What Is Joy?

Remember the feeling of joy – that sense of such extreme delight that you are radiant? Joy is similar to happiness, but it doesn’t require achieving some result. It is simply a state of being in the moment, in the “flow.” Our natural state, as souls, is joyousness. So...

Becoming Actively Harmless

What do we need to do to be harmless? For me, it means taking responsibility for angry or demeaning thoughts about others instead of taking my feelings out on them, either verbally or in my thoughts. This doesn’t mean that I’m “bad” to have such thoughts, just that I...

Embracing Silence

How can we create spaces of creative silence in our busy networked lives? Silence allows us to be in touch with our inner selves, to hear the prompting of our soul. Silence gives us the chance to sense, and participate in, the universal rhythm. Silence is important...

Who’s In Charge?

We know that global warming, population expansion, and resource depletion are serious problems – scientists have been telling us this for years. What is our role in changing all this? Certainly we need to stop our behaviors that are creating the problems. But is it...

Living Different Types of Lives

How do you view your life? Do you believe in continuity of consciousness and that we choose certain karmic lessons or debts to be repaid in each life? Or do you believe that this is your only life? If we have more than one life, isn’t it possible that each is...

Embracing “Sufficiency”

How can we stop feeling entitled to have whatever we want whenever we want it? We don’t seem content any longer with just sufficiency. We get caught up in “more is better.” Think for a moment: How many changes of clothing do you have? How much extra bedding? I know I...

The Meaning of Harmlessness

When you hear “harmless,” do you think of something dynamic and positive? Or do you imagine a kind of wimpy inoffensiveness? Most spiritual traditions have harmlessness as a positive virtue, and yet most of us view it as an absence (of harm), a lack (of...