“Do not hate those who wrong you. How else can you manifest the unborn power of compassion.”  Hatred even of our critics is not the resort of the wise. Day by day, know the blessings of peace, of forgiveness, kindness and pure awareness. Wisdom...

The world is forever fraught with the fires of greed, hatred and delusion causing much harm and suffering within and around us. Seeking refuge from the mind’s vulnerabilities and restlessness, we secure our spiritual moorings. For here and now, as disciples of the present...

We are eager to know how to quiet the restless and anxious mind. Will peace ever come in the face of life’s struggles? Let us listen to the voice of the inner heart and peer through the magnifying glass of present moment awareness. Softly...

The Buddha left us a key to blessings – wisdom and freedom. Can we use it for awakening? In the face of all the inevitable challenges of this human life: painful feelings, worries, fear, illness, betrayal, loss of the loved, aging – so many...

Though distinct, our body and mind share the ultimate characteristics of all conditioned phenomena, being impermanent, imperfect and impersonal.  Nor do they have any solid core or trace of any ‘self’. This is key to freeing ourselves from identifying with body or mind as...

Day by day, we bear witness to the flow of experience through which the world seems to tumble and thrash, as it did even a thousand years ago. In every age, doesn’t life unfold through change, success, pain and struggle? How do we harm...

Can we stay true to our spiritual aspirations and fulfill  them without compromise? Keep remembering and applying the Buddha’s instructions to protect virtue, trust the practice and commit to this noble search and rescue. We hold the reins to free ourselves from life’s inevitable...

The Buddha guides our way to inner purity and awakening through cultivating the special qualities of universal love. First, we devote ourselves to a noble life of virtue, loving kindness, and care for others. We observe our own conduct – instead of blaming or...

When the mind opens to the present moment in a humble, homage, witness way, sustaining that, know every wave in the ocean of the heart. In the silence of here and now, awareness melts all thought. We can see with clarity and listen with...

Spiritual abuse is a hidden danger even among the most well-intentioned. If we allow the ego to undermine our nobler instincts, we fall prey to power and authority. Vigilant awareness will alert us and open our eyes to truly see and wisely protect the...

As an alms mendicant nun, dependent on the kindness of others for nearly four decades, I reflect on the generosity as well as the violence in this world. And yet, this path yields immense blessings. For the Buddha’s teaching is founded on the Noble...

There is much fear in this world and yet there is a wondrous way beyond fear. Just as humans create weapons of mass destruction, we are capable of the exact opposite – nurturing the enlightened mind. We need only wake up from the toxic...

Do we really want to wake up? We may have to face painful truths about ourselves. So we examine the depth of our dedication to this spiritual work and we watch out for the ego. The Buddha had zero tolerance for young monastics who...

How do we extinguish the fires of greed, hatred and delusion that burn within the mind? The Buddha has thrown us a lifeline. We grab hold of it right here and now – one moment at a time. Free yourself from relentless conceptualizing and...

How true can we be so we don’t have to lie? Not just in what we say or think but also in how we live this precious life both in our doings on the outside, and also what goes on inside the mind –...

Living in the forest, we are always aware of the trees. Patient, deep-rooted, even in fierce storms, they stand. So stand like the trees, committed and enduring. See the world with pure awareness, just the way it is. Living in a state of gratitude,...

The Buddha encourages us to abandon the unwholesome and develop wholesomeness in our daily acts, words and thoughts. As we learn to trust in pure awareness and present moment mindfulness, the weight of the world is lifted from the heart. Here and now, we...

What is true joy? All too soon, joy declines because of its nature to change, like all conditions of life. True joy is not an idea or belief in a perfect moment but it is knowing the truth of change and how to free...

Do we know the truth of what we are? If not, how can we love unconditionally? When the heart abides in loving-kindness, the misery of fear, anger and despair is vanquished. If we look for unconditional love outside of us, we will never find...

The heart’s splendor is known in pure awareness – not tainted by any harmful thought or feeling. It is integrity itself – present now. Traverse from the self, the narrow sense of me and mine, to surrender – knowing that we are nothing of...