If you are frightened and feel yourself drawn toward superstition, magick, and protection there are many who could help you out, some even claim to be Buddhist. They might seduce you with tales of wish-fulfilling jewels that, like Aladdin’s lamp, promise to fulfill your dreams of avarice. But if you have grown weary of forever fleeing scarcity, pain, and scorn, as well as obscurity and long, instead, for peace that is quite a different matter. There are so many who take pleas

My C-PTSD sucks! The ONLY beneficial thing about it (for me at least) is that allows me to treat my mind as a crash-test-dummy with which I evaluate which meditative techniques cut the mustard. The Buddha was big on contemplating impermanence and our brains evolved to think symbolically, so the MOST effective contemplations tend to be figurative. Consider this set of four: FIRST – Active visualization could be hard work, but by silently and mentally recite, “How lots melt…” a

I am about to give you some free advice. It is about doing the right thing… don’t do it (whatever it is) for the wrong reasons: for fear of punishment or desire for reward. Life wants to be simple. So allow the Buddha’s eight-fold path to define you. Fifty percent of it pertains to loving intention and kind actions. Do you want to be the person your dog already thinks you are? Then choose kindness. But there is nothing kind about paying folks to exploit animals, no less murde

Let us resist the efforts of fools to make of grief a pathology. For healthy mammals (like you and I) grief comes naturally: our over-brains have evolved to treasure relationships. Buddha’s techniques could empower us to make peace with the monster of grief (though it threaten to eat us whole). The Anapanasati Sutta could inspire us to contemplate four rhetorical questions: FIRST “This grieving… how changing?” SECOND “This grieving… how fading?” THIRD “This grieving… how ceas

In his book, “The Path to Enlightenment” the fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet insists that every lama is his own sect. I shall, therefore, do my best to explain what meditation is from my perspective of the teachings of both the Buddha and Lao Tzu (who gave us the Tao Te Ching). The founders of both Taoism and Buddhism agree that there is no shortage of stress and that our controlling tendencies and primal survival drives tend to exacerbate our stressors quite a bit. They both

Some people have extra money. Their savings are padded, their debts are paid, and they wonder, “Should I invest?” That depends on your primary motivation. Do you desire great wealth? Do you desire to protect your morality? Or do you wish to make the world a better place? For “maximizing my return” is greed’s license for cruelty, “protecting my vows” reveals a heart that is rigid, fearful, and elitist; but “making the world a better place” demonstrates the world view of one wh

Doormats could be quite useful, they can keep the mud out of your home, and they could offer a word of welcome to your visitors. As a nerd I would absolutely love a doormat that read “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!” although I do not think my tantric partner would care for it very much. And yet, I wouldn’t want to be a doormat. But aren’t we warned how that is Dharma’s price of transcending our aversion and avarice? Not necessarily. Such a trap is only sprung on those w

Like a dog driven by a lingering scent to gnaw on a bone, devoid of all visible particles of flesh, our mind can return to a problem again and again; as if haunted by memory, desire, fantasy, and quite often confabulation. The three pound supercomputer between our ears could return to its conundrum again and again seeking a way to have avoided a past problem, or resolved it, or to simply rail against the injustice of it all. The worst thing we can do is ignore our rumination

In the Pali cannon a tale is told how members of the priestly class asked the Buddha’s permission to translate his teachings into the erudite language of Sanskrit: elegant and rarefied. Very much, to their surprise, he told them he would prefer they translate his teachings into the regional dialect of the common folk. But how could that relate to us? The Buddha taught simple ideas and simple techniques in simple language to the simple and scholarly alike. Upon his figurative

There are brave men and women who put themselves in harm’s way, so we don’t have to. And many of these military folk must run on a daily basis. But unless we’re being chased by a monster (from a child’s nightmare) jogging could get quite boring. Could there be a way to bring running into the Buddha’s path of mindfulness and meditation? As we inhale we could silently and mentally recite “Notice this…” and as we exhale we could silently and mentally recite “…relaxing!” With eac

Recall your favorite statue depicting the Buddha sitting in meditation. Gaze upon his face; it is the epitome of serenity, is it not? Is this the countenance of an individual so controlling as to use fear in an effort to coerce others? Folded into the teachings of the seven enlightenment factors are invitations to embrace joy and tranquility. Those who take such teachings to heart are transformed: becoming more and more flexible, loving, laid-back, egalitarian, and cooperativ

There are some, who having perceived the Buddha’s teachings through the lens of rigidity, fear, controlling tendencies, elitism, and competition, then go on to teach others their mistaken views like a pre-symptomatic plague carrier spreading his disease to others, who fall ill, and often die. If teachers and authors such as these have increased your sufferings, I sincerely commiserate. Although asceticism is antithetical to the “Middle way” of the Buddha it is still taught, a

You’ve sat upon your meditation cushion and lit a candle before a statue of the Buddha, the patron saint (for want of a better term) of meditation, contemplation, peace, and love. You balance your head over your shoulders and your shoulders over your hips. As you breathe in you are mindful of the minds images of memories and fantasies that flash by like an art house cinema montage and as you breathe out you can feel your body relax and your mind release. After a few (or maybe