Category: Advice for Difficult Times
Your Dissatisfaction is Good News
Carolyn Rose Gimian explains why the experience of dissatisfaction — which the Rolling Stones so aptly described — might be just what we need.
Over and Over Again
According to Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche, to be enlightened is to be free of obsessions. Given that I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, I usually feel very far from that ideal.
What to Do When the Going Gets Rough
Pema Chödrön on four ways to hold our minds steady and hearts open when facing difficult people or circumstances.
Are you trying to “settle the score”? Try “choosing peace” instead
There is a key moment, says Pema Chödrön, when we make the choice between peace and conflict. In this teaching from her program Practicing Peace, she describes the practice we can do at that very moment to bring peace for ourselves, for others, and for the world. If we want to make peace, with ourselves and with…
Extreme Detox: How Buddhist monks led me to humility and freedom from alcohol addiction
Author Paul Garrigan tells how Buddhist monks in a Thai temple helped him to drop his drinking, and even the very idea that he was an addict.
Is Western Psychology Redefining Buddhism?
Jack Kornfield, Judy Lief, and Bodhin Kjolhede examine the influence of Western psychology on Buddhism. Introduction by Ajahn Amaro.
Off the Bridge and Onto the Cushion
Brandon Dean Lamson recalls how he turned away from his decision to commit suicide, and went to go sit zazen instead.
I Did Not Lose My Mind
It took an illness of the brain for Meg Hutchinson to discover the inherent sanity of her own mind. Her breakdown was actually a breakthrough.
It’s for You
Sometimes after a phone call, nothing is ever the same. But if you let it, says Douglas Penick, the bad news can come to feel a little like falling in love.
Josh Korda on “The Glorification of Busyness”
One of the most radical, countercultural things we can do is actually just sit there and relax without feeling we're missing out.