Musings

There's a great deal of significant new neorioscience research about meditation and it's effects on the brain, beuroplasticity, our happiness and well being, led by pioneers including Dr Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and Dr Richard Davidson of U. of Wisconsin, etc. My Buddhist friend in Oregon, Donald Altman, known as "America's Mindfulness Coach", has a new blog. He writes: "I am always in awe at the human brain (any brain, for that matter---cat, dog, bird, fish, etc.). Human brains in particular are exceedingly complex. Imagine 100 billion neurons with more connections than there all the known...

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I just returned from conducting a week-long silent Advanced Meditation Retreat at Dzogchen Retreat Center outside Austin, Texas, and also leading a very friendly Dzogchen meditation weekend called "Living the Enlightened Life" at a church in Southern Calif. (Orange County) near U. of Calif. at Irvine—and here I find, surprisingly enough, that it's warmer here this week in the Lake District of Concord, Mass., than it was in LA! Quelle surprise. On the long cross-country plane ride, I happened to fall upon an article about evolution in the Wall Street Journal by Matt Ridley and got excited about...

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My good friend, author, and coach  Cheryl Richardson, sent me this recently, which I thought I'd share with y'all. I’m down here amidst the wildflower fields on the banks of the Pedernales River at the Dzogchen Center outside Austin, leading our semi-annual week-long Advanced Dzogchen Meditation Intensive for a group of experienced practitioners. “Self-Care Club: I've just arrived home from Omega where I taught a Mother's Day weekend retreat about developing the qualities and habits of an extraordinary mother. We had a terrific group of women and this week I'd like to share ten pieces...

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Are there any facts we can count on anymore in this protean world of ours? Or is it all just smoke and mirrors, like a dream, and entirely subjective? What’s with science these days, the supposedly reliable arbiter of modern realities and verities? How is it that our government scientists during the Bush-Cheney era had such varied opinions on sensitive and crucial matters, from Weapons of Mass Destruction to global warming, to whether or not we’ve been in an economic depression, a recession, or a mere downturn during recent years? I want to know how to effectively winnow through the welter...

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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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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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I have been collating my many notebooks and various published anthologies of words of wisdom, maxims and adages this week, for possible use in my new book projects, speeches and Dharma talks. My assistant Kathleen Albanese said she has some good ones from her mother's time,  and grandmother too. "My mom used to say, when one of us kids was in deep doo-doo of some kind: "Don't worry, child, this'll make a good story when everyone gathers at the holidays." More of her thoughts to ponder: ~If you ever need a helping hand remember there are two at the end of your arms; one for helping yourself and the other...

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"It seems odd that we spend so much time in schools on such matters as simplifying radicals, learning about the War of 1812 and identifying the parts of speech and so little on the personal quest for meaning. "  --Noddings (1984) I have been thinking and writing lately about what would constitute a truly Higher Education system -- a wisdom-for-life leadership, learning, and empowerment process -- which integrates ones upbringing, schooling, and life experience into a meaningful whole. Higher ed today seems to have become, for the most part, mere vocational training, although jobs in this economy...

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I was reflecting upon time, loss and death, the passing of the generations last week as I performed the Jewish unveiling ceremony for my recently deceased mother's gravestone in our family plot in Long Island, New York, next to my father's, aunts' and uncles', and grandparents' too. All things pass. The good news is that, in our nuclear family at least, the generations pass in correct order, and parents don't have to bury children and so forth. The bad news is that life is like a river and time its current, continuously moving on -- forward , if you like, although it seems more cyclical to me personally,...

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