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The Stormy Waves of Emotion

My dad, who is a long time meditator, told me recently that meditation is great for helping us deal with the difficulties of life, but that meditation doesn’t seem to work when we feel highly emotional. My experience tends to agree. When emotions threaten to drown me, I don’t think to go sit on a cushion. The waves are too powerful to swim through. But I think it is the fruition of the meditation practice that we should be able to ride the waves when they come by observing the emotions and not judging them too much. Later, when the storm has subsided, a clearer sky starts to emerge and the calm abiding of meditation leads to greater wisdom clarity.

Many teachers convey some variation of the statement, "every moment has its energy; either it will ride us or we can ride it." When our surfboard snaps in

When I Was A Werewolf

Sometimes my mind spins itself into a frenzy of negative thinking. It usually happens at night, when my body feels tired and the outside world is full of terrors. My mind transforms me into a werewolf. I go down this terrifying path and eventually fall asleep in a heap of fearful trembling. The next morning I awaken without fur or fangs. I wonder what the hell happened and how I can escape my mind when it gets like this.

This happened to me last night. I was angry

about something and then I went off to cool down. At some point I remembered to ask myself a question about how I wanted to proceed. I asked myself something like: “am I pursuing kindness or stress?” It didn’t work. I was up until late ruminating on the problems in my life I want to fix and one thought led to another.

Love and Heartbreak Feel the Same

Susan Piver

Think about that statement: "love and heartbreak feel the same." Susan Piver said these words during a dharma talk at the DC Shambhala Center last Thursday. I think she's onto something. When I stop to contemplate the love I feel for my wife, my parents, my friends or a pet, I feel an aching in my heart. It is literally a physical feeling.

Susan also said that the difference between love and heartbreak is that, "heartbreak is love unbound from an object." The object of that love could be someone who is gone now. It could be someone you have a crush on. It could even be the image in your mind of you with your dream job.

There is your mind and there is an object. In between there is a tender feeling like a heart breaking in two.

Generating Merit

I'm in Thailand this week and I've noticed that a lot of my Buddhist co-workers talk a lot about generating merit. For example, they'll say things like, "I'm going to the wat (a Thai Buddhist temple) for a few weeks to generate merit."

The idea behind merit is that when you do good deeds - such as helping clean a meditation center, or walking your neighbor's dog - you are planting the seeds of karma that lead to better outcomes in the future. We call this "merit." According to the idea of karma, generating the right kind of merit will lead to a better rebirth, either in the next moment, or perhaps even in the next lifetime.

Gentleness Toward Myself

I was standing on an ordinary street corner in DC when the change started. Lunch in hand, waiting for the cross-walk to change so I could go back to the office and eat, I was remembering something I said at a meeting, which now seemed embarrassing.

That's when I heard the voice: "You're such a fucking idiot."

"Wait, what?! Where the hell did that come from?" I thought. I was in shock. This voice was familiar, but I had never noticed it before.

Fleet Maull Talks about Socially Engaged Buddhism

Since this weekend I'm flying back after a fantastic month working in Nepal, I won't have time to post. In the meantime, check out these two videos by Fleet Maull, a senior Shambhala teacher who has a lot to say about aggression and compassion, after spending 14 years in prison. Acharya Maull will be at the DC Shambhala Center from March 8-10 for a workshop (details here). You can also just see him talk on the evening of the 8th.

Here is one vid on socially engaged Buddhism:

And another on service as path:

To register for Fleet Maull's talk or weekend, check this link: http://dc.shambhala.org/program-details/?id=121193

How to Wire Your Brain for Love

Romantic love is a myth, perpetuated by Hollywood and a fascination with the idea that someone else will come along and save us from our suffering. Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown from Naropa University says romantic love has become like a religious cult in Western culture. She says, "Romantic love, no matter how delicious, is the primary symptom of cultural malaise, the central neurosis of Western civilization." But that isn't the same thing as saying there is no such thing as love. 

I just read a great article in the Atlantic about the biology of love, the myth of romantic love, and the scientifically documented benfits of loving kindness meditation. The article comes out of 

In Nepal

I am in Nepal until early February and won't be posting until I return to DC. Come back in a few weeks for new posts.

The Zen of not Seeking Entertainment

I love my free time like a dog loves a bone. I guard it jealously and always look back to see who might snatch some of it from me. I look forward to filling up my time with entertainment from video games to catching up on dharma reading.

But too much free time gets me in trouble. I find myself overdosing on news articles and other entertainment, like a kid on Halloween coming down from a sugar high. I get irritable about the fact that I've wasted a whole day doing nothing but reading up on the Fiscal Cliff apocalypse. I question myself. Sometimes I even start to think it will be nice to get back to work, where life is regimented and I can meaningfully fill up my time trying to achieve something.

How odd it is that I wish for free time, yet when I get it I feel dissatisfied, like I'm wasting time. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche had a few things

Being Present for the Holidays

The holidays can be a happy time, but often they become a difficult time. We may find that our ability to be present is compromised by super-charged emotions and busy minds. Hence, we miss the opportunity to fully appreciate a little time off from work and being close to loved ones.

The storylines that hold us back from being present grow strong at this time of year. Often those storylines are about disappointment. The holidays are a time of high expectation. You don't want to end up feeling like a kid who opened all of his presents and didn't get the thing he really wanted.

The "touch and go" technique, which I've blogged about before, is the perfect practice for the holidays. When your uncle is about to make a crazy political statement at dinner, or you're annoyed by

The Buddha Was Not a Project Manager

For Buddhists, the Buddha is a model that provides inspiration. He walked the same path we walk and overcame many obstacles to attain enlightenment and free himself from the confusion that is samsara.

