Five Sciences

Cultivating New Habits for Busy Minds

When we hear the word "meditation" we may think that we can't keep still for an hour and be calm.  But, as Tulku Migmar as...

Mental Maintenance Creates Stability

"Mental Maintenance" means working with our own minds. Anxiety, depression, and stress can affect anybody.  First, we need to take care of our actual physical...
What is Ritual?

What is Ritual?

Hilary Herdman shows how ritual practice tames our minds as we perform particular physical and verbal actions....
Reducing Negative Emotions

Reducing Negative Emotions: The Power of Meditation

Our minds are full of thoughts, full of afflictive emotions, and full of unhappiness. This is why dharma practice is really indispensable to us all....
Contemplate Impermanence

Contemplate Impermanence: How Do We Follow That Instruction?

We know that we ourselves will eventually die. We know, and yet ... are we really taking these teachings to heart as the Buddha and...
Fourfold Cooling Method

Fourfold Cooling Method

Tibetan medicine calls for specific seasonal behavior.  The seasons can be divided either by equinox and solstice, the four seasons as we do in the...
Essence of Bodhicitta

Essence of Bodhicitta

In this short audio teaching, Phakchok Rinpoche answers a student question asking about the very essence of bodhicitta....
Tathāgata

Tathāgata: “Thus-Gone, Thus Come”

The Buddha referred to himself as "the Tathāgata." Are you familiar with the many and varied meanings of this epithet?...

Correct Meditation Posture: Deadbug Develops a Strong Core

Correct meditation posture helps our minds to settle and our breath to flow naturally. In traditional Buddhist texts, we read that we should cross our...

What Devotion Really Is, Part 3 – Infallibly Inseparable

There seems to be a lot of talk in Buddhist blogs, magazines and in real-time lectures about what it means for a guru to be...

What Devotion Really Is, Part 2 – Cultivating Devotion and Sometimes Saying No

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...

What Devotion Really Is, Part 1 – Devotion Beyond Concepts

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...