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by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Dr. Howard Cutler Amazon.com Product Description: Nearly every time you see him, he's laughing, or at least smiling. And he makes everyone else around him feel like smiling. Even after spending only a few minutes in his presence you can't help feeling happier. If you ask him if he's happy, even though he's suffered the loss of his country, the Dalai Lama will give you an unconditional yes. What's more, he'll tell you that happiness is the purpose of life, and that "the very motion of our life is toward happiness." How to get there has always been the question....

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Friends and relatives often comment on how preternaturally calm I am and seem to have become. This was not always so. I was an overactive and swift-reacting three sports jock growing up in the NY suburbs in the fifties and sixties. This acquired equanimity and centeredness I attribute to decades of meditation practice and the inner gravitas stemming from the sacred art and practice of Presencing. It helps keep my ship upright, steady, balanced,  and on course even amidst stormy waters. Right yourself, and your whole world comes aright. Once in the early ninetie, I was getting a ride in France...

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by Marc Lesser Amazon.com Description: A certain kind of busyness is crucial to life, allowing us to earn a living, create art, and achieve success. But too often it consumes us and we become crazy busy, nonstop busy, and we expend extraneous effort that gets us nowhere. Marc Lesser's new book shows us the benefits of doing less in a world that has increasingly embraced more — more desire, more activity, more things, more exhaustion. Less is about stopping, about the possibility of finding composure in the midst of activity. The ideas and practices that Lesser outlines offer a radical...

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deluded, a buddha is a sentient being; awakened, a sentient being is a buddha. ignorant, a buddha is a sentient being; with wisdom, a sentient being is a buddha. if the mind is warped, a buddha is a sentient being if the mind is impartial, a sentient being is a buddha. when once a warped mind is produced, buddha is concealed within the sentient being. if for one instant of thought we become impartial, then sentient beings are themselves buddha. in our mind itself a buddha exists, our own buddha is the true buddha. if we do not have in ourselves the buddha mind, then where are we to seek buddha? --...

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This morning I was reading about an article about a school child who recently asked President Obama who he would like to meet and talk with, or have dinner with, if it could be anyone at all. This is not a new question for our time. I seem to remember that someone posed the same query to President Kennedy, who was known for, among other things, the many star-studded dinner parties he and Jackie hosted. JFK said that Thomas Jefferson was who he’d like to dine with, insouciantly adding that there hadn’t been such a gathering of renaissance-minded brilliance and talent at a White House dinner...

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The first time I visited Pittsburgh was for an unhappy occasion: the funeral of my nineteen year old college friend Alison Krause, shot and killed at Kent State University by the Ohio National Guardsmen in May of 1970. Since then, I have returned to teach Buddha's healing wisdom and compassionate message several times, and am here right now conducting a meditation and self-inquiry weekend for my Dzogchen local group. I sincerely hope that, when the G-20 summit occurs here later this month -- protests and demonstrations are being planned -- that all my friends here in town and others will remember...

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by Thich Nhat Hanh Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practices Description: "Encouraging readers to be intelligent and skillful in their practice, this new collection by Thich Nhat Hanh outlines the essential steps by which we can all obtain real and lasting happiness. Each day, we perform the tasks of everyday life without thought or awareness — walking, sitting, working, eating, driving, and much more. But Hanh points out that if we remain truly aware of our actions, no matter the task we're performing, we can stay engaged in our lives and better our outlook through mindfulness. This...

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"The Higher Power is fine, as far as that term and the common usage of it goes. However, mostly its a placeholder for something beyond ourselves that we long for but don't understand very well. Personally speaking, I'm far more interested in cultivating the Common Power to be found within each and every one of us, the recognition of which transforms all of our lives and relationships. Twelve Step folks and others of Buddhist or agnostic and atheist persuasion say that in their attempt to participate in their programs,  they often founder on the shoals of talk about God and the Higher Power, which...

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He who stands on tiptoe doesn't stand firm. He who rushes ahead doesn't go far. He who tries to shine dims his own light.... If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go. ~Lao Tsu, “Tao Te Ching”, chapter 24 The TAO OF TWITTER is like a standup comedian’s good one liner, haiku poetry, and the old fashioned singing telegram -- rich with the magical power and incandescent immediacy of nowness, which is part and parcel of the power of Tao. People are genuinely feeling this invisible yet palpable pulse, its heartbeat the ambient chatter of hyper-connected mini-commentators...

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"The Dharma is not something separate from ourselves. We perceive Zen, the Dharma, and the Way to be outside of ourselves. But it is a serious error to create a distance between yourself and these things in this manner. If you make a separation between yourself and what you are looking for, no matter how much effort you make to lessen that distance, that effort will be in vain." --from The Essence of Zen: The Teachings of Sekkei Harada (Wisdom Publications)

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