual practice; it is transformative; and it is fundamental to our human nature  •  yet, ironically, it's easy to lose our connection, to lose that sense of the heart of...

When Trungpa Rinpoche spoke about the importance of joining intellect and intuition, he was referring to combining learning and study with the practice of meditation  •  the practice of meditation helps us to overcome the chaos of conflicting emotions, while learning or sharpening the intellect leads to gentleness  •  the idea of learning in this case isn't necessarily about acquiring large amounts of of information; it is about cultivating an inquisitive mind  •  first you need to listen and...

When you go to a play, you see people who are pretending to be other people; they learn their lines and move about in scripted ways  •  they perform on a stage, and in front of the stage is an audience, people watching a little world unfold in front of them  •  so there are the actors, the audience, and the relationship between the two  •  Trungpa Rinpoche suggested that we're not all that different from actors on a stage  •  he used the metaphor of a “portable stage” that we carry around...

One of my favorite nursery rhymes contains quite a bit of wisdom: “Row row, row, row your boat gently down the stream; merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream”  •  if we think of the stream as a stream of teachings, then we could consider the Buddha as the source of the stream  •  from that beginning a great river continues to flow over thousands of years  •  where does this stream flow? It flows into an ocean, which you could say is the awakening of the practitioner  •  you have a...

The phrase, “When you lose your mind, come back” describes a lot of what happens in meditation: repeatedly losing our minds, and repeatedly bringing ourselves back  •  the moment we’ve noticed we’ve lost it is the moment we can return  •  what are we returning to? the simplicity of the present moment  •  another phrase Trungpa Rinpoche used quite a lot was, “Don’t think too much”  •  what are the benefits and what are the limits of thinking and conceptual understanding?  •  in the Buddhist...

At our core is our tender heart, tinged with a touch of sadness  • it is sweet and vulnerable  •  this soft spot may be deeply buried, but it is always there  •  even very simple or momentary experiences can connect us with this heart: you might watch a pair of swallows fly back and forth, over and over, bringing food to their hungry chicks, and something melts or softens in you  •  it is so beautiful to be touched in this way; but this inner core of tenderness can also make us feel...

Trungpa Rinpoche emphasized the importance of understanding space; he encouraged us to explore our experiences of boredom, our discomfort with stillness, and our tendency to fill space  •  he taught that the basic energy pervading all of space is love and kindness; so to cultivate greater kindness and love, it is important to relate to space and its qualities  •  he introduced three aspects or qualities of space  •  the first is that space is indestructible, because it doesn't come from...

Today I'd like to explore the topic of space  •  the idea of space as it relates to meditation practice is connected with the notion of “gap” — noticing gaps at the end of each outbreath, noticing the little refreshing moments between things, which we often miss  •  our connection with space can be an almost embodied or physical sense of things: we can sense when a space seems threatening or welcoming  •  we can begin to explore our relationship with space very simply by noticing our tendency...

In this episode, I'd like to explore the idea of walls — our internal walls, as well as the walls we create between ourselves and others  •  we're told we need to have clear boundaries; at the same time, we have the challenge of how to bridge the gap between self and others  • the wall between ourselves and others is not always so visible; it can take us by surprise as we try to connect in some way  •  there are times when we deliberately create walls: when we are developing a meditation...

I've been thinking a lot recently about peace, especially the Buddhist view of peace  •  it's one of those ironic things: throughout history people have longed for peace and prayed for peace, yet we seem unable to free ourselves from conflict, war and struggle  •  what’s more, our desire for peace can actually manifest as aggression: “if I can defeat my enemy, then I'll be able to finally have some peace”  •  when we talk about peace, what do we really mean? how is peace talked about in...

Buddhist training has two sides, somewhat parallel to pure science and applied science  •  there is the meditation aspect, the inward journey; and there is the application of that in the world, or meditation in action  •  we all have the capacity to help; we all have the capacity to cultivate compassion and also to cultivate wisdom and insight, so that compassion is intelligent  •  but each of us has to find our own way to engage  •  according to the Buddhist teachings, there are five...

Lately I've been thinking about the slogan, “Always maintain only a joyful mind”  •  at the same time, I've been haunted by the teachings that describe samsara, the nature of reality, as an ocean of suffering  •  if the world is marked by endless suffering, how can you be joyful? and if the world is fundamentally good and wholesome, how do you account for suffering?  •  the Buddha's earliest teachings on the Four Noble Truths — suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering,...

In this episode, I'd like to explore such things as resistance, avoidance, procrastination — and why it’s so hard to keep going  •  I think such things are connected with expectations and its partner, disappointment  •  in one form or another, or at one time or another, I think most of us have had these kinds of experiences  •  but we don't need to view such things as character flaws or annoying obstacles; they actually are an important part of the whole spiritual path  •  if you never felt...

This episode is about groundlessness and uncertainty  •  how do we respond when we are no longer on familiar ground, when we feel insecure?  •  it can feel so uncomfortable that we might begin to panic; and often, when we reach that point, we scramble — we scramble to find some new secure ground to replace the one that we have left  •  so we go on a search to find some basis that is reliable, something we can count on, some sense of solidity  •  sometimes meditation is taught as a way to find...