Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better

In this episode we'll talk about Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Studies show that meditation seems to cease the activity of the lobes in the brain that determine where self ends and non-self begins. Meaning, meditation can dissolve our sense of separateness and heighten a sense of interconnection. The Buddha did not teach enlightenment as escape to another world and meditation as its vehicle. The Buddha taught that enlightenment is truly seeing and being in the life you are in.

The Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. I think many connect with the *jewel* or treasure aspect of the Buddha and Dharma, but Sangha? It is Sangha that moves Buddhism beyond a study or philosophy to something lived and alive. We come just as we are. Working on practices, not being people who are already perfect. The Sangha accepts us and supports us so that we can become more honest with ourselves and others. We learn to accept ourselves AND others. We accept our humanity, together.

In the 4th of the "talking with my teachers" series, I am talking with Rev. Satya Robyn, a priest in the Amida Order, about how the whole of messy humanity is met by the divine when we relax our sense of control and know that life accepts us just as we are. You'll delight in Satya's beautiful ways of communicating the heart and soul of spiritual practice, Buddhism, Pureland Buddhism, refuge, and—yes—the "f" word or faith.

Meditating on death is a traditional Buddhist practice. In this podcast, we'll talk about how thinking about our own and others' death can help us live more fully. I offer an Everyday-Buddhism approach to death meditation that does not include spending a night in Tibetan charnel grounds or your local cemetery. Instead, reflect on the lives that go before us and feel the realness of live and death through visits to legacy.com.

The "Eastern Way" of psychology offers a profoundly different paradigm than Western psychology. Join me as a talk with Gregg Krech, one of the leading authorities on Japanese Psychology in North America, about this difference. Using the Buddhist concept of "skillful means", Japanese psychology offers methods to master the skills of acceptance, attention, co-existing with unpleasant feelings, and self-reflection.

In a listener-requested podcast I relate how the story of releasing cows from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book "No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering", helped me find freedom from suffering over a series of minor personal losses and disappointments. We each have "cows" we're grasping onto. According to Thich Nhat Hanh, our biggest "cows" are our narrow ideas of happiness. We continue to suffer until we are able to release the very ideas themselves.

Tibetan Buddhism seems mysterious, intriguing, and sometimes scary. In this episode I talk with Frank Howard of the White Lotus Buddhist Center in Rochester, New York—continuing my series of "Talking with My Teachers"—who explains that it's not as mysterious as it seems and it's certainly not scary! Listen as we talk about motivation, faith as confidence, our weaknesses and their antidotes, and how "Buddhism is completely practical and makes your life better."

In this first of a special series of episodes dedicated to honoring my teachers, I have a conversation with the spiritual head of The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism, Rev. Koyo Kubose. It is with Bright Dawn and my Sensei, I learned how bring Buddhism into the everyday. We'll talk about the balance of gratitude, humility, ambiguity, uncertainty, perfect studentship, and — most importantly — naturalness, in Bright Dawn and it's lay ministers, as they bring the Dharma to the people.

Join me for a special episode in honor of Bodhi Day, celebrating Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. The long nights of December are marked by numerous celebrations using light as a symbol. Light symbolizes a rekindling of the spiritual impulse and a turning toward awakening, toward enlightenment. Bodhi Day is a time to celebrate our own awakening to the spirit of our Buddha Nature that is lighting our path with wisdom and embracing us with compassion.

In this episode I'll talk about my uneasy relationship with the 5 Precepts. Do they produce more questions—and more confusion—than answers? Clearing up ignorance is what alleviates suffering. This requires working with ourselves on a very deep and intimate level—honestly evaluating our own motivations and thinking deeply about how our actions will affect others. The 5 Precepts are not based on a transactional experience, but are firmly anchored in the non-dual perspective central to Buddhist philosoph

Join me in a conversation with Phakchok Rinpoche and Erric Solomon, authors of the just-released book, "Radically Happy: A User's Guide to the Mind." Ancient wisdom meets modern methods as we explore the universal search for well-being, for happiness.

When we think of Buddhism, we think of meditation. In this episode I will take you on a tour of the many ways to meditate. But at the core of the episode is the simple awareness that all meditation rests on ... and that everyday happiness rests on. Our minds are aware by their very nature, yet that nature is obscured by thoughts and emotions. Simple, clear awareness exists between our thoughts and underneath our emotions.

Join me as I explore the very earthly foundations of Buddhism. Siddhartha Gautama asked the Earth to confirm his enlightenment, his Buddhahood. He did not ask for help from heavenly beings. He asked the Earth. In this episode, we'll reflect on climate change and think about our own personal relationship with the earth, as spiritual practice. In giving up grasping at heaven "out there", our home, Mother Earth, offers us the heaven right under our feet.

In the first "Ask Me Anything" Episode, I respond to a listener's question about Buddhist insight into protesting. "What's in your mind?" Does your urge for speech or action come from an intention of anger or intention of peace? Can I help create peace, equality, and justice through a motivation of anxiety, anger, and divisiveness? If we come to the proposed solution as broken selves, can we help? Can we bring our own peace to unrest? Come and sit with me in the questions.

In this podcast, we'll look at the sixth part of The Eightfold Path: Right Effort. Is your energy, your efforts making you more content ... and making the people around you more content? If not, maybe you need to bring attention to and tweak your habits a little bit. Listen to find ways to help in creating "joyous effort" through "The Five Daily Guidelines" offered by The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism: http://www.brightdawn.org/Five%20Daily%20Life%20Guidelines.pdf