I was delighted to discover recently that “This Difficult Thing of Being Human” — my book on self-compassion — has been translated into Chinese and Korean. That’s in addition to a Romanian translation I learned about three years ago. It’s an odd story. I discovered the Romanian translation by accident while browsing on Amazon. I ..read more

I’m curious what you think about this conversation, on the topic of non-self. It’s a podcast-style explanation of an article I wrote years ago, called Understanding Non-Self: The boys in the basement, the empty room, and the plagiarist. I was fairly pleased with the conversation. I think the two people did a good job of ..read more

I came across this on Mastodon (the BEST social media platform), shared by user Vee, and thought it was really useful. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find out where it’s from. Here’s what it says: UNDERSTAND THE SOURCE Unkind behavior often stems from the other person’s struggles or insecurities. This can help you respond ..read more

Exciting things have been happening recently. In the space of just a week or so I was been offered two publishing contracts, one for a book coming out next year, and one for the following year. “The Heart’s Awakening” The Heart’s Awakening” is scheduled to come out in September 2025, and is being published by ..read more

Feelings are a very ancient part of us. They are evolution’s first attempt at thought. While conceptual thought takes place in the mind, feelings take place in the body. While thoughts are in general mainly visual and auditory representations of external events, feelings are kinesthetic representations of sensations. So we talk about having a heavy ..read more

This is an extract from the introduction to my current course on Mudita, which is part of a longer series of teachings on the brahma-viharas — also known as the “immeasurables.” The third of the Brahmaviharas, after lovingkindness and compassion, is mudita. Mudita is usually translated as sympathetic or empathetic joy, and is described as “feeling happy because others are happy.” This is an interpretation I profoundly disagree with. A first century text called the Path to Freedom describes the cultivation of mudita like this: When one sees or hears that some person’s qualities are esteemed by ..read more

One of the emotional drivers of cruel and unkind behavior is resentment. Resentment is when we hold onto past hurt, locking ourselves into a pattern of blame. Unable to let go of the past we keep bringing up a memory of someone hurting us, betraying us, or failing to protect us. Every time we do so we experience the hurt anew. And every time we hurt ourselves we feel a renewed burst of ill will. There’s something about this that I’d like to clear up, and that’s the misapprehension that we somehow store old emotions in the subconscious, from where they make appearances from time to time. This ..read more

In some versions of the  lovingkindness (metta bhavana) practice we start by calling to mind a benefactor — someone who has been kind to us. The significance of this is that we’re remembering what kindness is like, connecting experientially with it so that we remember what it’s like to be looked at with kind eyes, to hear kind words in a kind tone of voice, to see kind body-language, and to be on the receiving end of kind actions. This makes kindness real for us, so that we can become kinder ourselves. The reason I think this is important is that in cultivating kindness and compassion we ..read more

It’s my birthday today, and it’s unlike any I can remember from my now 63 years on this planet. It’s the first birthday I’ve had since my mother* passed away on Christmas Eve, just 11 days ago. My younger sister died just over a year ago, and I wrote then about how my practice helped me with the grief I felt. I’m not going to write about grief today, mainly because my primary emotions have been of relief and gratitude that she didn’t suffer longer. Her last days were pretty grim as she struggled to breathe, and things were only going to get worse. Today I want to look in a different direction ..read more

It’s early January, and many people who made New Year’s resolutions are already going “Oops!” as they realize they’ve already missed a morning at the gym, binged on something unhealthy, or forgotten to meditate. It’s very hard to change habits. The habit I’m most interested in is daily meditation, which is something I nailed a long time ago. Mostly my interest is in helping other people to establish that habit. It’s something I struggled with for many years, until finally I had a breakthrough. I’ve shared that breakthrough with many people, and it’s helped them too. The breakthrough doesn’t c ..read more