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Peace of mind does not come through struggling to stop thinking, but through focusing the mind on some particular thought or object, and especially on the rhythm of our breathing.

On this evening, the discussion turned to the question of what people of different religions do when they lose things. One of our Muslim students spoke up right away. “When I lose my keys, or something else, I do what other Muslims do. I repeat the phrase “ya seen” forty times. And then very often I find what I lost!” I couldn’t help asking: “What does ‘ya seen’ mean?”

No matter the absence of stars
that leaves the night in darkness;
no matter the empty bowls
when the children are not fed;
no matter criminal words
are spoken without recrimination;

(This is adapted from emails I sent to students, faculty, and staff in the course on mindfulness I’m teaching at the USC Keck School of Medicine, through our Mindful.USC.edu initiative:) Mindfulness: A short course Mindfulness is “paying …

That’s what I was looking for, after all. A community that would take a stand. People who were fed up with letting terrible things happen.

In silence now we join to pray
Listening to the God within.
May rich discernment shape our prayers
As we learn from cosmic laws.

staying beneath the thoughts
neither fighting them
nor thinking them
being at a deeper level

“… remain here, and stay awake with me.” Jesus, Matthew 26: 38 One night of our dog’s life lasted for just a few minutes. Our yellow Labrador, Kai, was playing in our front yard on a sunny …

Keep your focus on your emotions or on your heart-center, and wish everyone well. You can imagine that you have a sun in your heart, and that you are radiating warmth and light in every direction as you walk. Or you can repeat the phrase “May all beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be free from suffering.”

The butterfly lives in a seamless realm, a matrix, poetically in the palm of God/dess’s hand, not alien or estranged. Is it possible for us to find that kind of confidence, or trust in the nature of the Universe itself? Let’s take a moment or two to think about Wisdom, and our place in the Universe. What kind of liturgy, or worship experience, would celebrate the kind of inclusive, nurturing community the butterfly knows without thinking about it?

(This is the speech I gave at a commemoration of the birthday of Swami Vivekananda at the Vedanta Society in Hollywood on 1-11-15.) Dear Vedanta friends, I share in the reverence that you hold for Swami Vivekananda, …

“The nine Beatitudes reflect diverse parts of a harmonious unity which I endlessly reflect and touch each other as we go through our lives. At the very heart of Jesus’s teachings, their practice opens us to compassion. If we are able to place these on our hearts, walk with them on our feet, hold them in our hands, and seal them in our thoughts, we will have more insight along our journey. They will become our walking staff and guide for the arduous times we will face.

As December cold enveloped the Western Front, a very remarkable Christmas story developed – an unofficial truce was observed by an estimated 100,000 British and German troops on the first Christmas Eve of the war.

The day after the first Shabbat in Advent, Mary and Joseph took Jesus, who was eight years old, To the Great Mall of Bethlehem. There, in the middle of the huge indoor shopping complex, Was a stately …

Live recording of Climbing PoeTree’s “Awakening” poem featuring Leah Song on vocals and Biko Casini on Ngoni.

This past year, at my congregation on Cape Cod, we began to celebrate the seasons of the year as part of our affirmation of this good Earth. Our congregation’s proximity to the ocean sensitizes us to the …

Quickened by my attention to what surrounded me
As I sat on one of the pale yellow rounded boulders in the creekbed.

Mindful Christianity is mysticism: the experience of a human being in spiritual union with the divine, seeing each other with the same eye. The observer within you, when you are deep in mindfulness meditation, is God. God is lovingly attentive toward your every experience, every feeling, urge, and thought. In mindfulness practice, God notices all of that is going on inside of you, with deep compassion and without judgment.