“When fear occurs in your life, you should examine the nature of fear. This is not based on asking logical questions about fear: ‘Why am I afraid?’ ‘What is the cause of my fear?’ It is simply looking at the state of fear or panic that is taking place in you. Just look at it. We can always find good reasons to be afraid. But in this case, rather than taking an analytical approach to fear, you should just look at your fear directly.”
Not “friends” with the Shambhala Sun on Facebook? Then you might have missed this news:
Pema Chödrön’s upcoming three-day “Smile at Fear” retreat with Carolyn Gimian in Richmond, California — while long sold out — will be available online. And if you sign up for this “virtual” retreat (though SunSpace blogger/vlogger Jundo Cohen maintains there’s nothing “virtual” about online teachings, and he has a point), you’ll retain access to videos of the teachings and other essential materials as well. Just click here for more info and to sign up now.
It’s Labor Day in the States today — a day when, hopefully, you’ll get a chance to slow down and enjoy the fruits of your labor. For many of us, though, not even a day off is really a day off. As Sakyong Mipham wrote in the Shambhala Sun:
“The speedy mind is like an internal combustion engine. So much effort goes into the energy it produces, creating the harmful, wasteful byproducts of exhaustion and pollution. Even when we’re reading a book or watching a movie, the idling mind of speed does not shut off. [...] If we’re always flapping our wings, endlessly trying to get what we need with aggression, we will always be exhausted. We’ll never find what we’re really looking for, which is our own contentment.”
Well, we hope you’ll find at least some of your own contentment today. So: enjoy, whether you’re working today or not. And in case you could use a little more encouragement, see Sakyong Mipham’s article, “Slow Down, You Move Too Fast,” here.
On Monday, September 13 in New York City, Buddhist monk and photographer Matthieu Ricard will meet with world-renowned composer Philip Glass to explore the crossroads between contemplation and creativity. Exploring how meditation can access the creative muse, the discussion takes its cue from Ricard’s new book, Why Meditate? (An article by that title, excerpted from the book, leads off the title section of our September 2010 How to Meditate issue.)
Ricard’s insightful work strives to foster the dialogue between Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Composer Philip Glass will share his similarly rewarding use of meditation in delivering some of the most heralded musical compositions in contemporary music. Moderated by noted psychiatrist Mark Epstein, M.D., the evening will draw from each panelist’s experience with meditation as a pathway to creative productivity.
Proceeds from the event will benefit Karuna-Shechen, Ricard’s humanitarian non-profit organization providing access to healthcare in India, Nepal and Tibet. (www.karuna-shechen.org)
On the New York Times Opinionator blog today, Robert Wright (author of The Evolution of God) writes:
A week of silent meditation can help highlight how technology keeps us in its grip, and what some of the costs of our ongoing surrender are.
Wright speaks from personal experience. His online piece, titled “Mind the Grid,” is based on his recent participation in an Insight Meditation Society retreat with Michael and Narayan Liebenson-Grady. Check it out here, and for more on how to mindfully naviagte the on- and off-line worlds, see Steve Silberman’s Did You Get the Message?, from the Shambhala Sun’s 2010 Guide to Mindful Living issue.
A related update — Now available: a new TED video of His Holiness the Seventeenth Karmapa talking about “the technology of the mind and heart”:
(That’s our friend Tyler Dewar for translating the Karmapa in this video. Our best and thanks to him.)
How might meditation change a life? Author Donna Rockwell asked four teachers just that, for inclusion in a Shambhala Sun article called “True Stories About Sitting Meditation.” How do their answers resonate with your experience?
Rockwell: Can you please complete the following sentence for me? “Meditative awareness has changed my life in the following way…”
Charlotte Joko Beck:“‘It has changed my life in the direction of it being more harmonious, more satisfactory, more joyful and more useful probably.’ Though I don’t think much in those terms. I don’t wake up in the morning thinking I’m going to be useful. I really think about what I’m going to have for breakfast.”
