Posts by Bodhipaksa

Is cultivating anger a moral imperative?

September 2, 2026

Mahāyāna Buddhism emphasizes compassion, and yet it portrays awakened beings who look anything but peaceful and loving. The best-known of these is Vajrapāṇi, “the bearer of the thunderbolt,” who is massively muscled and lunging into the warrior pose many of you will know from yoga.

Vajrapāṇi is midnight blue in color, with bulging eyes and prominent fangs, and, as his name suggests, he wields a stylized thunderbolt in his right hand. Instead of being surrounded by a gentle aura, he’s wreathed in dancing flames. Vajrapāṇi doesn’t represent ill will, which all awakened and nearly-awakened beings have long overcome. Instead he embodies enlightened energy — the compassionate desire to help others.

Speech with the power of thunder

Although the first part of Vajrapani’s name literally means “thunderbolt,” one of its secondary meanings is “denunciation in strong language.” The connection is that this critical yet compassionate speech has the power of thunder.

Coming back to our everyday experience, when a parent sees their child about to run into the road, or do some other harmful action, it is useless for them to issue a warning gently, because the message will almost certainly fail to penetrate the child’s excitement. Instead the parent speaks loudly and forcefully — even angrily. Yet the intention, as with the Bodhisattva, is to help and to protect, not to harm.

Also read:

Language is often so imprecise that one word, one concept can embrace opposites. “Anger” is like that. It encompasses both the desire to help and protect, and the desire to hurt and to harm.

Adjusting our vocabulary

It’s interesting to ask whether the words people used in the past had the same range of meaning. I’m not in a position to say, but when I was reading an essay the Roman Stoic Seneca wrote on anger, it was clear that he was referring to a state of being completely out of control. I’m sure Seneca at times would have spoken loudly, clearly, passionately, and with a desire to prevent harm being caused — that is, angrily — and that he probably wouldn’t have regarded this as the same emotion that leads to people throwing things around, punching people in the face, and harming innocent bystanders, which is the kind of thing he was warning us against in his essay.

So maybe we should call the unhelpful, harmful form of anger “rage,” and the fierce compassion or moral urgency shown by the parent or by Vajrapāṇi “passion.” (Many people seem to believe that having passion is un-Buddhist. This idea can arise from a mistaken understanding of the goal of Buddhist practice. We’re not aiming to become emotionless, but instead to rid ourselves of unhelpful emotions such as selfish craving and ill will. It doesn’t help that these unhelpful emotions were often called “the passions” by early translators of Buddhist texts. It’s natural that modern readers would take this to mean that we’re meant to get rid of passion in the sense of strong emotion. But at the time these translations were made the word passion primarily meant “suffering,” which selfishness and ill will cause. Powerful forms of love and other skillful emotions that we might call passions do not cause suffering.)

I once heard the Dalai Lama say that anger transforms the world faster than compassion, but that’s why you have to be very careful with it. He points out that the spiritually useful anger (passion) is directed against the harmful action, not against the person. This is what distinguishes it from harmful anger (rage), where we want to hurt the other person.

When the Buddha talked about anger (kodha, in Pali) it was always destructive anger he meant. He didn’t seem to have a word for the “clean” anger that is passion. Yet passion is sometimes evident in his speech when he felt the need to criticize someone. Sometimes this can sound shocking to the modern reader, such as when he said, “It is not fit, foolish man, it is not becoming.…” [emphasis added]. This sounds like ill will, but in fact it was the Buddha’s compassionate attempt to save someone from themselves.

The “come-to-Dharma moment”

In Christianity they talk about a “come-to-Jesus moment,” which one Bible website describes as “a pivotal point when a person confronts an important truth — especially an uncomfortable or life-altering reality —and makes a significant decision or change.” Being called “foolish” by the Buddha was a wake-up call — a “come-to-Dharma” moment. Hearing it would have been an indication that you were way out of line. So although the Buddha’s words may sound harsh, they were intended to prevent suffering.

I had a come-to-Dharma moment in my twenties. I had been in a Buddhist study group where a number of people had difficulty understanding some of the vocabulary, which I happened to be familiar with. Being an arrogant young man, I expressed myself in highly condescending and insulting language. Soon after, one of the teachers took me for a walk to tell me, very directly and forcefully, just how inappropriate my speech had been. He was passionate — angry — but there was no rage. Although I had been insulting to others, he didn’t direct any insults at me. He didn’t try to hurt my feelings. He just pointed out, clearly and directly, the painful truth: I had behaved in an arrogant manner that was antithetical to the way we were expected to comport ourselves while discussing spiritual teachings.

A few days later I went on a month-long intensive meditation retreat, in which I squirmed and festered with resentment, remembering his criticism and refusing to accept it. Eventually, after much suffering, a bubble of defensiveness burst within me, and I could finally accept that the teacher had been right. I saw then that I had been trying to impress others with my intelligence because I believed, deep down, that I was unworthy of love. It was that recognition that prompted me to ask for ordination.

This is what passion (good anger) can do. It breaks through the defenses we build up in order to justify our wrong-doing.

Sometimes it’s okay to offend people

In a conversation with a prince called Abhaya, the Buddha explained the difference between his sometimes fierce, passionate communication and ordinary anger. Abhaya had been sent by a rival teacher to entrap the Buddha by asking him if he would utter speech that is disliked by others. If he were to say yes, then the prince was to point out that he had behaved unkindly, just like any ordinary person. (We can tell from this that the Buddha’s passionately critical speech was well-known!) If the Buddha were to say no, then he was to be reminded that he had in fact said things that others had found painful to hear. The expectation was that the Buddha would be “like someone with an iron cross stuck in his throat, unable either to spit it up or swallow it.”

When he attempted to spring his rhetorical trap, Abhaya was holding a baby on his lap. The Buddha, deftly turning Abhaya’s simile to his advantage, asked whether, if the baby were to get a sharp object stuck in its throat, Abhaya would fish it out, knowing that this would cause the baby pain. Naturally, Abhaya said he would, because he loved the child. The Buddha pointed out that because he too had love for other beings, he would sometimes speak in a way that they find unpleasant. He can do this because he “knows the right time to speak so as to explain what he knows to be true, correct, and beneficial, but which is disliked by others.”

The Buddha had enough empathy to know whether the person being addressed might be receptive to his words. It’s not a good idea, for example, to offer criticism when someone is already under stress, because they’re already defensive.

Also, the Buddha will only say what’s true. He’s not going to exaggerate or distort.

