I fear losing the stillness I gained. But I take comfort in knowing that the abbey is there, that the monks are singing the hours, and that there is silence in between.

I choose joy. I choose the path of joy.  I am now willing to release struggle, and embrace the path of joy. I relax my body.

Picturesque and exotic, with their crowns and camels, the three kings regularly appear on Christmas cards and in nativity scenes.

Many people are familiar with the stories in the New Testament gospels of Luke and Matthew about Jesus’ conception and birth.

Humanity has become enmeshed in a dysfunctional global system. It has become anesthetized by a cultural conditioning that begins at birth, by those who themselves have been conditioned by the generations before them.

Every Christmas season, the now typical jokes pile up on social media. Jesus is commended for having a “stable upbringing”. But all this facetious word play prompts me to think a little more seriously about the language used in traditional accounts of the nativity.

Many of us would like to have a peaceful ride, enjoy the present moment, yet we can’t help but make future plans so we feel secure, or we spend time digging on past hurts. But... the true experience of being alive is beyond those plans, and “happens” to us.

Bright stars top Christmas trees in Christian homes around much of the world. The faithful sing about the “Star of Wonder” that guided the wise men to a manger in the little town of Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.

Christmas is literally “the mass for Christ”, the day on which Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. The western date for Jesus’ birth is quite arbitrary. It was chosen by Pope Leo I, bishop of Rome...

On Wednesday, Dec. 21, nations in the Northern Hemisphere will mark the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year.

In the deepest place in your spirit, the place of wounds and hope, you know that the earth is speaking, and that the time has come to listen to all of her voices. You can only hope that for the sake of your children, and all the children of the world...

Evangelicals are more skeptical of evolution than of climate change, according to new research.

Very often people cannot understand why they should live the Spiritual Life. It is a natural question: “What do I get out of it?” It is important to understand that if you follow through with the Path you’re going to get a lot out of it...

How to be happy? When speaking of relationships, the safest thing to relate to is always Buddha. We can address every being we meet — not only human beings but also animals — as essentially Buddha. In Western terms, we speak of being in the presence of God or meeting God all the time.

Opening Meditation: Find a comfortable position. A nice comfortable chair will work, or you can lean against the wall or sit cross-legged on the floor. Whatever will be most comfortable for you.

Death isn’t bad luck, because there is no difference between the living and the dead. The one in the coffin is doing the same thing as the one grieving in the pew: loving and learning.

The Roman Catholic Church will allow priests all over the world to grant forgiveness for abortion. This announcement came from Pope Francis at the end of the Jubilee of Mercy – a holy year dedicated to forgiveness.

In this age of technology and materialism, when many wonder what tomorrow will bring, the resurgence of spirituality is a normal phenomenon. For centuries, people have turned to religions or other belief systems for support and understanding. So one can wonder why, after centuries of religious or spiritual...

Many things we do are imposed on us by necessity, or by the absurd. Why wear a tie? The fact is, many of the rules we obey nowadays have no real foundation. Nevertheless, if we wish to act differently, we are considered “crazy” or “immature”.

Emotions are the lenses through which we experience daily life and inhabit the world—how we love, learn, work, make meaning, and devise solutions to problems we face. 

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) teaches us that what makes the stresses in our life particularly damaging is how we mismanage them. The tendency to resist or willfully ignore our situation, misperceive and have fixed ideas about who we are and the reality we inhabit, is slowly replaced with mindfulness...

Our lives feel complicated at times, or stressed; often­times we even feel unable to handle whatever is head­ing our way, certain that this time it may be beyond our capacity to withstand or understand. However...

Part of letting go into the flow of life lies in realizing that you have never really been in control of your life, at least not from the perspective of the conscious mind. You simply have been mak­ing choices based on a very limited scope of awareness dictated by...