For over twenty years, our financial advice has been based on Nobel-prize winning research and the Buddhist practices of awareness, simplicity, equanimity, and non-harming.
insights |
-
Brown Rice Is Just Right
How do you like zazen? I think it may be better to ask, how do you like brown rice? Zazen is too big a topic. Brown rice is just right. Actually, there is not much difference. When you eat brown rice, you have to chew it, and unless you chew it, it is difficult to swallow. When you chew it very well, your mouth becomes part of the kitchen, and actually the brown rice becomes more and more tasty. When we eat white rice, we don’t chew so much, but that little bit of chewing feels so good that naturally the rice goes right down our throats. More » -
0 comments
A Mind with a Mind of its Own
The late Tibetan Buddhist master Chögyam Trungpa once said, “The spiritual path is insult after insult,” and that became more clear as I began to meditate. What I found most disturbing, even embarrassing, especially during my first few meditation retreats, was that my mind so often insisted on singing to me. I would be sitting there meditating, and suddenly, triggered by a random image or thought, a song would start up and begin playing over and over again inside my head. Other meditators have reported similar musical intrusions, which might be called “jukebox karma.” More » -
0 comments
Carried From Here
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa grew up in the Tibetan communities of India and Nepal, and moved to the United States to attend college and graduate school. Her collection of poems, Rules of the House, the first book of poetry published in English by a Tibetan woman, describes her coming-of-age during the Tibetan diaspora. Due to early monsoon rain, Saturday’s class is dismissed. Seven nuns abandon their books on the roof. Raindrops, I say in English. They want to learn functional words: immediately, enlightenment, conversion. More » -
0 comments
Does a Cat Have Buddha-Nature? Meow.
It’s just another day at a remote monastery in western Thailand as the resident monks rise before dawn, make their alms rounds, then take their tigers for a walk. Aside from providing Buddhist training, the six-year-old jungle monastery now acts as an sanctuary for some of Thailand’s few remaining wild tigers. More » -
0 comments
The Practice of Harmonica
Teaching a group of nonmusicians to play blues, rock, and classical music on the harmonica might seem an impossible day’s work, but David Harp, author of Instant Blues Harmonica and The Three-Minute Meditator uses the humble “Mississippi Saxophone” as a route to mindfulness rather than as an end, however pleasurable in itself. After all, what better way to focus on the breath, Vipassana-style, than through the inhalations and exhalations of a catchy blues/rock rhythm? More » -
0 comments
Not Enlightened Yet
After sesshin I write an e-mail to my sister with the subject line, “Not Enlightened Yet.” “Why are you doing this Zen meditation thing?” she asked months ago. “Do you want to become enlightened, or what?” I was stumped. “Or what” made more sense to me, but I knew that “wanting to become enlightened” would make more sense to her. More »
