PICK UP ONE SMALL STONE

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"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." - Jon Kabat-Zinn Thank you for being here!   Today is a New Moon, punctuating the start of a fresh cycle – during what feels to me like an interminable season of uncertainty and fear. Maybe, like me, you find comfort in the moon cycle's reliable invitation to look up, to look out beyond ourselves, and into the broader rhythm of life. In that spirit, please enjoy this invitation to Buddhist equanimity: 💭 Imagine 4 people

In honor of Women's History Month, I wanted to pass on this proverb. Kathy Casey shared it with me. I think there is something lovely about the chain. Feel free to also share it. "When sleeping women wake, mountains move." - Chinese Proverb Meditation is a practice of waking up, of seeing reality clearly without the interface of our identities, our opinions, our fixed ideas. As we wake up, mountains move. Please enjoy this 17-minute meditation recorded Friday morning (3/13)

Go to 1:58 to skip the intro. A loving-kindness practice for equanimity during scary times. When we are scared or threatened, our human instinct is often to retreat back to "our group" - to close the castle gates and to increase our "othering" of those outside our group. Loving-Kindness helps us expand our sense of who is "in" our group, so that we have a broader, more stable base. Operating from a sense of "me, myself, and I" can be a very narrow, reactive place to be. Broad

These meditation practices are designed to help us become an observer of our thoughts, rather than identifying AS our thoughts. Both practices use the technique of labeling our thoughts as "thinking" and then returning back to the breath. In this 16.5-minute practice , go to 1:38 to skip the intro and get right into the practice. In this 24-minute practice , go to 2:00 to skip the intro and get right to the meditation.

These two (2) Mindfulness of Emotions practices can help us be better listeners. By building self-awareness, we can better understand the "baggage" and perspectives that we're bringing into a conversation. This self-awareness can help us be better at listening to understand, rather than listening to soothe our own ego or justify our own POV. Both meditations use the RAIN (recognize, allow, investigate, nurture/non-identify) framework. 16-minute Mindfulness of Emotion  Go to 1

Meditation instruction is so simple to say: notice when your mind wanders and come back. Meditation is can also be tricky to practice. Sometimes the place our mind wanders is very alluring. Maybe something big (positive or negative) is happening in our lives. Or, maybe, the place our mind wanders is just very familiar - and in its familiarity, it may be a very comfortable place to hang out. In fact, they might even seem part of our identity, so that to let them go would be to

A Shamatha (or peaceful abiding) meditation. Go to 2:11 to skip the intro and get right into the practice.

MEDITATION 1 FROM FRIDAY, 1/16/26 “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." - Martin Luther King, Jr, from a Letter from Birmingham, Alabama jail, April 16, 1963 The idea of mutuality is inline with the Buddhist concept of interdependence -- that we are not as separate as we think we are. In fact, we are all deeply connected. Because we are "tied in a single garment of de

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." - Zen master Shunryu Suzuki Psychologists who study the climate change movement – and social justice broadly – think that one reason we don’t do more to make things better is that we, as humans, are incredibly uncomfortable with uncertainty. We’d rather “know” that things are going to be bad, than be unsure that they could be good.  A little crazy, right? And, I can also see it.  Uncert

A meditation for taking our seat, standing our ground, and being compassionate, wise warriors. Bodhisattvas are open-hearted warriors who transform the world through compassionate wisdom. For many Buddhists, the ultimate goal is to become a fully enlightened Bodhisattva -- a Buddha. Fortunately, we don't need to be fully enlightened to be Bodhisattvas. All of us can practice becoming open-hearted warriors in our own lives. I love the image of being a baby Bodhisattva! In this

Meditation builds the habit of being present -- literally builds new neural pathways. When we practice with gentleness, we can also build the habit of kindness. Two-for-one! And who doesn't love a bargain? 22-minute practice recorded 1/6/26: Go to 3:05 to skip the intro. 16-minute practice recorded 1/7/26: Stringed instruments need to be adjusted so that the strings are at the "goldilocks" of tightness -- not so tight that they snap and not so loose that they can't be played.

A meditation for the period of transition between 2025 and 2026.

Today is the new moon. Sunday is the winter solstice. Do you, like me, find it comforting, and also a little awe-inspiring, to note nature's cycles? I find that tuning in to the rhythm of nature helps me feel held and connected -- to feel my place in the world. There is a similar sort of awe and comfort that comes from sonder. Sonder, to quote the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, is: "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—po

"The way out is in." - Zen proverb

The Buddhist story of "The Second Arrow" is a metaphor for the way in which we add on to our own suffering by piling assumptions and stories on top of whatever actually happened. Listen to the (short) story and then practice it for yourself. If you want to skip the story, go to 3:27 and you'll get right to the meditation.

Meditation is a practice of non-judgment. Meditation is also a practice that leads to discernment, which is defined as "the ability to judge well." How does the practice of non-judgment lead to "the ability to judge well"? An analogy that is often used in meditation can help to square these two, seemingly opposing concepts of non-judgment and discernment: A cup of water is scooped up from the edge of a pond. The water is muddy, containing sediment, twigs, leaves, maybe a bott

“When you walk, arrive with every step. That is walking meditation. There’s nothing else to it.” - Thich Nhat Hanh This walking meditation can be done indoors or outdoors. Pick a spot where you can walk in a straight line for roughly 20 to 30 feet -- it's also okay if the distance is shorter and/or curvy. Go to 4:30 to skip the instructions and get right into the practice. https://youtu.be/iwfkrbhT4-k

"Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand their shining." - Anne Lamott // Can we be like the lighthouse Anne Lamott references? Grounded and of benefit? This meditation uses a traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice to encourage us to embody the lighthouse.

Thich Nhat Hanh tells the story of a rider galloping by on a horse. A person standing at the side of the road yells out "where are you...