Joseph Goldstein: “…I’ve become more aware of the nature of my mind — how it creates suffering and how it can be free.”
Sylvia Boorstein: “It changed me from being afraid of being in a life to celebrating it.”
Sharon Salzberg: “…it has changed my view of who I am.”
The new book from the editors of the Shambhala Sun is here — with contributions from Thich Nhat Hanh, Mary Pipher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Steve Silberman, and more. Here’s what Publishers Weekly has to say:
“This excellent anthology embraces a range of issues (e.g., illness, food, caretaking, and nature) from Buddhist perspectives, becoming a demonstration of the ongoing and powerful interrelationship between Buddhism and life in the West, especially the United States. Continued »
Our special How to Meditate issue is on newsstands, featuring guidance from Matthieu Ricard, Noah Levine, Pema Chödrön, James Baraz, Cyndi Lee, Sakyong Mipham, Mingyur Rinpoche, and more.
Well, there’s lots more where that all came from. So come visit our special online How to Meditate Spotlight page. There you’ll find links to articles from the How to Meditate issue, as well as archived, classic teachings from the likes of Jack Kornfield, Thich Nhat Hanh, Judy Lief, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Pema Chödrön, Sayadaw U Pandita, and more.
Glenn Beck likes to say that the date of his “Restoring Honor” rally tomorrow — to be held at the Lincoln Monument, on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech — is a coincidence. He also offers that he’s “no MLK” — no kidding! — but he has come out and said that he considers the rally to be “about what Martin Luther King stood for.”
Others, of course, are more than a little dubious. So we’re left to wonder: will Beck’s DC rally somehow honor King’s memory, or just try to exploit it? Each year since the “Dream” speech, Americans have paused to recall it, bask in and renew its promise, and remember the dreamer behind it.
Lest that memory be tarnished by a master media manipulator’s machinations, we’d do well to ask ourselves now: What did King stand for? As Charles R. Johnson wrote in an exclusive for the Shambhala Sun, he was more than just the “civil rights leader” he is remembered as today; he was one of our greatest moral and political philosophers, his life founded on deep, sophisticated and courageous spiritual conviction.
A guest post by Susan Moon, author of “This is Getting Old,” from our September 2010 issue.
My granddaughter says she’s three and three quarters. She wants full credit for her maturity. Practicing her attitude, I’ll tell you I’m 67 and five twelfths. I want full credit, too; I’m growing up!
The posters in the Gray Panthers office say: “The best age to be is the age you are.” And Buddhism urges me to be present with what is, to see things as they are, to be grateful for the precious opportunity of human birth.
Besides, there are lots of good things about getting old, though at the moment I’m forgetting what they are. I’m not saying I feel bad right now—I feel fine. As a matter of fact I feel terrific. Nothing hurts, it’s a beautiful June morning, and I’m enjoying my cup of dragonwell tea. Hey! I’m alive! I can feel my heart beating in my chest, from the inside. How did this happen? Continued »
We have no choice about what we already are, but we can wish to change ourselves. Such an aspiration gives the mind a sense of direction. But just wishing is not enough. We have to find a way of putting that wish into action.
We don’t find anything strange about spending years learning to walk, read and write, or acquire professional skills. We spend hours doing physical exercises to get our bodies into shape. Sometimes we expend tremendous physical energy pedaling a stationary bike. To sustain such tasks requires a minimum of interest or enthusiasm. This interest comes from believing that these efforts are going to benefit us in the long run.
Working with the mind follows the same logic. How could it be subject to change without the least effort, just from wishing alone? That makes no more sense than expecting to learn to play a Mozart sonata by just occasionally doodling around on the piano.
We expend a lot of effort to improve the external conditions of our lives, but in the end it is always the mind that creates our experience of the world and translates this experience into either well-being or suffering.
If we transform our way of perceiving things, we transform the quality of our lives. It is this kind of transformation that is brought about by the form of mind training known as meditation.
