When we look at the world around us, with its many serious problems, including poverty, injustice, war, overpopulation, and environmental degradation, it’s all too easy to become either angry and frustrated on the one hand or passive and despondent on the other. But not only are these responses ineffective at bringing about change, they are also part of the problem to begin with.

In order to bring about positive change in the world we need not only engagement with the outer world, but also engagement with our inner world. If we want to see greater awareness in the world, we have to cultivate awareness. If we want to see greater harmony and less strife we …

“The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.” Anais Nin

It’s easy to think of a spiritual life as being somehow “elsewhere” or as being something that we can only aspire to in the future. But a true sense of spirituality comes from looking deeply into our present-moment experience and seeing more truly than we currently do.

When we sit to meditate we don’t try to escape who we are, rather we learn to be comfortable with being who we are. Living deeply, in the context of meditation, means unlearning our habits of craving, aversion, and delusion: habits which prevent us from acknowledging our experience fully.

In practical terms, this means opening …