10.17.2025 The Meaning of “A Good Human Life”   One thing that Buddhists emphasize about our human lives is that they are, truly, precious, in that we are born with so many capacities to contribute to the bettering of our world: We can communicate with others and advocate and mobilize for their happiness and security; we can invent cures for what ails us; we can grow food to nourish our bodies; we can delight and support ourselves and each other through kindness and cooperation; we can work with our minds, so that we can live with less stress and more confidence and inspire and help others to do the same. And on and on and on! (All of which only helps us with things like family, friends, finances, and so on, too!) This kind of thinking informed our newest free online summit, How to Live a Good Human Life, so we might all live with more clarity, compassion, and connection. Sign up for your free access here, and join us from Oct 23-27 for 30 inspiring talks and guided practices. The summit’s roster is filled with inspiring, wise minds: Caverly Morgan, Joseph Goldstein, Dawn Mauricio, Gaylon Ferguson, Andrew Holecek, Willa Blythe Baker, Robert Waldinger, Sharon Suh, Ethan Nichtern, Anu Gupta, Jonathan Fisher, Jan Willis, Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Chenxing Han, and Susan Piver. And each day of the Summit will address specific, precious human capacities: OCT 23: Break Free from Auto-Pilot & Wake Up to Now OCT 24: Gain Confidence through Inner Clarity OCT 25: Live Your Values with Skill & Kindness OCT 26: Restore Your Heart with Compassion & Resilience OCT 27: Build Connections Based on Courage, Love & Respect Each day will be lively and meaningful, just as we all want our lives themselves to be. What a great opportunity. (And again, it’s free to view!) In this Weekend Reader, we’re sharing three pieces by three of our 15 presenters. But you won’t want to miss any of them, so I hope you’ll register for your free access today. See you at the summit. —Rod Meade Sperry, Senior Editor, Special Projects Summit Preview: Joseph Goldstein on How Mindfulness Helps us See the Self Clearly Watch a sample of Joseph Goldstein’s talk in the How to Live a Good Human Life Summit, where he explains in clear, plain language how mindfulness helps loosen our attachment to a solid, unchanging idea of “self.” In this excerpt, he explores how the “I” we cling to is just another story the mind creates, and how seeing this clearly opens the way to freedom. Watch the full talk and accompanying meditation by Joseph Goldstein, and get access to 30 talks and practices from 15 presenters, in the free How to Live a Good Human Life Summit, October 23–27. Click here to sign up. ADVERTISEMENT Guided Lojong Meditation Practice with Pamela Ayo Yetunde Lojong is a Tibetan Buddhist practice wherein one contemplates a series of 59 slogans designed to help replace negative mental habits with positive ones.   In this video, Pamela Ayo Yetunde shares a unique guided meditation combining lojong slogans and loving-kindness meditation to bring compassion and wisdom into daily life. A Meditation to Befriend Your Feelings How you relate to your feelings, says Willa Blythe Baker, may be the most important habit of all. When you meet your feelings with grace and mindfulness, you find they’re your best friends on the spiritual path. When we think about making and breaking habits, how often do we consider our feelings? The fact is that perhaps the most important habits we can make (or break) are those relating to how we are with our emotions. You might have thought that the way to work with your feelings is to meditate around or away from them, and it seems as if many people seek out meditation hoping it will pacify their feelings. But as meditators, we must develop conscious habits of relating to our feeling life with grace and mindfulness, or our meditation will ultimately not be effective. Our feelings—if we know how to practice with them—are our best friends on the spiritual path. They have wisdom to offer.