In modern culture, we seem to have lost the traditional regard for our mentors. In the old days, you apprenticed to a trade. Your master was not necessarily the easiest person to get along with. But they did teach you a trade, a way to eat, and you felt sincere gratitude, even love. This gratitude for mentors was a part of every human civilization.
What is devotion? Is there something about the guru/disciple relationship that makes it unsuited to the modern world? If this relationship is truly essential to swiftly making progress along the path, how can we do so safely, especially in light of some of the stories we have recently had to hear about?
Erric Solomon shows five ways that we can radically increase the joys of living.
Preferences dominate our thinking most of the time whether we consciously note them or not. We carry them into our meditation practice. But is that smart? We like or we dislike–often intensely. And if we are practicing meditation, we may be surprised to notice that we spend a lot of time pursuing or discussing our own preferences. Moreover, we may invest preferences with a lot of power.
Often, we decide that we don’t like a particular practice. And then we decide we shouldn’t continue it. Some people react strongly against ritual practices, for example–and think that they are happier just sitting in meditation quietly. But is that really so easy?
By Erric Solomon In 1952, Norman Vincent Peale’s prototypical self-help book, The Power of Positive Thinking, was unleashed upon the American public. This massively popular
By Erric Solomon In this video, Phakchok Rinpoche and I describe how our new book can positively impact your life. Transform you mind and change
Phakchok Rinpoche and Erric Solomon have collaborated on Radically Happy: A User’s Guide to the Mind. Many people have questions–what does the book discuss? What does the title mean? In this regular blog feature, co-creator, Erric Solomon shares more about how to be Radically Happy
A couple of months ago I blogged about how I met Rinpoche. We left off with my wife and I riding off into the sunset,
What Radically Happy is in less than 90 seconds! Order your copy of Radically Happy via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound or wherever good books are sold. Phakchok
In the midst of a total emotional breakdown, I got a phone call from one of my meditation teachers. It was 5 a.m. my time, but he was calling from Europe. “Erric! Right now everything is fine, don’t think about yourself too much!” Then he laughed.
It’s clear that to learn to cope, grow and thrive, we need a few different strategies, which means we need to combine a variety of practices that help us get used to being fully present in the face of whatever arises in our mind with practices that help us be kind and caring.
If we look honestly at our lives, we can see that one our major preoccupation is acquiring the things and attempting to create the circumstances
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