He’ll only say what he believes will be helpful, because his concern is for the other person’s spiritual well-being. Only under those conditions will he say something that he knows will be upsetting to the other person. This kind of speech might well sound and look like anger, but it’s really passion, which is anger, purified by mindfulness and empathic considerateness, so that it is intended to help, not to hurt.

The power of passionate speech

Anger in the good sense of passion can be spiritually helpful. It can help us maintain maintain healthy boundaries when others disrespect us. It can free us from the shame that can arise when we have been disrespected. It can respond to the suffering and injustice we see in the world. Sometimes it will motivate us to act — not necessarily in the moment of anger itself, but later, when we reflect on the suffering or injustice we’ve witnessed. This kind of anger can be the manifestation of our most cherished values, expressing themselves passionately, in a skillful way.

When passion arises, because it is a state of arousal physiologically resembling rage, we have to be very mindful of our speech. We need to focus on the action rather than attacking the person. We need to avoid sarcasm and put-downs. We need to stay grounded in our bodies and be mindful of our feelings so that we don’t lose control.

Catch unhelpful anger early

Seneca advises us to catch our anger early. Since nothing good can come of rage, it’s helpful to deal with it before it gets out of hand. We can do this by learning to recognize the physical sensations that accompany its upwelling.

For most people this is difficult, or even impossible, because extreme anger shuts down the parts of the brain that allow us to be mindful. You’re therefore more likely to have success if you train yourself to recognize the physical signs of rage while you’re in a mindful, balanced state. To do this, vividly remember past examples of rage arising within you, so that you can recognize what bodily sensations trigger this powerful emotion. You might recognize things like surging energy, a sharp intake of breath preparing you for action, your pulse quickening, tightness in certain parts of the body, and so on. Having done this, it’s more likely that if rage begins to erupt in daily life, you’ll recognize it and respond more skillfully than usual.

Handle with care

Often, when rage is arising, the most skillful response is to step back and cool off. Once we’ve brought ourselves back to something resembling emotional balance — which might take anywhere from minutes to days — we can try engaging more reasonably.

To help us step back from rage, we can recognize the harm it can do. Remember arguments you’ve been involved in, whether in personal interactions or on social media. Recall how unpleasant and intoxicating rage is, and how hard it is to let go of anger and resentment. Constant anger is exhausting. Anger is of course painful for those we inflict it upon, and can can provoke them to be angry at us. And chronically angry people are often unpopular.

For all these reasons, we need to be wary of anger. Yet passion — anger purified, its energy harnessed — can also be a powerful motivation for righting wrongs. It might even be an ethical imperative for us to connect with our anger. Indeed, the Dalai Lama has made that point in one of his books. It’s title? Be Angry!

This is an extract from one of the forthcoming chapters of a book I am writing on politics as a spiritual practice, which I’m currently releasing as a course, called As the World Falls Apart.

Toward more compassionate conversations online

August 7, 2026

Bodhipaksa

on practice

Here are things I try to observe in my own communication online, especially around politics. These lessons are drawn from mistakes I’ve made in the past. Frankly, I’m still making these mistakes — but not as often as I used to.

Before logging in to social media or initiating any conversation that might result in conflict, pause and set an intention, perhaps along the lines of: “May I be kind to myself and others. May I recognize that anger is destructive. May I remember to be respectful. May I connect with others rather than provoke discord.”
Be selective about who you follow on social media. Unfollow or mute people who are frequently hostile or critical, even if they’re on your end of the political spectrum. I ended up unfollowing people who were witty and clever in the way they wielded criticism when I began to realize it was emotionally toxic. If you can find compassionate individuals, follow them. I don’t necessarily mean people who gush about love and light all the time. Compassionate people may simply be helpful, bringing clarity without heat, and explaining complex situations without being unduly emotive.
Imagine how you would feel if you were the person you’re talking to. If you’re tempted to insult them, remember what it’s like to be on the receiving end of insults. If someone has already been criticized by others, imagine what it’s like to be piled onto. Even if you refrain from insults, remember that it’s hard to be contradicted, and be sensitive with any criticism you offer.
Think of conversations as collaborations rather than competitions. You’re not there to win battles. If the other person is competitive, they’re still collaborating with you. They’re teaching you who you are and giving you an opportunity to practice compassion for self and other. They’re prompting you to dig deeper so you can find wiser ways to respond. Remember: “All people and all circumstances are your allies.”
One of the principles of effective, compassionate communication is to ask questions — out of curiosity, not as “gotchas.” If you point out the limitations or mistakes in someone’s thinking, they’ll dig in. If you ask them to elaborate and they come to see those limitations for themselves, they may have an epiphany.
Don’t just criticize things you don’t like; also share your ideals. People need to be presented with better alternatives. If can embrace complexity, or if you have a vision of a society that embodies your spiritual ideas, then present that unashamedly.
Watch your tone carefully. Pay attention to whether you’re even subtly trying to put the other person down, or to make them look or feel bad. Don’t exaggerate or misrepresent the other person’s point of view. Avoid addressing someone with sarcasm, which is a form of hostility.
Mocking someone’s appearance or infirmities does not become any less odious just because they have different politics from you or because they do harmful things.
It’s not natural to be discussing loaded topics all the time, so take longer-term breaks from social media and political conversations. Limit your time online so that you’re not constantly stressing yourself out. If politics proves to be a conversational flashpoint, families and friends can decide to avoid talking about it.
It’s okay to walk away from a an unproductive or heated argument. This might feel hard at first, because we can obsess, itching to retaliate. But those feelings will pass. Tomorrow you probably won’t regret not having had the last word, and soon you’ll have forgotten about the conversation altogether. You can agree to disagree: “I don’t think either of us is going to change the other’s mind, so I’m going to go do something else now. Thank you for taking the time to discuss this.”
(This is sometimes my last ditch effort at communicating as I’m walking away.) If someone’s being truly hateful, try saying “You can be better than this.” It’s always true, because we can all always be better. Because it recognizes the other person’s capacity for change, it’s always helpful. It doesn’t suggest they’re bad, and so it’s not unkind. It’s also not something they’re likely to disagree with.

The radio personality Peter Segal shared a list called “Peter’s Rules of Twitter,” one of which was “Never, ever insult someone personally. Mockery is fine, as long as it’s aimed upwards.” Comedians similarly say “punch up, not down.” In other words, make jokes at the expense of those who have power, high status, and privilege — if they deserve it. But don’t mock those who lack power. And note the word “personally.” If you are to be critical, make it about what someone has done or said, not about who they are.

