One Heart One Mind

If you are under the impression that the human body has precisely one brain, you are not alone. Modern Western culture has been studiously ignoring our other two brains for hundreds of years. Take a …

One of the earliest teachings of Buddhism remains as insightful today as it was thousands of years ago: if we can learn to separate the tangle of sensory experience into organized piles, we gain insi…

Our monthly extended meditation: practicing without effort. Enjoy this guided tour of awareness while doing any activity you please. Maybe don’t try to operate any heavy machinery on your first liste…

In this episode Thomas revisits a classic teaching–beginner’s mind–and adds a polarity spin: The more deeply you plunge into the ocean of possibility, the more powerfully you find yourself living an …

Generally, we experience life in a linear way unfolding through time–something happens in this moment, it fades into the past and we make our way into the future. But there are moments where the expe…

We all know the familiar dopamine rush of buying some consumer good, or getting into a new relationship. If we’re not paying close attention, we can easily come to believe that new objects and relati…

We’re reviving an old tradition at Mindfulness+. Once a month, a lengthier meditation on a germane topic. This month’s meditation is PIE, or, Positions, Interests and Essence. This practice is in lea…

A friend of mine recently emailed from the campaign trail in Texas and said she’d been meditating with her staff to help manage the stress. She wrote, “I’d really like to center our meditations on th…

The Gospel of Thomas is a surprisingly mind-jogging text that reads more like a collection of Zen koans than a book from the Christian canon. In this episode, Thomas (not to be mistaken with Thomas) …

Our seeking mind rejects the present moment outright and says, “not yet”. "One day I will be happy, one day I will wake up. But not yet." Awakened mind, on the other hand, simply says, “Perfect.” Tho…

Language is a tool that can clarify experience and deepen our insight. At worst, it can also pull the wool over our eyes, tricking us into believing that we know much more than we actually do. When w…

When we go chasing after extraordinary experience, we block the flow of grace that is always available. Paradoxically, relaxing deeply into the present moment and not seeking anything special is the …

Life can feel effortful. Frustrating and effortful at times. The practice of mindfulness is powerful because it can help us learn to ride invisible waves; help us move with the flow of Nature rather …

This week in the United States we celebrate independence. There are so many beautiful things about independence. And yet, like all things, it can go too far. Too much independence leads to an illusio…

In traditional Christian practice, congregants pay a tithe–one tenth of their earnings to support the church. How can we put this time-tested practice to work toward waking up? In this episode, Thoma…

A continuation of the lessons on the Energy Centers, i.e. Money, Sex, Fame, Power. This week Thomas discusses extreme monetary wealth as an unrecognized form of obesity in modern culture. Learn to re…

I take a moment in this episode to reflect on my brothers and sisters who are incarcerated and the inspiring way they’ve practiced since I joined their sangha as a guest teacher back in 2015. In this…

In this episode, Thomas deepens the conversation on Energy Centers by describing the theory behind them as well as pointing them out in a very practical and personal way. You will gain insight during…

This episode opens up a series on how to bring mindful awareness to those areas in our lives that tend to pull us down and compromise our higher values. If we want to grow up, we’ve got to grow down.…

Continuing the conversation from last episode, Shinzen talks more specifically about what we can each do to achieve not just good results, but dramatic and life-changing results from our mindfulness …