Bhante Gunaratana on Seeing Things as They Really Are

This excerpt is from Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. Mindfulness in Plain English was one of the first books on meditation I read, and I often go back to it for “check ups” to see how I’m doing. I never fail to learn something new or be reminded of something important skill […]

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Finding Your True Home in the Here and Now

“Your true home is in the here and the now. It is not limited by time, space, nationality, or race. Your true home is not an abstract idea. It is something you can touch and live in every moment. With mindfulness and concentration, the energies of the Buddha, you can find your true home in […]

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Dharma Bites-Mistakes Are How We Learn

“Because we are human beings, we cannot avoid making mistakes. We might have caused someone else to suffer, we might have offended our beloved ones, and we feel regret. But it is always possible for us to begin anew, and to transform all these kinds of mistakes. “Without making mistakes there is no way to […]

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Dharma Bites-The Law of the Farm

We can find the dharma just about anywhere people have looked deeply into life, because “dharma” is a just word for the way things really work. Stephen Covey’s The Law of the Farm is something I read at least once a week as a kind of “reality check.” It makes me ponder how realistically I’ve […]

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Dharma Bites-every day is a good day

“Every day that we wake up is a good day.  Every breath that we take is filled with hope for a better day. Every word that we speak is a chance to change what is bad into something good.” ~ Walter Mosley

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Dharma Bites-The Love that Brings Right Answers

“The love which brings the right answer to moral problems is an exercise of justice and realism and really looking.  The difficulty is to keep the attention fixed upon the real situation and to prevent it returning surreptitiously to the self with consolations of self-pity, resentment, fantasy, and despair. Attention is rewarded by a knowledge […]

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Dharma Bite-Buddha’s Teaching is Everywhere

Dharma Bites—little dharma snacks to feed the heart and mind “Buddha’s teaching is everywhere. Today it is raining. This is Buddha’s teaching. People think their own way or their own religious understanding is Buddha’s way, without knowing what they are hearing, or what they are doing, or where they are. Religion is not any particular […]

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How the Need to Be Perfect Creates Self-hate

“Adopting the belief that you must be perfect is the perfect set up for self-hate.  You believe that your choices are to be perfect or to be a failure.  BUT SELF-HATE SETS THE STANDARD OF PERFECTION, and you can bet you are never going to meet that standard. If you did, if you met that […]

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Dharma Bite-How Do You Treat Yourself?

Dharma Bites—little dharma snacks to feed the heart and mind “If you had a person in your life treating you the way you treat yourself, you would have gotten rid of that person a long time ago.” Cheri Huber talking about self-hate in There is Nothing Wrong with You

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Dharma Bite-Nothing wrong with pleasure and enjoyment

Dharma Bites—little dharma snacks to feed the heart and mind “Contrary to what some people might believe, there is nothing wrong with having pleasures and enjoyments. What is wrong is the confused way we grasp onto these pleasures, turning them from a source of happiness into a source of pain and dissatisfaction.” -Lama Thubten Yeshe, […]

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