We can still be critical — even very critical. I have no problem with describing a politician’s behavior as “corrupt” if that word is appropriate. It’s important that political leaders’ injustice or wrongdoing is exposed and condemned. I see this as following the lead of the Buddha, who sometimes called out bad behavior in strong terms.

Many times, though, I’ve started to compose a mocking reply directed at a politician or media figure and have deleted before posting it. Sometimes I realize that others have already said what I would say, but better. Mostly, though, I don’t think it’s good for my soul.

To end, I’ll share Peter Segal’s final piece of advice: “To survive on the veldt, humans evolved to crave sugars and fats and to get energized by anger and fear. We don’t live on the veldt anymore. Refrain from feeding obsolete hungers.”

Politics as a spiritual practice

February 20, 2026

Bodhipaksa

on practice

It’s hard not to get overwhelmed by what’s going on in the world.

Politics is polarizing, the news cycle fuels outrage, and social media tears relationships apart. A lot of us are swinging between anger, anxiety, despair, and exhaustion.

You want to stay engaged. You want to care. But you also want to hang on to your well-being.

That’s exactly why I created “As the World Falls Apart” — a course on treating politics as a spiritual practice.

This isn’t about taking sides. It’s about transforming how you relate to what’s happening.

In the course, I guide you through:

Practical in-depth teachings that reframe political engagement as part of your path of awakening.
Guided meditations that help you work directly with fear, anger, and polarization.
Community discussions where you can share your journey and learn from others.
Live Zoom calls to deepen practice, get moral support and clarity, and stay connected in real time.

Imagine being able to follow the news without losing your balance. Imagine disagreeing without dehumanizing. Imagine responding from clarity and compassion instead of reactivity.

The alternative is that we swing between anxious obsession and despondent disengagement.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

If you want your political life to become part of your spiritual path rather than a threat to it, I invite you to join As the World Falls Apart.

This course is only available to Wildmind’s sponsors. But joining is easy. Just click the button below for details. (There are lots more benefits to being a sponsor!)

With love,
Bodhipakṣa

Click here to become a sponsor and join me in “As the World Falls Apart”

Join me in “As the World Falls Apart”

January 6, 2026

Bodhipaksa

on practice

I am launching a major new course for 2026, on the topic of how we deal with political turmoil.

Here’s why:

It sometimes seems that the world we’re living in is falling apart in terrifying ways.

I feel oppressed by the knowledge that the world is on a very wrong track at the moment. My fears of where things might go are a heavy burden to carry. The events unfolding around me were once unthinkable and are now shocking and I view them with a sense of disbelief. It’s like one day I woke up and found myself in the wrong timeline. How can all this be happening?

Much that we value is being lost or is under threat: a livable climate, free speech, the rule of law and due process, the reliability of the US as an international partner, our expectation that the world had learned “never again” with regard to genocide, the assumption that larger countries should not invade smaller ones just because they can, the belief that all human lives matter and that racism and xenophobia are wrong, economies in which ordinary people can better themselves, trust in science and medicine — even democracy itself.

n so many ways a familiar world (imperfect though it is) seems to be crumbling around us, being replaced by something crueler, less human. The forces of authoritarianism and fascism, although largely defeated, never went away, even in liberal democracies, but they’re undergoing a dark resurgence.

Change is coming at us so fast that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. We might feel paralyzed with terror. We might feel tempted to give up in despair. We might find ourselves consumed with rage.

I have to say, some of you might be sick of politics. You might want to just hide.

But that’s what authoritarians want. They do and say outrageous and cruel things at a breakneck pace so that we’ll feel overwhelmed and hopeless, and so that we’ll stop paying attention. We can’t let that happen, because things will just get worse. Many, many people will suffer.

We can’t directly change the upsetting things that are happening in the world around us. But we can change how we respond to them. And if we want the world to change direction, that’s what we’re going to have to do.

A new course

For the last few months I’ve been working on a new course on how we can learn to stay calm, open-hearted, and optimistic as the world is falling apart.

The course is structured around three broad headings for spiritual practice:

Feet On the Ground: This means learn to calm ourselves even in the midst of chaos and outrage. This involves not just mindfulness, but the sense of calm empowerment that comes from knowing we’re doing the best we can with the resources available to us. We practice self-care to keep ourselves in balance. We get smarter about reading the news and using social media.
Heart Wide Open: This includes actions such as supporting ourselves with self-compassion, staying open to the sufferings of others, and cultivating joy as a form of resistance. It includes becoming more fearless. It includes reconnecting with the good that exists in the world and remembering that there are more people who want peace and unity than want violence and division. It includes connecting with and working with those people.
Keep Looking Up: This includes developing and maintaining our faith in a better world. It involves becoming clearer about what a better world would look like. It’s about learning to work with other people of good will to make that a reality.

Taking action — which is one of the emphases of this course — doesn’t necessarily mean becoming an activist. It might mean encouraging those who are. It might mean holding a sign at a rally. It might mean contributing to groups that are working for good. It might mean staying in touch with others who know that what’s going on is wrong, and offering each other moral support. It might include smiling at strangers, and showing that you’re not cowed. It might mean reading an inspiring book with friends. However little we can do, it’s important we do it.

We can push for the creation of a better world, starting here, starting now. In the future, you’ll want to be able to say, “We couldn’t stop them. But we slowed them down. And when the insanity collapsed in on itself, we’d already worked out how we wanted to rebuild things.”

How it works

This course is based on others I’ve run in the past — especially “Love Your Enemies” and “Politics As a Spiritual Practice” — which many people found helpful. I’ve been substantially reworking the materials from those courses and creating new content to make sure I address the renewed threat of fascism and authoritarianism, how we resist it, how we live with it, and how we make it less likely to happen next time.

The course starts Wednesday, 28th of January.
This course has a weekly email, which will go out on Wednesdays at 5 AM US Eastern Time. Each email contains a substantial essay, or a part of one.
There will be meditations, but the emphasis is more on the readings, reflections, and practice suggestions.
The number of emails isn’t finalized, but the course will probably run for the whole year.
There will be live Zoom discussion groups every two weeks where we can talk about the articles, our thoughts and feelings, and our lives. I’m aiming to do these at two different times, to accommodate people in the US, the UK and Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. Bear in mind it’s not possible to suit everyone’s schedule. Details to follow.
We can also have written discussions in the community website. Participation and sharing are important.

