Nietzsche said, “The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.” Greatness often comes cloaked in smallness. To live...

The other day, I saw a flyer that said, “Scan this QR code to find out why you’re undateable.” I’m sure many people took the bait. We’re...

My European friends are often shocked by the U.S. tipping system, which they correctly see as a way of shifting the burden of fair wages...

There’s a verse in the Qur’an (26:224-226) that says: “Have you seen the poets who lead people astray? They wander distracted in every...

The Persian poet Saadi tells a story of a king stung by a bee. Enraged, the king ordered all beehives in his kingdom destroyed. His...

I recently heard a teacher give a talk on acceptance. Once, he said, when he was in the military, he had to travel in a caravan across...

Someone recently used the term, “Spiritual Peter Pan Syndrome”: the belief that yoga, meditation, etc. will somehow make you “born again”...

The Buddha was asked how he crossed the flood of suffering. He replied: “Not by pushing forward, not by standing still. For when I pushed...

A friend said that, when she first went to India, she was horrified to see people touching the feet of their gurus. Like most Westerners,...

Years ago, I was at a post office in a tiny northern Indian village, when I noticed that one of the clerks had written over his desk:...

In the West, we tend to trace our suffering back to some event in the past: “My parents screwed me up.” “My ex made me scared of...

During the Vietnam War, Jack Kornfield was staying at a Burmese monastery where he met two Quaker peace activists. One saw Jack...

Back in the 1980s, there was a t-shirt that said, “Jesus is coming. Everybody look busy.” It’s a good encapsulation of the American work...

One of the hardest things for people who grew up feeling unheard or silenced to learn is that speaking a lot of words now won’t make them...

The Iroquois have a beautiful story about how peace came to their confederacy. Once, their land was full of war because of an evil leader...

I used to be the habit of buying myself flowers. One afternoon, I was walking home with some pretty white roses, when a gaggle of...

People say, “Live each day as though it were your last,” but people do horrible, senseless things with their last days. I prefer what...

Wherever I go, people seem to think Buddhism is about “inner peace.” But the Buddha didn’t teach inner peace. He taught skillful action,...

There’s a story of a soldier who says to the Buddha, “I was taught that if I die in battle, I’ll go to heaven.” The Buddha says: You’ve...

One of the bombs fell right by my father-in-law’s old house in north Tehran, killing several people in a residential building. Meanwhile,...