Do you ever wonder who you might be today if, when you were very young, the adults around you had encouraged you to be authentic with them and yourself? What would life be like if had been acceptable to feel anxious, or cry because we felt we needed to, no matter how annoyed our parents were? [...]
As I contemplate new and more effective ways to travel the path of the Jizo Bodhisattva, I find myself encountering more and more astonishing suggestions for “How To Live.” I found a Sufi teaching that goes something like this: […]
When we have a thought, do we respond to it as though it were true? Do we believe that our feelings tell us what is true about the world? Two big buzzwords these days are Emotional Dysregulation. It assumes that normal is, say, in the range of middle C, within an octave either higher or [...]
Sometimes there are surprises when I choose stillness. I opted out of Memorial Day traffic this morning and was on posting in my jizoandchibi Facebook sangha, when a box appeared from my friend Christina Parker, adding me to a group. I always opt out of groups immediately. Too distracting. This one, however, cried out for [...]
Practicing meditation with Jizo has allowed me to listen to nature and practice lovingkindness with an earthworm
We wait to be perfect. In meditation, we can see that there is no place to get to where everything will be better or different. So, we wake up and live now.
Reflections on anger floated up during meditation the other morning. Here is what came up: It’s neither good or bad to be angry. There is nothing wrong with being angry. It is the acting angrily that blocks our growth and causes harm. As 2 and 3-year-olds we are told to STOP our tantrums. I suspect [...]
The other day in meditation, I was gazing at a painting I had made of Jizo. I began lazily to count the brush strokes and realized there were approximately 17 in each painting. The word “haiku” drifted through my mind. 17 syllables for haiku, 17 brush strokes for Jizo. […]
Jizo Therapy is in its infancy: an eclectic set of theories I have strung together since 1988 when I started graduate studies to become a psychotherapist. The therapeutic qualities of Buddhism were only spoken of by Thich Nhat Hanh and a few others. The brain-imaging of Tibetan monks was decades away and weekend workshops with [...]
Mindfulness has now been proven to help in the treatment of depression, anxiety, and Attention Deficit Disorder. But what, exactly is mindfulness? […]