Our world falling apart is an opportunity

The title of this course is not meant to be alarmist or depressing. In a sense the world is always falling apart. Our own bodies are falling apart, right now. The leaf in the photograph above is falling apart. What keeps things together is the ongoing work of building and sustaining. As well as falling apart, your body is constantly healing and growing. The leaf’s very falling apart is the condition that supports the growth of new leaves. Old institutions die, and new ones are created.

The falling apart of the old world is like the death of a leaf. It looks like a loss. But it’s also an opportunity for new growth. We know that the world we lost, no matter how much we mourn its passing, can never be put back together again the way it was. And it shouldn’t. It fell apart because it was a bad world for too many people. What we grow in the leaf litter has to be something better, fairer, more just, more human. It has to be a world in which all people can flourish. That’s what we need to aim for. What is that world like? How do we get there? We’ll talk about that together.

This course is only open to those who sponsor Wildmind, thereby giving me the opportunity to reflect and write. But it’s easy to become a sponsor, and it’s only $8 a month. That’s a sound investment in an exploration that will help you feel happy and balanced amidst the turbulence, and that will help you be of more use to our suffering world.

With love,
Bodhipakṣa

👉 Click here to become a sponsor and to join me in “As the World Falls Apart” 👈

“This is just how things are right now”

December 2, 2025

Bodhipaksa

on practice

I’ve been practicing and teaching self-compassion for a long time now. My book on that topic, “This Difficult Thing of Being Human,” was published six years ago. (I hope you’ve read it. If you haven’t, I hope you will.)

My approach to practicing self-compassion hasn’t fundamentally changed in that time, but from time to time a particular approach will come into focus for me..

One of the things I’ve been finding helpful recently is simply saying to myself, when something unpleasant happens, “This is just how things are right now.”

Also see:

I’ll talk a bit more about that in a minute, but first I want to outline the way I usually practice self-compassion, so you have an overview of what I’m talking about.

“This is just how things are right now.” This phrase is a short-cut to radical acceptance.

Naturally you have to first notice that you’re suffering in some way. The word “suffering” can be misleading, because it conjures up strong states of distress, illness, etc. And those things could be included here, but essentially “suffering” covers any experience that’s uncomfortable in any way.

Here are three examples, taken from my own life, of how this has been useful.

Example 1

I’m meditating and I happen to be so tired that I’m dipping in and out of dreams.

Now, anyone who’s been meditating for a long time knows that we’re supposed to just accept that distraction and sleepiness happens. Sure, we can try and stay awake, but we don’t give ourselves a hard time for being tired.

And I always thought I didn’t. But I find that saying “This is just how things are right now” frees me from a subtle frustration that I hadn’t even realized was there. That frustration seems tied in to the immediate reflex, “I must try to stay awake!”

When I say to myself, “This is just how things are right now,” I no longer make any willed effort to stay awake. I just appreciate those times that I am conscious.

Oddly, this doesn’t make me go to sleep any more than I did before. It’s almost like “trying to stay awake” doesn’t really do anything anyway.

What it does do is to bring me more peace. I lose the sense that falling asleep is a bad thing. (And yet I don’t surrender to sleep. Weird!)

I now find I’m perfectly happy with the situation, which is that I’m meditating, and sometimes I fall asleep.

Even as I write this I think it sounds like I’m saying that I’m just giving in to sleep. But I’m not. I think it only sounds like that to me because this subtle striving has been part of my makeup for so long.

Example 2

I’m meditating and my youngest dog starts licking my hand. My other two dogs tend to ignore me when I’m meditating, but the youngest dog is a bit clingy. And she’s a licker. When the other dogs lick me during meditation, which is only when I’m forced to meditate lying down, I don’t mind. But there’s something kind of gross about the way Pippa licks me. It’s slimy. I can find it annoying. I get irritated with her. I just want it to stop!

So I say “This is just how things are right now,” and instantly I don’t mind the licking. It’s still unpleasant, but I’m okay with it being unpleasant.

A whole layer of reaction gets removed, and I’m able to sit with equanimity. The licking continues, or doesn’t, and I just don’t mind.

Example 3

I’m feeling sad for some reason I can’t put my finger on. Of the three examples here, this one is potentially the most serious, because sadness can go on for a long time and after a while it can start to shade into depression.

But when I say to myself “This is just how things are right now,” immediately it’s like a weight has been lifted. The feelings of sadness are still there, but they’re very mild and I can happily live with them. There’s just a dull ache that doesn’t at all trouble me.

Because the sadness continues, my unconscious reactivity and resistance can creep back in. When this happens I keep reminding myself, this is just how things are right now. And every time, there’s the sense of a weight being removed.

Anyway, I’m finding this a very useful tool. I’ve been recommending it to a lot of my meditation students. This isn’t a new tool. In fact I wrote about it eight years ago.

Saying “This is just how things are right now” corresponds to the first three steps of my self-compassion process — 1) recognizing that suffering is present, 2) dropping the story, and 3) turning toward and accepting painful feelings. The acceptance stage is what it most resembles, but it implies the first two stages as well.

The fourth step in that process is offering kindness and reassurance to the suffering part of us. Usually I haven’t needed to do this. I guess the phrase itself — “This is just how things are right now” — itself provides reassurance.

So I toss this out there, as I tend to do, hoping that you, too, find it a useful shortcut for alleviating suffering.

Wildmind is a Community-Supported Meditation Initiative. Click here to find out about the many benefits of being a sponsor.

Twenty-five years of Wildmind

November 11, 2025

Bodhipaksa

news

No Comments

Today, the 11th day of November, 2025, is Wildmind’s 25th birthday! It’s the 25th anniversary of the first day that the Wildmind website went live. It was, as far as I’m aware, the first website where anyone could come and learn meditation. I’m pleased and delighted that 25 years later the website is still running.

Here’s now it came about.

A Master’s in Buddhism?

Sometime around 1997 I’d met a professor of Buddhist studies called Alan Sponberg in his alter ego as Dharmachari Saramati — who was, like me, a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order. We met at a Buddhist convention, and he told me he had funding for a teaching assistant position. The successful candidate would have the fees for a Master’s degree paid for by the university. It seemed like a good deal to be able to study Buddhism for three years while living in the Rocky Mountains, and get paid for it. Moreover, there was a Triratna Buddhist center in Missoula, the home of UM, which I could be involved in.

