Author Archives: alan

No Laughing Matter

Pearls Before Swine, Dec 19, 2009

Comics speak to me. I feel like Rat sits on one shoulder, Goat (or Uncle Duke or Dagwood or Lucy …) sits on the other. They go back and forth and I’m caught in the middle. One side tells me how the “spiritual journey” might improve my life by making me kinder, more patient and even-keeled, more helpful. The other tells me not to be such a pushover.

Thoughts, even Rat-type thoughts, are not really a problem. We are, by our very nature, thinkers. The “Problem of Thinking” is not that we think (We are thinkers! How can one not think?), but rather the fact that we can so easily get lost in our thoughts. When this happens, thought becomes a substitute for experience. You could even say thought becomes a substitute for life.

So enjoy your life. Enjoy your thoughts. An entire spiritual journey occurs each time you experience even one thought as “just a thought.” This task is not insurmountable.

The Science of Compassion

Geshe Thupten Jinpa is a former Tibetan Buddhist monk, the principal English translator for the Dalai Lama (since 1985), and a Cambridge-educated scholar (BA, PhD). He spoke in Kaul Auditorium this past weekend as the guest of Maitripa College to speak about his new book, “A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives.” He also spoke with OPB’s Think Out Loud about The Science of Compassion (11 May 2015). You can listen to this interview by following the The Science … link.

Resources for troubling times

Troubling times. They come in all shapes and sizes: the personal – a missed exam, a fractured friendship – and the global – a civil war, a devastating earthquake. How does one find the courage, the enthusiasm, and the joy, to go forward when confronted by troubles beyond our control?

Writing in the Tricycle blog (“In The Spirit of Service”), well-known author and meditation teacher, Sharon Salzberg, describes a path for cultivating an open heart that combines service and meditation and service. On the topic of meditation, she describes practices for cultivating mental states that “foster a connection to our own inherent capacity for wisdom and love. They put us in contact with a world beyond the moment-to-moment fixations of our mind.”

Boss to Worker: Meditate!

We live in a culture dominated by capitalism. It shouldn’t come as any surprise, then, that virtually every new thing that comes along, whether it is meditation, iPhones, or Cronuts, eventually gets picked apart in terms of how it might affect the bottom line.

The latest entry in this discussion comes from columnist (and meditator) Oliver Burkeman (Meditation sweeps corporate America, but it’s for their health. Not yours, April 7). Burkeman doesn’t quibble with the possible benefits of a regular meditation practice, but he doesn’t think that we should enter into meditation through the gateways of productivity, profits, and worker compliance.

For more on this topic, check out my post from last month: Meditation Training: The Bottom Line?, March 13. Or, just come sit with us this Thursday and see how much work you get done. 😉

Practice Rules

When I sit (or walk) I usually go through a period of time where I tell myself what to do. This may take several forms: “pay attention to the … (breath, sounds, sensations, …),” “label thoughts,” “ask, ‘What is this?’” and so on.

Essentially I have set up ‘rules’ for my practice. This inevitably leads me into territory that is familiar to many meditators.

Continue reading →