– from “Why Meditate?”, Matthieu Ricard’s contribution to our September 2010 How to Meditate issue. Click here to browse the magazine online.
The cover story in the new issue of Buddhadharma is about pain and how mindfulness meditation can help to alleviate the suffering associated with it.
That doesn’t necessarily fit with what many of us have been told. Madison Avenue — along with a culture that, overall, has a very low threshold for enduring the normal vicissitudes of everyday life — has perpetuated a myth: If you have a condition there is a product for you. Just ask your doctor if this pill is right for you. After all, you wouldn’t want to be suffering while everyone else in the world is enjoying their birthright of freedom from pain, discomfort, and inconvenience.
Discomfort and pain heighten our sense of FOMO (fear of missing out). Everyone else may be enjoying ease while we suffer. This perception compounds suffering. The Buddhadharma article talks about the Buddha’s classic metaphor of the two arrows. We in the West, especially those of us pursuing the dharma, are also at risk for a third arrow. Continued »
In this guest post, Zen priest, CEO, husband, dad — and author of Less: Accomplishing More By Doing Less – Marc Lesser reminds us of one simple (and yet easy to forget!) fact: that it isup to us to look within ourselves and to bring our work and our lives alive.
[Update: this photo (left) of the happy couple and child can now be seen, extra-large, at Shambhala Times. Click here.]
Sakyong Wangmo, wife of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche — who is the eldest son of the late Chogyam Trungpa, founder of (among many things) Shambhala International and the Shambhala Sun — gave birth to a baby girl yesterday in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
This is the couple’s first child. According to their personal physician, Mitchell Levy, there were no complications during the delivery and both mother and child are healthy and resting well. The couple have given their daughter the name Drukmo Yeshe Sarasvati Ziji Mukpo. Plans are under way to celebrate the baby’s arrival with a gathering at the Halifax Shambhala Center.
“When fear occurs in your life, you should examine the nature of fear. This is not based on asking logical questions about fear: ‘Why am I afraid?’ ‘What is the cause of my fear?’ It is simply looking at the state of fear or panic that is taking place in you. Just look at it. We can always find good reasons to be afraid. But in this case, rather than taking an analytical approach to fear, you should just look at your fear directly.”
Not “friends” with the Shambhala Sun 
It’s Labor Day in the States today — a day when, hopefully, you’ll get a chance to slow down and enjoy the fruits of your labor. For many of us, though, not even a day off is really a day off. As Sakyong Mipham wrote in the Shambhala Sun:
On Monday, September 13 in New York City, Buddhist monk and photographer Matthieu Ricard will meet with world-renowned composer Philip Glass to explore the crossroads between contemplation and creativity. Exploring how meditation can access the creative muse, the discussion takes its cue from Ricard’s new book, Why Meditate? (An article by that title, excerpted from the book, leads off the title section of our 
On the New York Times Opinionator blog today, Robert Wright (author of The Evolution of God) writes:
How might meditation change a life? Author Donna Rockwell asked four teachers just that, for inclusion in a Shambhala Sun article called “True Stories About Sitting Meditation.” How do their answers resonate with your experience?
The new book from the editors of the Shambhala Sun is here — with contributions from Thich Nhat Hanh, Mary Pipher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Steve Silberman, and more. Here’s what Publishers Weekly has to say:
Glenn Beck likes to say that the date of his “Restoring Honor” rally tomorrow — to be held at the Lincoln Monument, on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech — is a coincidence. He also offers that he’s “no MLK” — no kidding! — but he has come out and said that he considers the rally to be “about what Martin Luther King stood for.”
We have no choice about what we already are, but we can wish to change ourselves. Such an aspiration gives the mind a sense of direction. But just wishing is not enough. We have to find a way of putting that wish into action.
[Update: this photo (left) of the happy couple and child can now be seen, extra-large, at Shambhala Times.