As it happened, the Buddhist Studies department consisted of just Saramati, and it wasn’t going to be possible to do a Master’s degree purely in Buddhism, so the best option was to do an interdisciplinary Master’s of some sort. This would involve studying both Buddhism and a second, co-equal subject, with specific focus on the overlap between the two. At first I thought I might study Buddhism and Japanese, because at that time I had what turned out to be a short-lived interest in Zen Buddhism. Saramati informed me, to my disappointment, that the Zen scriptures were written in Chinese, and that in the three years of a Master’s program I probably wouldn’t learn enough Chinese to be able to study them.

Reflecting on my background

Back to square one. I thought about what I wanted to do in life. I’d spent, at that time, six years at university. And I started to wonder if a Master’s degree would simply be me gaining knowledge and skills that wouldn’t be of much practical value in my life. My first degree had been in veterinary medicine at the University of Glasgow, from which I graduated in 1984. It was while I was a veterinary student that I became a Buddhist, and unfortunately I’d come to the conclusion that I shouldn’t become a vet; the meditation practice I was doing had sensitized me emotionally, and having to kill animals was, I found, traumatic, leaving me with terrible nightmares. Nevertheless, I graduated.

I then spent some time working with other Buddhists in a printing business, giving myself the space to think about what I would do with my life. I was also doing various kinds of voluntary work, which I enjoyed. I taught basic reading and writing skills to illiterate adults. I spent one evening a week helping an immigrant teenage boy with his school work (his father had abandoned the family and his mother barely spoke English), and I volunteered in an adventure playground for children with mental and physical handicaps. All of this was very fulfilling, and I applied for and was accepted in a one-year post-graduate course in Community Education. I spent a challenging year in a small class with 11 other students (including Gary Lewis, who is now a well-known actor, and Shona Robison, who at one point was Scotland’s Deputy First Minister).

I learned a lot of skills at a Community Education Worker, and worked in that field for several years. But I had to resign my position in order to go on a four-month ordination retreat in Spain, in which I joined the Triratna Order and became Bodhipakṣa.

When I came back to Scotland there were no Community Education jobs available, but there was an opening as the Manager of Dhanakosa Retreat Centre in the Scottish Highlands. Dhanakosa was quite new at the time. The previous manager left after a year, and wasn’t even organized enough to have a filing cabinet.

Buddhism and Business

I gained a lot of skills, including teaching experience, running the retreat centre, which wasn’t that different from running the small education center for single parents that I’d established as a Community Education Worker.

Back to my Master’s degree: I realized that I’d always enjoyed helping people and building things up. These were things I’d done in my voluntary work, in Community Education, and as manager of Dhanakosa. I wondered if there might be an Entrepreneurship program at UM, and it turned out there was. So it became established that in my Interdisciplinary Master’s program I would study Buddhism, business, and the overlap between the two — which is traditionally called Right Livelihood. There needed to be a practical component to this overlap. and at first I thought I might collaborate with an existing Buddhist business (a restaurant) in Missoula, but that didn’t seem possible.

A stroke of inspiration

I remember — this would have been 1999 or very early 2000 — having to wait for an appointment with someone who was running late. As I waited I had a stroke of inspiration. I had taught a lot of meditation, and seemed, from what people said, to be good at it. What, I thought, about setting up a website where people could learn to meditate? People already learned meditation from books; on the website there could be readings. People already learned meditation from cassette tapes; on the website there could be recordings.

You have to remember that this was less than ten years after the public launch of the World Wide Web. I’d only been online for seven years at this point. There were places online where you could find out the times and locations of meditation classes, and you could even read the Buddhist scriptures, but you certainly couldn’t learn meditation online.

At first my idea was simply to have a free resource, but a friend, fellow Buddhist, and very successful businessman called Pat Lawler asked me if it might be possible to run courses as well, and to make a living out of doing that. I thought it probably could be done. Pat, an exceptionally generous man, gave me there and then some funds so that I could buy a domain name and get a website set up.

Developing the idea

In the Business School I entered this idea in a Business Plan competition, where I came second. In the philosophy department my professor and I submitted an application for a grant to the American Council of Learned Societies to test whether a meditation course could be done online. The application was successful. I wrote the proposal and my professor kept most of the money, but what remained was enough to support me over the summer so that I could write the contents for a website). In Fall, 2000, I ran the course, which went well. The course was run on UM’s course management system, so this was not the Wildmind website.

The actual website came about with the help of Heidi Harting-Rex, a local web designer who helped me turned the course materials I’d developed into the Wildmind website. (I also had help from Roger Hyam, an old friend from Edinburgh.) The header image for this article is a screenshot of the Wayback Machine’s first snapshot of the site, from Feb 1, 2001, at which point the site was only three months old. The first course (run under the name Mindworks) ran in the Spring of 2001.

25 years later

Things have evolved a lot since then. I realized along the way that community was the important thing. And so now there’s a thriving, although small, Wildmind community of about 400 people who donate varying amounts every month to support me to explore and teach meditation.

It’s still, after 25 years, touch and go financially. From time to time I have to do fundraising appeals to my community and to fans of the website. On two occasions I’ve been close to giving up, and one time I even wrote a letter explaining why I was having to give up teaching meditation. (I was about to apply for jobs in social media marketing for local companies.)

In the meantime, if you want to support the site, which is free of advertising, feel free to make a donation. Or you can become one of Wildmind’s sponsors, and be part of our community.

I have to say that even though it’s been a struggle, I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to spend so much time practicing, reflecting on, teaching, discussing, and writing about meditation. It’s been deeply rewarding. It’s also heartening to know that my guided meditations have been listened to by literally millions of people, and that I have several articles that have been read by close to a million people each. I’m still hanging in there! And so is Wildmind. I hope that the site will continue for many years to come, and will still be offering advice and guidance on meditation to millions more people long after I’m gone.

Publication Day! The Heart’s Awakening

October 14, 2025

Bodhipaksa

on practice

It’s always an interesting day when one of your books is published. It’s exciting. But you’re sending your inmost thoughts out into the world for other people to read and perhaps judge, and so sometimes it’s nerve-racking as well.

I felt rather tired for most of today, and I think it’s probably because of the emotions going on under the surface.

So far the reviews and comments have been very positive. Reading some of them made me well up. To know you’ve touched another person’s life and offered them something they’ve found helpful can open the heart.

