Buddhist Wisdom, Modern Life

If you've ever tried to overcome anxiety through mindfulness alone, you might know it's not so easy. But according to Tibetan Buddhism, all emotions are expressions of the elements -- earth, water, fire, wind, and space -- and each has its own wisdom.   We can learn a lot about ourselves when we allow ourselves to feel our difficult emotions. Anxiety, for instance, can alert us to negative me...

What do you need to do to set yourself up for success for your first time doing a DIY meditation retreat? Here are a few DIY retreat ideas you can use, even if you've never tried this before! And you can sign up to get notified of other resources for DIY meditation retreats and be the first invited if I offer a group retreat experience: https://bit.ly/DIYretreat22 1) Integrate retreat into your pr...

If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to start meditating… for years now… then this course is for you! We’ll do short practices together as a group, all of them oriented toward helping you experience moments of waking up out of a distracted, rushed state of mind into the present moment. Then you’ll experiment with one practice each week as you go through your days and share at our next meeting wh...

The Matrix is full of Buddhist themes! In the movies, we're dreaming, not interacting with the real world because the machines (read: AI) are using humans as batteries and actively keeping us asleep. In Buddhism, it's because we have countless lifetimes' worth of mistaken assumptions about the world. We see everything through the tinted lenses of our past. But you can wake up! In The Matrix, you h...

In traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachings on the bardo states, the bardo of this life is the first one mentioned. It’s the one we’re in now, and it’s the best time to train our minds. But in the process of transitions, it’s the part of the process that seems to get the least attention, maybe because we never seem to realize we were in a stable period of life until that ends. So we’ve left it until...

Today’s episode is all about the most famous part of the death and rebirth cycle in Tibetan Buddhism: the bardo between death and rebirth, also called the bardo of becoming. We start with a summary of the traditional description of this bardo state, in which we’re said to have a mental body. We start off still connected with the identity of the life that just finished and end up connecting with th...

The bardo of clear light is the one moment in our life-death-and-rebirth cycle when we naturally have a direct experience of our true nature. It’s a moment we can prepare for during this lifetime by getting in the habit of noticing and appreciating the glimpses we get of our deeper nature. (Meditation helps with that.  ;) Recommended reading for this episode is from Mind Beyond Death by Dzogc...

Tibetan teachings on the death process are profoundly inspiring. Yes, it’s a sad and possibly scary time of letting go of our ordinary sense of self – but what really dies is everything except our true self, which gets to shine through clearly into our experience. Today’s teaching episode centers on Tibetan teachings about the death process, but we’ll also discuss why it’s difficult to l...

Transitions often take us through loss and darkness, but we come out the other side transformed and more in touch with our light.  In this episode, I briefly outline the four bardo (in-between) states that the Tibetan Buddhist tradition uses to talk about death and rebirth, the biggest transition we face.  And I introduce the structure of transitions, a way of applying these teachings to...

If you've ever tried to overcome anxiety through mindfulness alone, you might know it's not so easy. But according to Tibetan Buddhism, all emotions are expressions of the elements -- earth, water, fire, wind, and space -- and each has its own wisdom. We can learn a lot about ourselves when we allow ourselves to feel our difficult emotions. Anxiety, for instance, can alert us to negative messages...

In this introduction to the origins and basic beliefs of Buddhism, Karim Ali interviews monk Ajahn Punnadhammo and me (Claire Villarreal). Listen for his take on the Buddha’s life story, the Four Noble Truths – and some questions I’ve never thought to address, like is there a Buddhist “creation story”? Check out Karim’s podcast, History Encoded, to learn more about the world’s religions. And you c...

If you've ever tried -- and failed -- to "let go" of anxiety, anger, or sadness, you might know it's not so easy. Buddhism offers a different way to deal with these emotions. First we need to recognize the wisdom within them, and then we can learn to express that energy in a healthy way. Rather than trying to push them away, we can investigate the wisdom they offer. In this guided meditation, we'l...

