Year: 2016

Today’s society is focused on individualism. We celebrate enterprising, unique selves. We associate becoming wealthy as having the freedom to only do what we want to do and only with the people we want to do it with. Hence gated communities, addiction to smartphones, and lack of community. Recently, I had a conversation with a…

Sometimes, we all have to do things we don’t like. For example, a business meeting, a car accident, or filing taxes are all annoying but necessary parts of modern life. Rather than holding tight and pushing through these experiences with suffering, it’s possible to choose a different way. Recently, I was involved in a meeting…

What’s the secret behind successful people? How come they are lucky whereas others are not? For conservatives or libertarians, luck is self-made. They say, we live in the best time in history to capitalize on one’s potential. There’s so much opportunity available with the internet now. To them, luck is a product of hard work…

Years ago, I attended a Hollow Bones Mondo Zen Teacher Training retreat to learn how to facilitate the Mondo Zen koan process. Like many pivotal moments in my life, I felt a tension during the retreat around one of the koans. The type of tension where a deep part of me knows the truth, but…

A followup to yesterday’s Privilege, Friendship, Suffering. The work of addressing the suffering of others is inextricable tied to the liberation of one’s self too. Too often, I think we start this work focused solely on our own healing or helping others. In fact, all the norms we attach to certain identity (masculine, feminine, gender,…