. I start every morning with lovingkindness meditation, a Buddhist practice aimed at countering negative thoughts about yourself and others. The first step is to concentrate on your own happiness: “May I be well, may I be happy.” Next, you do the same for a good friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, and, finally, … Read more
What causes all unhappiness in our lives, and is there a way to overcome it? To answer this question, two and a half millennia ago, a young man named Siddhattha Gotama left his parents’ palace to become a wandering ascetic. After six years of extreme austerities and meditation, he attained enlightenment and expounded his famous … Read more
Nature is our mother. But as we grow up, we spend less and less time in her abiding presence. Do you find yourself stuck within the confines of a city life? Do you feel the longing to reconnect with the natural world? Great transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau certainly felt this longing when he embarked on … Read more
. “When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the relationship with yourself,” Eckhart Tolle wrote in his meditation on what it really means to be yourself. Except for the enlightened few, it seems the malaise of self-obsession will keep afflicting each and every one of us until the end … Read more