The historical Buddha left the gourmet food and dancing naked girls of his palace to work on freeing himself from suffering. He shopped around for different teachings and sat with many different teachers. Before he sat under the Bodhi Tree, where he attained enlightenment, he starved himself and probably did some terribly painful yoga poses.

In some ways we look at the Buddha as a model of hard work. After all, if you are going to pursue this path, it takes work. You don't just show up in front of a teacher and wait for him to waive a magic wand that frees you from suffering. You have to put in your own effort to

6 Ways to Create Space When Life is too Busy

When we get too busy our awareness is compromised. When relatives come to visit, or I'm trying to catch an airplane, or I just have a million things to do, my mind doesn't feel like an ally. Suddenly keys disappear, sunglasses hide on top of my head, important things go unnoticed.

Our minds are like one of those springs in the back of a wind up toy.  Sure, winding up the spring makes you like a to-do-list destroying, 6-armed Energizer Bunny. Sometimes we need that to get things done, but the down-side is that winding the spring tightly means there is no space between our thoughts.

Punk's not Dead, It's just Getting Older

Aging and rock n' roll don't go well together. When I listen to the music I love, especially old punk songs that nobody around me cares about anymore, I feel hopelessly doomed to a world where I keep getting older and the punk kids stay the same age.

Tonight Ted Leo, a DC punk hero, is playing an all ages benefit show and I'm dying to go. I don't hang out with many people that care anymore. My heart breaks to every drum beat. It wakes me up to every sprouting grey hair.

When I was about 20 years old I got free tickets to a Ramones show. I showed up with this girl and we laughed

Three Steps to Unconditional Confidence

There are two kinds of confidence: the kind you pump up and the kind to which you wake up.

Conditional confidence comes from some kind of credential. If I read a book about cooking, I'm confident I know something about cooking. If I get a promotion at work, I have confidence that my colleagues see me a certain way. But if I get fired I might lose confidence in the way my colleagues see me. 

Sometimes I'm walking down the street, totally wrapped up in my thoughts: "How can I be better at my job? Do people really like me?" Blah blah blah...

Training Your Mind and Communicating Genuinely

Discipline: coming back to the practice. 

My neighbor has a great big dog. It's a little smaller than a horse. You can't go outside with a dog like that without training it first. Otherwise, it'll just pull you down the street, terrifying every man, woman and child along the way.

Our minds are kind of like big burly mastiffs. They are strong, energetic and often willful. If we don't train our minds, they'll pull us down the street in any direction they feel like going. It seems odd to think you can steer a course to happiness without training your mind first.

Training your mind requires exertion and discipline as a starting point. When your mind starts to run off,

Where Courage is Born

A friend of mine told me a story in which his wife was pissed off. She let him have it with a list of grievances about the things he does wrong and how unhappy she is with their relationship. She couldn't keep her feelings bottled up anymore and wanted him to have a taste.

My friend suffered. It hurt to hear these things, but in this heated moment he experienced clarity. His ego shut off. His wife's words were like noise that didn't warrant a reaction. He noticed her heart and the suffering she radiated. It was like he allowed his brain to quit reacting so that their hearts could synchronize.

Mindfulness in a Middle Eastern Baklava Shop

Kunafah is crazy delicious!

I was just in the Middle East on my honeymoon. I could tell you a million things about how great Jordan is, how safe it is, all the wonderful things about Islamic practices, etc. But what I really want to talk about is what I learned about dignity, how to stand up straight and appreciate our place in the world.

A highlight for me every time I go to the Middle East, is the food. In particular, I love baklava, especially when its made with gooey honey, sun cracked pistachios and golden brown phillo dough.

One day my wife and I walked into one of the ubiquitous sweets shops in Amman to find a man with a well groomed mustache ruling over his abundant world of perfumed, sugary, crispy, bite-sized culinary delights. He smiled at us when we walked in. I mangled a few words of Arabic, in an effort to learn more about what I was looking at. I asked him what you call the cheesy, golden pastry swimming in rose syrup.

100 Choices Every Second

In Western culture we have an incredible neurosis. We rarely feel worthy. We are never quite satisfied with who we are and where we are in life. This menace appears in our careers, where we never feel competent enough. It shows up at the gym, where we never feel fit enough. It shows up in school, where we never feel cool enough, popular enough, or smart enough. The shopping mall thrives on the fact that we are never satisfied, we can't just be happy.

There is probably someone in the world right now who is more satisfied than me, with less. I'm going to contemplate what makes that person tick.

I sometimes lose sight of what is in front of me at this moment and fantasize about where life might be taking me. I strategize about the future. Then I get frustrated because things aren't working out according to my 5 point program to become the super me.

Guest Post: Six Weeks Ago

This week I am excited to present a guest post from a dear DC Shambhala Sangha member, who also happens to be my meditation instructor. Jonathan Kirkendall offers a personal, moving and honest picture of impermanence, as he experienced when his partner suffered a stroke...

When you go to a graduate school founded by a TibetanBuddhist master, where the writing department was developed by the Beat Poets,it is not  surprising that the graffiti in the men’s room is poetic dharma. Written acrossthe metal stall all in caps in black magic marker, it reads:

ALL IS CHANGE

CHANGE IS ALL

I CAN REST IN NOTHING

I CAN REST IN NOTHING

I ran into this little piece of wisdom before classesstarted my first year there, and when I graduated three years later, I had it memorized.  Of course, at graduate school all IS change.  My long red hair morphed into a shaved headwhich became a red and gray buzz cut. Friends changed, classes changed, professors changed, mindschanged.  And soon, Boulder, Colorado changed to New York City, which two years later changed to Washington DC.