The Buddha Walks into a Bar . . .: A Guide to Life for a New Generation

Patience from a Buddhist perspective is not a "wait and see" attitude, but rather one of "just be there"... Patience can also be based on not expecting anything.Think of patience as an act of being open to whatever comes your way. When you begin to solidify expectations, you get frustrated because they are not met in the way you had hoped... With no set idea of how something is supposed to be, it is hard to get stuck on things not happening in the time frame you desired. Instead, you are just being there, open to the possibilities of your life.

You let your motivation shine, and other people are attracted to your passion and commitment.

It is the fact that we long for what we don’t have, and that makes us unhappy. It is the fact that when we get what we longed for, we’re already thinking about something new that could entertain us.

One of the beautiful things about Buddhism is that it does not worship Buddha as a god or deity, but instead celebrates the Buddha as an example of a normal person like you and me who applied a good deal of discipline and gentleness to his meditation practice, and ended up opening his mind and heart in a very big way.

So much of our pain comes from looking at our life in a “me” versus “the world” mentality.

If you are constantly solidifying strong opinions and expectations, it is just as if you are sticking an arrow in your eye.

You may not have spent years meditating or received instruction from all the best teachers in all the various philosophical schools. That does not mean you can’t open your heart to the world and make a difference. You don’t have to wait until you’re enlightened. You don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. You just have to offer yourself, as you are, and allow your vulnerable heart to transform the world.

With care and consideration of your partner, falling in love does not have to be such a roller coaster; we just have to learn to handle our expectations.

At the point where you find yourself closing down from communicating openly in a relationship, you have a choice about how you would like to proceed. One way forward is to lay fresh layers of protection around your vulnerable heart. You are dampening the other person’s ability to hurt you, but you are also less able to communicate your own love genuinely. You are essentially preparing yourself for an inevitable breakup. The alternative is loosening up your expectations and reconnecting with that curiosity you were able to offer at the beginning of the relationship. You commit to exploring where you are stuck, where you have put up that protective shielding, and how you can open yourself more to your partner. This is a way to deepen a relationship, by recommitting to applying gentle curiosity toward learning about your lover.

One way to think of this dignity is to equate when you are on the path with unraveling a ball of yarn. You have wound your sense of self so tightly that it's hard to be anything other than you, a big ball of yarn. That's just who you are, not string, or threads, but a ball of yarn.

Many internal story lines are not rooted in our basic sanity or wisdom, but rather in our confusion.

Meditation is practiced by traditions all over the world. It is not a Buddhist practice per se, or even a religious practice, and has existed for centuries. The only reason you and I ought to practice meditation is because our friend Sid used it as a tool to discover his innate wisdom, and lived happily ever after as a result. We too can touch the wisdom behind our confusion. We too can look at the display on our movie screen, and see it as illusory. Sid is most commonly

Generosity is based in knowing what you are capable of giving, and going just a little beyond that.

Wanting to be in love is natural to the human experience. We all want to love. We love love. However, its highs are dizzying, its lows traumatic enough that we want to rid them from our memory. It almost seems counterintuitive to try to reach contentment and equanimity in our life while also cultivating this roller coaster of emotions.

Thus far we have been talking about not getting hooked by strong emotions. The garuda goes beyond that practice, and does not even get hooked by set notions, which in some sense are the wellspring for strong emotions themselves. By training in not solidifying the way you think things ought to be, you are cutting through years of habitual response mechanisms, and beginning to see your discomfort in a more lucid manner.