Opening the heart is the theme of this book. It’s about the four Buddhist practices — although they’re really just human practices — called the brahma-viharas. This term is usually translated as “divine abidings” which sounds so elevated it’s almost out of sight. It could also be accurately rendered (and has been historically) as “the four best ways of living your life.”

I think that’s more down to earth and practical. Practicing the four best ways of living your life is a different kind of challenge. It’s the challenge not of transporting yourself to some exalted elsewhere, but of choosing over and over to be here in the best way you can.

And the best way we can be here is to be kind and compassionate to ourselves and others, and to see and appreciate our own and others’ goodness. These are the first three of the four best ways we can live our lives.

The fourth way is to refuse to leave any place in our hearts for hatred, contempt, or dismissal. Because our attempts to be kind, compassionate, and appreciative are always bound, at least sometimes, to fail. And so the fourth practice is to look closely at what the mind is doing that gives it permission to be unkind. It’s to see in what way we are refusing to see others’ nature as feeling beings who suffer just as we do, and who long for peace and happiness, just as we do.

The word “upekkha” — the fourth of the brahma-viharas — comes from a root that means “to look closely.” It’s usually rendered as “equanimity,” though: emotional balance. And that’s a part of it. But not all.

We try to be loving. But then other beings get under our skin and we react to them with ill will. To overcome this, we look more closely. For example, we see that all beings are impermanent. We see that they are all caught up in webs of conditioning, and are not fully responsible for their actions. We see that they all have the potential for awakening. This looking helps us to find our emotional balance again. But we don’t leave things there. From a place of equanimity we are free once again to return to being kind, compassionate, and appreciative.

Anyway, I aimed to make the book very practical. It’s in 108 short chapters, so that you can pick it up, read, reflect, and practice. And then repeat.

If any of this sounds at all interesting, the book is easy to get hold of. Here are a few links:

I hope you find it helpful!

Learning the demons’ secret names

August 31, 2025

Bodhipaksa

on practice

A few weeks ago my partner and I went to a pro-Democracy rally a couple of miles down the road. I’d decided that I wanted to spend my time there meditating, so I took along a yoga mat and my meditation bench, and sat down to meditate. In front of me sat a piece of pink card on which I’d written in black sharpie, “Buddhists For Democracy.”

I’d planned to do lovingkindness meditation, and I did for the first few minutes. But very soon I realized I wanted to chant a mantra. I wanted to chant the mantra of Padmasambhava.

The mantra goes: Oṃ Āḥ Hūṃ Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hūṃ.

Sometimes I chanted the mantra under my breath. Sometimes I repeated it mentally.

I kept this going for an hour, while people cheered, passing cars honked their horns, and one guy yelled over and over, “You’re all criminals!”

Chanting the mantra felt like a very significant thing to do, but to explain that I’ll have to say a little about Padmasambhava.

The Precious Teacher

Padmasambhava has another name: Guru Rinpoche, the Precious Teacher. He lived in the 8th and 9th centuries, but there’s so much mythology surrounding him that it’s very difficult to know anything for sure about his life.

Legend says that he converted Tibet to Buddhism. He was founder of one of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Nyingmapa school.

The legends say he came from a place called Oddiyana. That might be the present-day Swat valley in Pakistan. At that time, Oddiyana was a major center of Vajrayāna Buddhism.

This article is also available in Dutch

Maybe Padmasambha was born in Oddiyana, but there are conflicting accounts. Some stories say that he was the son of a local queen, but also he is said to have been born in the calyx of a lotus flower that appeared on Lake Danakosha, and appeared fully formed fully formed as an 8 year old boy, who King Indrabuti then then adopted. In fact, Padmasambha’s name means “born from a lotus.”

So you see what I mean about him being shrouded in myth. We really just have to approach him as a legendary or mythic figure. In the stories that are connected with him, we have to look for a more mythic sense of meaning.

What’s more certain is that he was a teacher of Dzogchen, which is the Tibetan for “Great Perfection.” Indian Buddhists called this Ati Yoga, or the “Highest Practice.” The aim is to see through appearances in order that we can rest in the innate luminosity and purity of the mind.

The part of Padmasambhava’s life I want to talk about is his conversion of Tibet to Buddhism.

Failure to Launch

King Trisong Detsen, 38th king of Tibet, wanted to convert his country. His first attempt at that was inviting a famous Indian monk called Shantarakshita.

Shantarakshita was a Mahayana monk who founded Samye monastery, where Tibetans could learn about traditional Buddhist teachings, like the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, and about newer Mahayana teachings. But at night the demons of Tibet destroyed all the work from the previous day.

Taking this as a kind of mythic truth, the way Shantarakshita was trying to introduce Buddhist practice to Tibet just didn’t work. It didn’t fit the local conditions. We can see the demons that dismantled the monastery at night as wild, destructive forces in the Tibetan psyche at that time.

Tibet at that time was a very wild, warlike country. It was full of power struggles. It was steeped in superstition, a place where people worshipped local deities and demons, and employed sorcerers to dispose of their enemies. Machiavellianism and magic were the demons of Tibet.

The rational, philosophical approach that Shantarakshita was trying to introduce just didn’t work for the Tibetans.

Converting the Demons of Tibet

So Shantarakshita in turn invited Padmasambhava. He was a great scholar, but he was also a deep meditator and a magician (siddhi). So when Padmasambhava arrived in Tibet, his main task was not to teach the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. It wasn’t to teach meditation. It was to get to grips with Tibet’s demons. He took them on in a kind of spiritual combat. In other words, in some way he tackled the wild forces in the Tibetan psyche.

He was fearless. The legends are that he battled demons until they revealed their secret names to him. And once he’d done that he was able to convince them to become protectors of the teachings, rather than opponents of them.

This, I think, means that he really got to know and understand what made the Tibetan people tick. And with that understanding he was able to show them that the Dharma (the path to awakening) was a superior way of living — in terms that made sense to them.

Padmasambhava was a Tantric teacher, and the Tantra doesn’t say “This thing you’re doing is bad; do the opposite.” It says something more like “This thing you’re doing may be bad, but the underlying energy behind it is neither good not bad, so take that energy and redirect it in a more helpful direction.”

Buddha 3.0

The Buddha himself did things like this. For example, he said, “The supreme conqueror is not one who conquers a million others in battle, but the one who conquers a single person: themselves.” He’s asking people prone to competition to channel their competitive energies in a more challenging and rewarding direction.

