Thursday, October 30, 2025

What Happens When You Die; Jon Kabat-Zinn on Awareness as Refuge; Bhikkhu Bodhi’s Joy of Generosity

 


10.28.2025




What Happens When You Die According to The Tibetan Book of the Dead


”The Tibetan Book of the Dead“ isn’t just about dying, says Judy Lief. This ancient text offers a step-by-step guide to what happens when you die — plus it helps you navigate the transitions, losses, and uncertainty in this very life.


 

Awareness Is the Ultimate Refuge with Jon Kabat-Zinn

In this excerpt from his keynote talk for the “How to Live a Good Human Life” summit, Jon Kabat-Zinn shares how simply sitting in awareness each day is a radical act of love where we can recognize the miracle of life itself.


 

Bhikkhu Bodhi & the Joy of Generosity

From going without to feeding thousands, Bhikkhu Bodhi’s life reveals how deep practice can ripen into compassionate action. Toni Pressley-Sanon reports.


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What If Our Delusions Aren’t a Barrier to Enlightenment?

What if our deluded minds aren’t a barrier to enlightenment at all?, asks Zenju Earthlyn Manuel. “What if they are the very path to it?”


 

Join Our Free Weekly Live Guided Meditation on Wednesday

Join us on October 29 at 8:30am PST / 11:30am EST for a free live guided meditation with this month’s resident teacher Mary Stancavage.


 

Buddhism A-Z: Hungry Ghosts

In Buddhism, hungry ghosts, or pretas, are beings who are tormented by desire that can never be sated.



LIVE EVENT:
GOING BEYOND ANGER


Join our November resident teacher, Zen priest Karen Maezen Miller, on Thursday, Nov 20, at 5:00pm PST / 8:00pm EST for a teaching on using awareness to move beyond angry projections and reactions that can be harmful in your life.



 

LATEST WORKSHOP:
WORKING WITH BUDDHISM’S
“THREE POISONS”


Explore Buddhism’s foundational understanding of human psychology through the three poisons — attachment, aversion, and ignorance — learning how these fundamental mental patterns shape our actions and discovering how awareness can transform our relationship with them. Soto Zen priest Koun Franz is your guide.



 


Tuesday, October 28, 2025

Take Refuge in Awareness

 


10.24.2025


Take Refuge in Awareness

 

Yesterday, Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), joined us live to open the first day of our “How to Live a Good Human Life” summit. His keynote talk, “Mindfulness/Heartfulness: Taking Refuge in Embodied Wakefulness and Our Common Humanity” was both grounding and inspiring, leaving those who joined feeling more connected to ourselves, to one another, and the world around us.

Throughout the talk, Jon invited us to see mindfulness and meditation not as another task on our to-do list, but as a refuge — a safe place to shelter from “the winds that are too tough to stand up in,” where we can return to our natural human capacity for presence, clarity, and compassion.

In Buddhism, we take refuge in the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. But, as Jon reminded us, we can also take refuge right here in the present moment — in the vast space of awareness itself. By taking refuge in this awareness, he noted, we drop out of the story of “me,” and into a place where there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, and nothing to attain.

“When we drop into the present moment, we become refugees of a certain kind,” he said. “What taking refuge really means is to be at home in awareness itself.”

Below, you’ll find a clip from Jon’s talk, along with two pieces on uncovering your natural awareness.You can watch the full keynote replay and explore all summit sessions through October 27 by signing up here.

—Lilly Greenblatt, digital editor, Lion’s Roar

Awareness Is the Ultimate Refuge with Jon Kabat-Zinn


In this excerpt from his keynote talk for the “How to Live a Good Human Life” summit, Jon Kabat-Zinn shares how simply sitting in awareness each day is a radical act of love where we can recognize the miracle of life itself.


Jon Kabat-Zinn: I began to realize that taking my seat in the morning is a radical act, not only of sanity, but actually a radical act of love. That it’s an expression of belonging and an expression of a certain kind of trust — a worthy, dependable, reliable, trusting in the domain of being. I realized its capacity to influence all the actions that flow out of any moment when we allow, or invite, or exercise the possibility or train ourselves to let our doing come out of our being.

Then, while sitting on the cushion — metaphorically and literally in whatever ways you practice formally — is absolutely essential. Just like violinists in the greatest symphony orchestras, they all tune their instruments before they play. Even though they have great instruments, and they’re playing great music, and they’re wonderful musicians, they still tune the instrument.


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3 Ways to Uncover Your Natural Awareness


Diana Winston on three ways to bring natural awareness into your mindfulness practice — and your life.


Natural awareness is a way of practicing in which your focus is on awareness itself, rather than on the things you are aware of. It is generally relaxed, effortless, and spacious, and it can elicit a profound sense of well-being. The term natural awareness invites you to notice or rediscover the awareness that already exists and is available to you at any moment.


The Sunlight of Awareness


Shine the warm light of awareness on your thoughts and feelings, says Thich Nhat Hanh.


Throughout your meditation, keep the sun of your awareness shining. Like the physical sun, which lights every leaf and every blade of grass, our awareness lights our every thought and feeling, allowing us to recognize them, be aware of their birth, duration, and dissolution, without judging or evaluating, welcoming or banishing them.

It is important that you do not consider awareness to be your “ally,” called on to suppress the “enemies” that are your unruly thoughts. Do not turn your mind into a battlefield. Opposition between good and bad is often compared to light and dark, but if we look at it in a different way, we will see that when light shines, darkness does not disappear. It doesn’t leave; it merges with the light. It becomes the light.


Thursday, October 23, 2025

You Are Not Broken; Richard Gere on the Dalai Lama’s Message for Our Time; 3 Meditations From Ram Dass

 




10.21.2025




You Are Not Broken


Josh Korda reveals how your pain may be a sign — not of personal failure, but of a world that needs changing.


 

Richard Gere on “The Wisdom of Happiness” and the Dalai Lama’s Message for Our Time

Humanitarian and actor Richard Gere joins Lion’s Roar magazine editor Andrea Miller to discuss “The Wisdom of Happiness,” a new film that showcases the Dalai Lama’s inspiring vision for humanity premiering October 16.

 



 

3 Meditations from Ram Dass

These three meditations from “There Is No Other: The Way to Harmony and Wholeness,” a new book of teachings by the late spiritual teacher Ram Dass, invite you to rest in awareness, follow the breath, and experience oneness with all life.


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The Mind That Knows Itself

Until we begin to make the distinction between observing thoughts and observing the knowing mind, writes Ayya Dhammapida, “we have not yet begun to study or to experience the mind directly.”


 

Join Our Free Weekly Live Guided Meditation on Wednesday

Join us on October 22 at 8:30am PST / 11:30am EST for a free live guided meditation with this month’s resident teacher Mary Stancavage.


 

Buddhism A-Z: Patience

Patience is one of the essential virtues cultivated in Buddhist practice, helping practitioners to be more conscious of and skillful with emotional responses to difficulties.



LIVE EVENT: 
GOING BEYOND ANGER

Join our November resident teacher, Zen priest Karen Maezen Miller, on Thursday, Nov 20, at 5:00pm PST / 8:00pm ESTfor a teaching on using awareness to move beyond angry projections and reactions that can be harmful in your life.


LATEST WORKSHOP:
SHAMATHA MEDITATIONFOR WELL-BEING

Meditation teacher Gullu Singh teaches you how and why to do shamatha (or "calm-abiding") meditation for more calm and clarity.