Many people try to avoid sadness and even judge ourselves when we feel sad. But it's an important emotion, and when we feel it with full attention, it may offer us unexpected wisdom.   In Tibetan Buddhism, the water element is a symbol of connection and feelings; in the Western imagination, it's related to emotions and the unconscious. Drawing on these related understandings of water, we can...

Recorded live from an Insight Timer meditation, this session is all about meditating with anger. According to Tibetan Buddhist teachings, emotions contain wisdom, and rather than trying to suppress the ones we don't like, this approach emphasizes feeling emotions and working skillfully with them instead.

How does Zen Buddhism connect emptiness and buddha nature? What is Pure Land Buddhism, and how do its followers practice?   Zen and Pure Land Buddhism (like all other branches of Mahayana Buddhism) teach that emptiness and buddha nature are the basic qualities of reality. "Emptiness" means that we're empty of inherent existence -- in other words, the small selves we identify with aren't our t...

If you've ever tried -- and failed -- to "let go" of anxiety, anger, or sadness, you might know it's not so easy. Buddhism offers a different way to deal with these emotions. First we need to recognize the wisdom within them, and then we can learn to express that energy in a healthy way. In this guided meditation, I’ll guide you through settling the mind and energy, then intentionally bringing up...

Mahayana Buddhism has a lot in common with earlier forms of Buddhism (like belief in samsara and nirvana, lack of inherently existent self, dukkha, impermanence, etc.). But in this episode I'll explore two of the distinctive philosophical innovations that make Mahayana Buddhist schools like Zen and Pure Land distinctive: emptiness and buddha nature.   These two philosophical ideas work togeth...

Welcome to this introduction to the origins and history of the Mahayana schools of Buddhism! I’ll discuss how the Mahayana grew organically from earlier Buddhist teachings and the connections it shares with what’s now called the Theravada lineage.    Plus I’ll briefly explain how this tradition spread throughout North and East Asia and how it’s adapted to the various cultures it’s encoun...

If you've heard of the three types of Buddhism (Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana), you might wonder: What are the origins of Mayahana Buddhism? How is it similar to and different from Theravada? What are the practices and beliefs of Mahayana Buddhists? In this video, I'll cover the historical origins of the Mahayana schools, the historical development of the Mahayana and how it grew...

Being gentle with yourself as you begin to practice meditation, then staying curious as your mind shows you what's really going on in your head -- these two qualities together can keep meditation fun and help you stick with it until it becomes a habit. To support my work, you can join my Patreon insiders ( https://bit.ly/3Dm14p2 ) or make a one-time donation ( https://bit.ly/CVPayPalMe ). May all...

Often folks new to meditation feel as though they have to do it "right" from the get-go, which can be super frustrating. In this episode, I'll share some tips for relaxing into practice. To support my work, you can join my Patreon insiders ( https://bit.ly/3Dm14p2 ) or make a one-time donation ( https://bit.ly/CVPayPalMe ). May all beings be well.

What is Theravada Buddhism? It's the oldest surviving school of Early Buddhism, and it's still centered on the earliest teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha.  But now it's spread throughout South and Southeast Asia and the rest of the world, and because it's the basis for the mindfulness movement, modern Theravada teachings have had a huge impact on spiritual practice globally.   In this video...

What are the origins of mindfulness meditation? The mindfulness movement has become so ubiquitous that it seems as though it's always been around! But actually the roots of mindfulness meditation are in the forms of Theravada Buddhist practice found in South and Southeast Asia. In this video, I'll explain how the founders of the Insight Meditation Society (Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, Joseph G...

The Theravada Buddhist tradition has wonderful resources on meditation, like the Four Foundations of Mindfulness in the Satipatthana Sutta. But put simply, what makes meditation Buddhist? Or Theravadin?   In this video, I'll talk about two basic factors: samatha (calm abiding) and vipassana (special insight). These two work together and can be difficult to distinguish from each other, so I'll...

The core teachings of Buddhism are all here! Samsara is the Buddhist term describing the cycle longing for something or someone we think will make us happy, getting what we want, and being dissatisfied again before too long -- and then we start the cycle over again. Nirvana (Pali nibbana) is what happens when we wake up out of that cycle to find lasting joy. And what do we wake up to? The three ch...