Dharma Glimpses with Judy Lief

The Mahayana, or open path, is the path of the Bodhisattva — the enlightened warrior of wisdom and compassion  •  at the core of the Mahayana path is an outrageous vow, called the Bodhisattva vow, wh…

This period of history has been marked by incredible leaps in efficiency: things that used to take a great deal of time and effort can get done more quickly and easily than ever  •  but there are who…

In Buddhist psychology, a lot of emphasis is placed on the process of perception because the way we perceive —and misperceive — has tremendous consequences  •  in grade school we are taught an oversi…

The phrase, “When you lose your mind, come back” describes a lot of what happens in meditation: repeatedly losing our minds, and repeatedly bringing ourselves back  •  the moment we’ve noticed we’ve …

In the dharma a great deal of emphasis is placed on integrating meditation practice and study  •  interwoven throughout is the need for discipline, the need to apply our training to the real challeng…

Since we are the only ones who know what’s really going on during any session of meditation, or in life generally, we have a responsibility to be our own meditation instructors, working with the patt…

I used to carry around a cartoon that depicted a beautifully robed monk with a Japanese shoji screen behind him, everything perfectly in its place—and behind the screen everything was complete chaos …

Emotions are a natural part of who we are  •  they can be powerful—even overpowering—or they can be subtle, almost an undercurrent  •  they can be very inspiring, or they can be very disruptive  •  i…

I recently had a problem with my computer—whatever I put in my "trash" would just stay there; I couldn’t empty it  •  I started thinking about how that could describe our personal “trash”—our freak-o…

The eight everyday preoccupations are eight ways we occupy our minds in order to avoid experiencing things directly  •  they act as a kind of a central filtering mechanism, separating out the things …

Effort plays a very important part on the Buddhist path; it’s one of the three main components of discipline, meditation, and knowledge  •  effort is where the rubber meets the road; it’s where thing…

Someone recently asked me, “Am I spiritually bypassing?” •  I took that term to mean using one’s practice or spiritual path as an escape, or relief, from the responsibilities of regular life in this …

Today I’d like to explore the problem of becoming an adult  •  the world of children is filled with magic and fantasy and stories, with vivid perceptions and playfulness  •  but as we grow up we’re s…

The word “compassion” can seem so overwhelming in the face of all the suffering in the world that it can stop us in our tracks  •  while we’re imagining all the great gestures of compassion that we m…

The attitude that’s encouraged whenever we embark on a spiritual journey is not to approach it simply as a means of self improvement, but to switch our normal way of operating so that we are thinking…

We are all familiar with meditation as a way to tame and quiet the mind  •  another important aspect of meditation is clear seeing, or insight: the power of meditation to reveal the intricacies of th…

The feeling of loneliness, which is familiar to many of us, can be a very vulnerable and slightly threatening feeling  •  Trungpa Rinpoche emphasized the value of relating to loneliness as well as th…

There are many ways to look at the connection between spirituality and our everyday lives  •  in the Buddhist tradition, the basic components are very simple and straightforward: they are wisdom, com…

When the Buddha spoke of being “a son or daughter of noble family,” what was he referring to?  •  in India, where the Buddha taught, there was a caste system with very clear distinctions between the …

Today’s topic is perception, how we see our world  •  each of us sees things a little bit differently, and optical illusions highlight this fact  •  in one well known optical illusion, some people se…