So I imagine Padmasambhava did something like this with the demons of Tibet (that is, Tibetan culture). Understanding what motivated Tibetans, he showed them a different way of being. He showed them a different kind of warriorship. A different kind of magic.

This isn’t an easy thing to do, because when we’ve committed to a certain way of being, it becomes our whole world-view. Bar some earth-shaking change in our lives, we just can’t imagine seeing things in a different way. It takes a true spiritual genius to tune in to people’s deep motivations and to open their minds to seeing a different goal, a different way of being.

The Buddha was a genius like that, and so was Padmasambhava, which is why Tibetans call him “The Second Buddha.”

Gautama was Buddha 1.0, and Padmasambhava was Buddha 2.0.

We’re deeply in need of a Buddha 3.0.

We need someone that can do battle with the demons of our own culture. This battle is not a literal one. It’s a metaphorical battle that involves cultivating insight and understanding rather than wielding weapons. It’s not a battle where we aim to destroy some in order to save others. It’s a battle without enemies, where we compassionately desire to help all beings. The battle is not aimed at defeating beings, but at defeating harmful ideas. And those ideas can only be defeated if we understand them, and understand why people hold them.

The Demons of the Modern Era

Every culture has its demons (and again, that’s destructive psychic and cultural forces, rather than actual demonic entities).

Here are four contemporary demons that have a powerful distorting effect on the human psyche.

1. Materialism

Materialism has to be one of the biggest contemporary demons. Here materialism refers to the belief that happiness comes from consuming and by having more.

While it’s obvious that freedom from financial worry allows us to be happier, there are diminishing returns from accumulating wealth. Psychology studies show that happiness mainly comes from things like being kind, having gratitude, self-compassion, mindfulness, and having a sense of meaning and purpose in life. These are also things that various spiritual traditions, including Buddhism, teach.

If materialism were a true source of happiness, Elon Musk would be the happiest person on the planet. Instead, he seems to be to be extremely unhappy, probably because he lacks all the true bases of a happy life.

The accumulation of wealth that we see in the world at the moment seems morbid. It’s as unhealthy as filling every inch of your house with old newspapers and empty food containers. It’s worse than that, since at least hoarding trash doesn’t generally harm other people. As Nathalie Robin said, “If a monkey hoarded more bananas than it could eat, while most of the other monkeys starved, scientists would study that monkey to figure out what the heck was wrong with it. When humans do it, we put them on the cover of Forbes.”

Materialism is creating vast inequalities, and it’s also destroying the ecological systems that allow us to have civilizations.

2. The Sanctity of the Free Market

Society is distorted by the belief that the free market is sacrosanct. Suggest limiting the power of a corporation to cause harm, and a whole bunch of people will call you a “communist” — although what you’re suggesting is that the duly elected representatives of the people take action to protect the majority of the people (us) from harms caused by a minority (the corporations in question).

It doesn’t really matter what you suggest — making it illegal to put poison in foodstuffs, for example — there are going to be people who say that it’s all up to the individual consumer, as if life should ideally consist of ordinary people going mano a mano against massive corporations that have bottomless pits of money for lawyers.

In reality, there is no such thing as a free market. Markets operate only because of laws and rules. A completely free market becomes a mafia state, where nothing is off the table, and everyone ends up strong-armed by the most ruthless. And there’s nothing free about that.

3. Short-termism

Businesses focus on their quarterly results, and sometimes they sabotage themselves in the long term, for example by cutting their research and development budgets, in order to produce short-term results.

A well-known New Yorker cartoon by Tom Toro shows a man and three children sitting by a camp fire, a ruined city in the background. The man says, “Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”

Short-term thinking is the opposite of wisdom. The Buddha used to ask, “What is for my long-term happiness and well-being?” He advised us to use that perspective as a guide for life.

The Toro cartoon illustrated the short-termism inherent in our attitude to the environment. Corporations focus on short-term profits. Our atmosphere is accumulating carbon dioxide, and as it does so it gets hotter, weather patterns are disrupted, and sea levels rise. Corporations’ efforts to maximize their profit will have catastrophic effects, but this doesn’t factor into their thinking. Those costs will be borne by others. Their profits are private, while the cost of creating those profits is public.

It’s not just corporations, of course. Individuals play a part. But it’s mostly big business that is the problem.

4. Tribalism

The Buddha points out that every one of us is subject to sickness, old age, death, and the loss of everything that is precious to us. We’re all in it together. He then in effect asks us how, knowing this, we are going to live. Given these facts, the most appropriate way for us to live is compassionate recognition of our shared plight as human beings.

Those who don’t get that we’re all in this together are usually in the grip of fear. Studies show that many people, when they are reminded of impermanence, loss, and death, cling tightly to some form of identity. They identify with one group, which they see as existing in opposition to other groups. They see their own group as inherently superior. Others just don’t matter. They may even be seen as the enemy. Tribalism says that hating, persecuting, or destroying this enemy is what’s needed to bring happiness. Currently, tribalism’s popular enemies are immigrants and trans people.

All of us are tribal to some extent. It’s part of human nature to align with other groups of people. But tribalism forces us into a narrow form of empathy, where we have a limited capacity for compassion unless it’s for people similar to us. Buddhist practice — and Christian practice too, in theory — encourages us to see past tribalism so that we can relate to all people as fellow humans, and all living beings as fellow feeling beings.

Conservatives are more prone to fear (possibly for genetic reasons) and so are more likely to fall into tribalism, but liberals do this as well. Liberals often talk about compassion, but end up despising those they think are uncompassionate. They rarely see the irony in this. They may assume that if they show enough disdain, conservatives will want to become better people.

Buddha 3.0

These four things — materialism, the false idol of the free market, short-termism, and tribalism — are not the only demons in western culture. They’re just the ones I notice most often. They are all tangled up with each other, in ways I don’t need to spell out. I could also have mentioned individualism, the denial of evidence, and the naive techno-optimism of what’s been called the TESCREAL movement.

Padmasambhava did not destroy the demons of Tibet. Instead he recognized their essential energy and offered it a sacred purpose. We need to do the same with contemporary demons. We need not simply to condemn them, but to understand them deeply. Padmasambhava learning the secret names of the demons of Tibet means he understood their essence.

To understand the essence of cultural forces does not just mean knowing a bunch of facts. It means understanding the minds that are caught up in those forces. And since our own minds are entangled in the demonic cultural patterns I described above, we need to understand our own minds. We might look at fascists in horror, but there’s a bit of fascism in all of us. To understand them, we have to look at ourselves.

