True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

Like the Buddha touching the ground, we reclaim our life and spirit by planting ourselves again in the universe. This begins when we connect with the truth of what is happening in our body.

In the early part of the last century, D. H. Lawrence found himself in a society devastated by war, a landscape despoiled by industrialism, and a culture suffering from a radical disconnect between mind and body. Published in 1931, Lawrence’s words from “A Propos of Lady Chatterley’s Lover” have lost none of their urgency: It is a question, practic

The adage “what we resist, persists” is a deep truth. If we try to fight obsession and the raw emotions that underlie it, we end up reinforcing them.

Guided Reflection: The Buddha’s Smile In many statues and pictures, the Buddha is depicted with a slight smile. Research now shows that even a small smile relaxes our reactivity and inclines us toward feelings of ease and well-being. This short reflection can be done during a formal meditation or at any time during the day. Close your eyes, take a

Both Buddhist and Western psychology tells us that our trance of emotional reactivity begins with a universally conditioned reflex: Consciously or not, we continually assess whatever is happening as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. The smell of fresh-baked cookies—probably pleasant. A thought about a recent argument—probably unpleasant. The sound

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down in always Widening rings of being. —RUMI

Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison When the door is so wide open? RUMI

In Buddhist meditation training, awakening from trance begins with mindfulness of sensations.

When we are caught in this chain of reactivity, we are in trance. We have pulled away from a larger sense of who we are and what matters in our life.