Tabla de contenidos para March 2025 en Lion's Roar

I BELIEVE WE ARE witnessing a momentous event in world spiritual history. It is the birth of an authentic new contemplative tradition. This new contemplative tradition, born on American soil, was founded by the man on this issue’s cover, Jon Kabat-Zinn. It is called secular mindfulness, or mainstream mindfulness, or just mindfulness. It is of historic importance because it is bringing the benefit of real meditative practice to millions of people in the modern world. Let’s break down three qualities of this movement. It is new, it is authentic, and it is modern. Ancient contemplative traditions like Buddhism are relatively recent imports to America. While they have so much to offer, their benefit is generally limited to committed adherents. As a new tradition, born in America, mainstream mindfulness makes contemplative…

Jungian psychologist and Zen teacher John Tarrant recounts the Buddha’s life in his colorful new book The Story of the Buddha (Shambhala Publications). In this beautiful tome, which includes a rich collection of traditional Chinese and Japanese illustrations, the timeless tale is presented like a poetic meditation. “Don’t try to use it to achieve something,” writes Tarrant. “Just hold the story in mind, or any part of the story. Stay with it day and night. It’s not so hard.” At the end of the book, Tarrant makes the narrative deeply personal, discussing how this story touched his own heart and how it may touch yours. The author, who also wrote Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life, concludes his new work with eight koans,…

When someone becomes a parent, the surge of unconditional love arises naturally for their little one. Attachment and compassion are often a messy combination, but through the practice of tonglen—taking on the suffering of other parents who faced struggles similar to mine and sending them love and compassion—I built a healthy and loving relationship with my daughter that endures twenty years later. —Rochelle Winter, Chicago, Illinois When my kids were younger I often made the mistake of fixing their problems before they could address them for themselves, in order to alleviate both their pain and the pain I experienced from witnessing their distress. As they aged, they showed me that compassionate guidance was a better way to help them address issues. I no longer scramble to fix their problems.…

KNOWING YOURSELF is the foundation for true self-assurance. What follows are step-by-step instructions for getting to know your own mind. 1. Take Your Seat As you find a long but relaxed spine, see yourself as claiming a spot on the earth, and know that this practice is not retreat from the details of life but a way to prepare to meet life head on, with an open heart. Leave your eyes open, but gently gaze downward six to eight feet in front of you to signify staying present in the world during this meditation. 2. Check In You might take a moment to notice if any of the eight winds has been strong in your life recently. Notice, without judgment, your current state of mind. 3. Mindfulness of Body Guide…

I TRAVELED TO COSTA RICA, where I was scheduled to teach a retreat at Blue Spirit. I went two weeks early to have some personal retreat time in a tiny fishing village called San Juanillo, not far from the Buddhist teacher Lama Tsultrim Allione’s house. I’d planned this trip for months, dreaming of having time to meditate, swim, and write. But on the plane to Costa Rica, I developed a high fever. Over the next six days, I endured a severe undiagnosed illness. No doctors were nearby. My doctor told me over the phone that she thought it might be Covid-19 or the flu, while locals suspected dengue. Lama Tsultrim became alarmed and found a doctor I could text that night. As I lay in bed in pain, I felt…

We can’t change the world with mindbody practices alone, says JAMES K. ROWE. But political interventions that don’t address our fear of mortality are also incomplete. SOCIAL INJUSTICES and environmental harms persist despite the rise of powerful social movements to counter them. Is it possible they persist because we’ve yet to target the root drivers of injustice? Powerful thinkers from James Baldwin and Simone de Beauvoir to the historical Buddha himself have encouraged us to examine how our existential fears—particularly fear of death—fuel our desire to dominate. According to Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, because we often see death as “a defeat and an insult,” we concoct fantasies of supremacy that give us hits of feeling powerful and in control. These fantasies can aggregate into ugly and deadly social formations…

Jon Kabat-Zinn in Conversation MELVIN MCLEOD: How do you define mindfulness? Jon Kabat-Zinn: Nowadays, the word mindfulness is used in a lot of different contexts. To some degree, its deep meaning has been obscured through becoming so popular in the mainstream world. That itself is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is best if one’s understanding of mindfulness comes out of one’s attempts to cultivate it in one’s life. The way I use the word, it basically means pure awareness. That said, mindfulness is also a way of being—or put differently, a way of accessing your intrinsic genius and beauty, which Buddhists would call your true nature, or buddhanature. As a practice, mindfulness is all about accessing and embodying awareness. The interesting thing is that all human beings are…