The Deep Listening of Compassion

When we see people with views we profoundly disagree with, our instincts say: let them know they’re wrong, criticize what they say, tell them what (in our eyes) is true! Yet arguing with people is remarkably ineffective at changing their minds. Even giving them new information doesn’t work.

What has been shown to work, over and over again, is starting from a place of empathy, refraining from criticism, and asking questions that encourage them to unpack their thinking. Often when people explain themselves fully they start to change their minds. In today’s polarized world they’re rarely given a chance to talk in depth about their beliefs. They often simply confirm with other members of their tribe what they, as members of the same tribe, are supposed to believe. And when challenged by outsiders they become defensive or aggressive. These are not good conditions in which to reflect.

Because they haven’t explained their beliefs to others, they’ve never explained them to themselves, either. They don’t know what they really believe until they make it appear for an interested, empathetic listener. Only then can they become aware of weaknesses and limitations in their thinking. If you give them a chance to do this, by asking questions in a nonjudgemental way — having shown that you’re a non-threatening listener — you can then ask them more probing, critical questions, and present them with information that’s new to them. Freed from the need to be defensive, they can reflect. This is what changes minds.

Because we’re tribal, we rarely talk to people this way. Our main interest is showing people who are not in our tribe that they are wrong and bad.

To learn the secret names of the demons, we have to leave no place in our hearts for hatred, resentment, and contempt. This means learning to recognize those unskillful states, which are often hidden from us. They hide in plain sight in our minds, but we don’t recognize them because we take them to be “righteous anger.” We think our outrage shows our rightness. It doesn’t. It shows that we have a sense of superiority, and are thus under the sway of the demons. Understanding the demons means recognizing whatever stands in the way of love and compassion, and letting it dissolve away.

This does not mean “being nice.” Being nice usually means not wanting to challenge people. Padmasambhava challenged people big-time. But he did it without hatred, out of compassion. The combination of incisive challenge and and care for the people (or their ideas and actions) being challenged is illustrated by Padmasambhava’s famous “wrathful smile.”

We Can’t Wait For the Buddha

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that a new Buddha will appear in the calyx of a lotus flower in the midst of a mountain lake. He or she is not going to appear from a Pure Land or be born from a queen.

We can’t wait for a savior.

It’s up to us. We have to become the saviors. We are all invited to become emanations of Padmasambhava. Buddha 3.0 is the sum total of out collective awakening. It’s a movement of minds committed to understanding the modern psyche with the same skillful means Padmasambhava had mastered.

We need to learn the demon’s secret names; to dig deep; to look closely at our reactivity and overcome it with compassion. We need to understand others with compassion — not just feeling warmth toward them, but compassionately and empathetically understanding how they think. What makes them tick? Why do they believe the things they believe and do the things they do?

The answer to such questions can never be “Because they’re stupid” or “Because they’re evil.” The answer has to be framed in terms they themselves would recognize and assent to. It has to be framed in the same terms you would use if you thoughtfully described why you believe the things you believe, and do the things you do. Because you’re the same as them. You have the same fundamental desires for freedom, safety, and to matter. You just go about trying to fulfill those desires in a different way. We need to understand those desires if we’re to help the world find better ways to meet them.

So this is why chanting the Padmasambhava mantra seemed significant. It felt like I was sending something powerful into the world. It wasn’t coming from me, but simply flowing through me. I was chanting an invocation to call forth Buddha 3.0 — inviting awakening to emerge and convert our modern demons. Consider yourself invited.

A Spiritual To-Do List

Invitations are good, but we have a lot of work to do on ourselves.

We need to reject materialism, living with greater simplicity even if it’s sometimes inconvenient. Think: low carbon, low plastic, plant-based. We need to find meaning and satisfaction in our lives through friendship, spiritual community, and compassionate action.
We need to reject the false idea that “freedom” consists of allowing the powerful to do whatever they want. We need to see freedom as what allows all people to live happy, fulfilled, creative lives to the best of their ability. We desperately need a society with less inequality and greater fairness: a society that works for the benefit of all. This is not radical; this is common-sense.
We need to reject short-termism, considering what’s best for our own and others long-term happiness and well-being. It’s too late for us to leave a better world to our children and grandchildren than the one we were born into, but we have to think about how to mitigate the damage we’ve caused, and to create the best possible circumstances for our children and for future generations.
We need to free ourselves from tribal thinking — especially political, national, and racial thinking. We need to question our own beliefs and live with honest intellectual humility, recognizing the limits of our knowledge. We need to start from the basis of seeing that we’re all in it together.

So it’s up to us to be Buddha 3.0. Needless to say, this isn’t an easy thing. It’s not something we can do all at once. It’s a life-long task. So why not begin now?

What will your next step be?

Wildmind is a Community-Supported Meditation Initiative. Click here to find out about the many benefits of being a sponsor.

Books and cats

August 29, 2025

Bodhipaksa

on practice

No Comments

It was lovely to receive this photograph the other day. This is Mara, one of the people who wrote an endorsement of my forthcoming book, “The Heart’s Awakening,” receiving her advance copy.

The cat in the background is Cleo.

The book doesn’t come out until Oct 14, and I didn’t even know that it existed in physical form!

I’m looking forward to seeing one myself.

“The Heart’s Awakening” has the subtitle, “108 Steps to a Life of Love.” It explores how we can bring more kindness, compassion, and appreciation into our lives. These are things that enrich our lives and make us happier.

It explains how we can overcome anger, hatred, resentment, and contempt — which make us and others unhappy.

One of the things it addresses is the way we undermine ourselves through self-criticism. Lots of people in our lives have criticized us in order to “improve” us. We internalize that strategy to the point where we can’t imagine living without it, even though we hate it!

The teachings in my book show how we can support and encourage ourselves through kindness instead. It makes such a difference to our lives when we do this. We realize that we’ve been going through life traumatizing ourselves with self-criticism. Then we wonder why we procrastinate on doing important things. Well, isn’t it kind of natural to avoid doing things when you’re only going to criticize yourself for not doing them “perfectly”?

There is a better way. And it’s not that hard. It starts with learning to show ourselves a little warmth and encouragement, using soft, kind, eyes (which is something I explain in the book), kinder inner communication, and other methods.

The Heart’s Awakening is available for preorder now. Why not reserve your copy so that you can hit the ground running (or sitting) on October 14?

Here’s a link to the book on Amazon, and os bookshop.org (which allows you to support your local bookstore).