Back by popular demand, Deborah Eden Tull joins Tenzin for a timely conversation about how to hold space and stay present in deeply challenging times. Recorded at the beginning of the renewed conflict between Israel and Hamas, this episode shares deep insight on how we can navigate polarization and difficulty with compassion and engagement with our shared humanity.

We're often led to believe that our highly-structured, thinking-oriented sides are what make us human, that "hard work" is of value above all else, and that play is simply something that young children do. However, research shows that play has incredible power is developing social bonds, fostering creativity, sparking joy and even helping to make positive changes to our epigenetics. In this episode, Tenzin explores the many types of play, the positives benefits, and how we can bring a sense...

No matter how mindful we are of our thoughts, speech and actions, being human means that we can sometimes act unwisely or hurt someone's feelings. Whether these mistakes are unintentional or not, they can lead to rifts in our relationships; and ultimately damage both our own contentment, as well as the cohesion of our community. In this episode, Tenzin shares the power of apologizing as a roadmap for forgiveness, healing and reconciliation; and then leads a reflection on the impact of both...

Join Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers, and Tenzin for the second part of their conversation about Nina’s new book and her important work (listen to our first conversation in Episode 34 of the Unlocking True Happiness podcast). In this conversation, Nina and Tenzin discuss intersecting systems of oppression and how they have led to our environmental crisis, and how we can get out of our multiple crises through relational collective engagement. And when this seems like unrelenting hard...

In this episode, Tenzin speaks to Nina Simons, co-founder of Bioneers and author of Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership.

In this episode, Tenzin explores the many gifts that gratitude can bring to our lives, helping to offset our natural negativity bias and bring more richness to our experiences and our relationships. She then shares some simple ideas on how we can cultivate our own practice of gratitude with an experiential meditation.

In this episode, Tenzin continued her conversation with Zen meditation teacher, author, activist and sustainability educator Deborah Eden Tull, continuing a rich conversation about her new book, Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown. Darkness is deeply misunderstood in today’s world; yet it offers powerful medicine, serenity, strength, healing, and regeneration. All insight, vision, creativity, and revelation arise from darkness. It is through learning to...

This month, we are excited to have Sara Schairer, compassion educator, as our guest. Sara Schairer is the founder and executive director of Compassion It®, a nonprofit organization and global social movement whose mission is to inspire daily compassionate actions and attitudes.  A facilitator of the Compassion Cultivation Training® (CCT) course, Sara leads trainings for audiences of all walks of life, from corporate executives to inmates at correctional facilities.

Mindfulness meditation has become wildly popular in the last decade or two, and is taught in places as diverse as corporate board rooms, maximum security prisons, and everywhere in between. One of the standard definitions of mindfulness is “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally,” according Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of the popular program Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.

The Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron says, in relation to contemplative practice, “We are being encouraged to remain open to the present groundless moment, to a direct, unarmored participation with our experience… How many of us feel ready to interrupt our habitual patterns, our almost instinctual ways of getting comfortable?” Many of us find the experience of groundlessness to be profoundly uncomfortable, and in the last few years we’ve experienced this feeling to an accelerated degree, with...

Darkness is deeply misunderstood in today’s world; yet it offers powerful medicine, serenity, strength, healing, and regeneration. All insight, vision, creativity, and revelation arise from darkness. It is through learning to stay present and meet the dark with curiosity rather than judgment that we connect to an unwavering light within. Welcoming darkness with curiosity, rather than fear or judgment, enables us to access our innate capacity for compassion and collective healing. Join us as...

FULL EXTENDED EPISODE Darkness is deeply misunderstood in today’s world; yet it offers powerful medicine, serenity, strength, healing, and regeneration. All insight, vision, creativity, and revelation arise from darkness. It is through learning to stay present and meet the dark with curiosity rather than judgment that we connect to an unwavering light within. Welcoming darkness with curiosity, rather than fear or judgment, enables us to access our innate capacity for compassion and collective...

What is the role of joy on the spiritual path? The bodhisattva path and the path of compassion require us to have an awareness of the suffering of beings – are joy and compassion contradictory? Or can joy be used to sustain our spiritual path and practice? Join us for an exploration of the theme of joy on the spiritual path with Tenzin Chogkyi, who will draw from sources as diverse as 8th Century Indian master Shantideva, research psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and poet Ross Gay.

