Can Meditation Help Your Running?
Silence fell over the room as the meditation instructor asked the group to lower their eyes. Shoulders dropped. Breath deepened. It’s what you’d expect from a meditation session—except for the thump and buzz of music and conversation on the other side of the curtain. There, thousands of runners picked up bib numbers and browsed the … Continue
Getting to the Heart of the Matter
“The Buddhist approach is not to use any reference points at all—none whatsover. Then we are not finding out whether we exist or not, but we are simply looking at ourselves directly, without any reference points—without even looking, we could say. That may be very demanding, but let it be so. Let us get to … Continue
Meditation… in Everyday Life?
I always hated horror movies as a kid. Meditation courses nyc I remember running out of the room screaming whenever a commercial for the latest Nightmare On Elm Street sequel would come on the TV. Those commercials were not just a surprise; they were a betrayal – a cruel joke. You’re watching an image of … Continue
10 Years And Counting…
Eleven years have past since 9/11. I had not been down to the site for almost that many. Last week I took my children, Max, 25, and Catherine, 21, for our first visit to the memorial, ground zero. I cried. The memorial – the footprints of the Towers – are are now enormous square pools, … Continue
Creativity, Spirituality & Making a Buck
In the Fall of 1970, I was attending Berklee College of Music in Boston when out of curiosity I attended a workshop led by Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche at the yoga studio I frequented. The workshop was called “Work, Sex and Money”, and Rinpoche spoke extensively about integrating spirituality with everyday life. … Continue
Compassion is Something You TRAIN in
I wanted to share a fairly simple observation from teaching this week, related to the meditation practices that focus on the development of compassion, such as metta and tonglen. It’s interesting that if we see a great athlete or yogi, or just someone in prime physical condition, we have a tendency to think that this person has gone through an … Continue
The Joys of a City Retreat
As urban beings, we need rest: physical, mental, emotional, psychological. And, we need a break from the usual routines of working too much—or worrying about our work or lack of work—and taking care of our family and home. In the Buddhist meditation tradition, we practice sitting still to offer ourselves a change, a break from … Continue
Love Alone: Relationships, Depression and the Practice of Meditation
I was standing alone in the mountains at night. I had moved to a retreat center to escape a broken heart. A dramatic way to deal with a break up, admittedly. The stars exploded across the Colorado sky. It was so clear that it was hard to tell where the black backdrop of night really … Continue
The Pursuit of Happiness: Developing Empathy for Others
I had a major epiphany a few weeks ago while playing with our family’s chocolate toy poodle, Leroy Brown. I realized that he’s just trying to be happy. Sometimes when he’s trying to be happy, he makes me happy — like when I go to the grocery store and come back and he acts like … Continue