AT SOME POINT, most of us have felt the quiet ache of not being enough—not smart enough, capable enough, or worthy enough. This sense of deficiency can burden our hearts, shaping how we see ourselves and holding us back from living fully and authentically. Yet, the confidence we yearn for isn’t something to be earned or achieved; it’s already present—a profound potential waiting to be revealed. Genuine self-confidence arises not from external accomplishments or validation but from recognizing the immutable truth of who we are: an expression of buddhanature. Buddhanature is the innate potential for awakening, universal to all beings. It is not a quality we acquire but our true nature—luminous, unconditioned, and complete. Always present, even when obscured by self-doubt or challenges, buddhanature remains untouched and untainted. Like a…

KARMA COSMETICS. KARMA BEAUTY. Karma Bridal & Formal. Karma & Luck gifts. Credit Karma by Intuit. Karma Automotive. Karma Mobility. Karma, the card game. Karma Sutra NYC event caterers. Karma School of Business. Karma—like the principle the word stands for—is everywhere. Its sheer ubiquity can make us assume we know what it means. In fact, though, it’s one of the slipperiest concepts to get the mind around, despite its central role in Buddhist teachings and practice. As with so many widespread ideas, part of the challenge lies with oversimplified views that take hold in the group mindset we all share in. For example, it’s common to hear someone say, “It’s my karma,” which implies a kind of fatalism, a predestined outcome we’re sentenced to. Another common expression, delivered with a…

I’M USHERED INTO a small, crowded shrine room where there’s an abundance of offerings, Buddha statues, and images of Buddhism’s first nun, Mahaprajapati Gautami. I’m here to meet Bhikkhuni Dhammawati Guruma, the legendary ninety-year-old nun who’s widely credited with reviving authentic Theravada Buddhism in Nepal and opening doors for the religious education of women and girls. A diminutive figure swathed in pink and barefoot, Guruma silently enters the room and takes a chair by the shrine. Her demeanor is gracious, if weary, perhaps from the many visitors who in recent years have found their way to her monastic enclave in central Kathmandu. My translator explains that I’ve come from the United States to lead a group of Buddhist women on pilgrimage to Buddhism’s motherland in southern Nepal, the birthplace not…

CULTIVATING CONFIDENCE isn’t always what comes to mind when people think of mindfulness, nor the reason why they decide to practice meditation or study Buddhism. We often start out looking to reduce stress or just generally be more grateful and present for all the little moments of daily life. But in talking to people over the years, I’ve found that just below an initial set of attractions to Buddhist practice lurk questions of self-worth. People want to work with their insecurities. They want to learn how to trust the choices they make and trust that they’ll be capable of navigating the unknown. Confidence is defined in the dictionary as “firm trust.” Self-confidence, then, is firm trust in yourself. On the outer level, this might mean trusting in your specific abilities—like…

AS WE STUDY AND PRACTICE Buddhism, we encounter three subtle yet powerful obstacles: the superiority complex, the inferiority complex, and the equality complex. Each creates unique suffering, trapping us in the habit of comparison and judgment. Yet, with gentle and consistent mindfulness practice, we can find freedom in noncomparison. Let us explore this journey of nondiscrimination together. The Superiority Complex The superiority complex is likely familiar to each of us. It manifests when we believe we’re somehow better than others and that our needs and desires matter most. This complex is at the root of many of the world’s deepest struggles: war, racism, sexism, and even the climate crisis. We pave the way for great harm and suffering by putting ourselves above others or the environment. Even in acts of…

DEATH FEELS TO ME LIKE an invitation, one that we reject at our peril. We can overthink it, worry it. Not now, we might say to death. Later would be better, or never. As adults we develop an opinion about it. I tell my ex-partners I will help them with their goals of care—detailed end-of-life instructions for their caregivers, possibly our kids. I want the kids to be spared any unnecessary heavy lifting, decisions for which they’re unprepared. I’m not going to die, each of the exes says. Yes, I say, that’s excellent. Let’s call that Plan A. Now, let’s talk about Plan B. I know that at least one of them wants nothing to do with Western medicine. This is the time to say so. Death tells us what…

IT WAS THE QUARANTINE Thanksgiving of 2020. Like so many other millennials that year, Vy, my future wife, and I were forced to be the adults in the kitchen for the first time. It was when I had my head bent to the candied yams and trussed turkey when Vy noticed I had a lump on the back of my neck. “It’s probably a bug bite.” I brushed her hand away. Vy, who was a first-year resident in emergency medicine, simply replied, “That’s not a bug bite.” The first thing that happens when your cancer relapses is phone calls. Phone calls, which lead to more phone calls. A horrid round of telephone calls delivering the news to every corner of my universe: The leukemia is back. It’s in my spinal…