Our emotions bring us our greatest joys and our deepest sorrows. We wouldn't survive without them, and yet they can also cause us to harm others and ourselves. What is the purpose of emotions, and how can we cultivate more emotional balance? Join us for this conversation with well-known emotions researcher and educator, Dr. Eve Ekman, as we explore these questions. We will also discuss the role of contemplative practice, how our emotions are influenced by our position in the social...

The motto of the United States, E pluribus unum (“Out of Many, One”) speaks to a pluralistic democracy with protections for every citizen, and a freedom from the religious tyranny that gripped much of Europe during the time of the country’s founding. Yet, for many, this promise is being undermined by a small segment of the population insistent on superimposing its own moral values onto the wider population, resulting in a number of recent reversals that unwind decades of civil rights...

In these uncertain times, our roles as individuals in the sweeping events washing over the world stage can feel deeply unclear, sometimes frightening and frequently overwhelming.  It is tempting to respond to these often painful situations by vacillating between anger and complacency. Buddhist teachings can offer insight into accepting “what is” while developing the capacity for equanimity and the courage for wise action.  Join Ven Tenzin Chogkyi and Mathew Divaris in a lively conversation...

The concept of Right Speech (or "Skillful Speech") is core to many Buddhist teachings about how to live an ethical life and avoid causing harm. In our hyperconnected world, our ability to communicate beyond face-to-face has increased exponentially, and navigating our own speech (and written words) is important because of the wide-ranging ramifications that our words can have on others, as well as on our own minds. In this talk and meditation, Ven Tenzin takes us through the practical advice...

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has often commented that the foundation of Buddhist practice is cultivating a good heart. As important as mindfulness and concentration meditations are within the Buddhist tradition, it is crucial to balance such practices with the cultivation and development of altruism, good will and care. The practice of the Four Immeasurables is the ideal technique for achieving this goal. The Four Immeasurables, or the Four Brahmaviharas, as they are called in the Pali...

We’re raised to believe that our perceptions of the world around us has an objective quality, but both Buddhism and modern neuroscience agree that our perceptions can frequently be distorted, and these distortions can cause great suffering. This "naive realism” — the belief that the world exists in the way it appears to us — is so innate to many of us, yet our beliefs, past experiences and emotional states can dramatically alter how we perceive experiences. In this informative session, Ven...

In this episode, Ven Tenzin explores the Eight Worldly Concerns, a set of four dyads that correspond to many of the deeply held hopes and fears that drive the actions of all beings. As we engage with the spiritual path, or even the mundane decisions of the day-to-day, a clear understanding of these forms of attachment and aversion can serve as a way to become mindful of our motivations and bring clarity and skillfulness to our actions. In this way, we can ultimately become free from the...

Capitalist consumer culture puts a huge emphasis on finding happiness in the external world. But, this hedonic happiness is shown, both in our experience and in the scientific experiments, to be fleeting. In this episode, Ven Tenzin speaks to a second, more durable type of happiness that is not nearly as predicated on external factors -- Eudaimonic happiness, which is derived from what we bring to the world.

In popular culture, courage is often portrayed as loud and showy, and patience as passivity and inaction. Yet, in Buddhist philosophy, courage is a hallmark of patience, of facing life’s challenges with resilience and wise action. In this episode, Ven Tenzin speaks about the intrinsic link between patience and courage, and how we can build the courage to go outside of our own comfort zones and engage in meaningful action without losing our peace of mind.

Patience, or forbearance, is taught as one of the six perfections, the six main practices of a bodhisattva (a being who is dedicated to attaining full enlightenment for the sake of all living beings). In the well-known text, The Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, the 8th Century Indian master Shantideva devotes the longest chapter to the practice of patience because of its importance. But what does this patience involve? Why is it so emphasized on the spiritual path? Join us for an...

Mindfulness practice has become increasingly popular in recent years, and is being taught not only to Buddhist practitioners in meditation retreats but in every context, from maximum-security prisons to Silicon Valley boardrooms. But what did the Buddha teach about mindfulness, and why is this practice such a fundamental aspect of the path leading to awareness and awakening? The Four Foundations of Mindfulness, mindfulness of the body, the feelings, mind, and phenomena, was taught by the...