A Heart Full of Peace

And desire is so often glamorized in advertising and media, it’s as if increasing one’s desire is something to aim for. One advertisement even co-opted a spiritual message in its effort to foster more wanting. The picture shows a man in front of some new car, which itself was surrounded by all of the techno-gadgets that one would ever want. The cap

The Dalai Lama goes to the heart of things in the most simple and down-to-earth way. “We are visitors on this planet,” he has said. “We are here for ninety, one hundred years at most. During that period we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives. Try to be at peace with yourself and help others to share that peace. If you con

“There is one thing we always

sees the whole parade of feelings, however intense, without getting lost in them, and without judging ourselves for feeling them.

Justifying feelings is quite different than being mindful of them. From justifying comes a strong feeling of self-righteousness.

Especially at the beginning of the practice, most of us get in touch with some physical pain. And then there are our various reactions to it: fear, self-pity, defensiveness, or avoidance. Mostly, we just don’t like it. We try to just “watch the pain” but really we are trying to bargain with it: “I’ll watch you… if you go away.”

First, in the field of morality, we train to pay attention to our actions and speech, and to realize that everything we do and say has consequences. We cannot divorce spiritual practice from the everyday actions of our lives.

for the welfare and happiness of all beings.”

We are artists, and life, itself, is our medium.