Mindfulness of Our Motivations

In this episode, Ven Tenzin explores the Eight Worldly Concerns, a set of four dyads that correspond to many of the deeply held hopes and fears that drive the actions of all beings. As we engage with the spiritual path, or even the mundane decisions of the day-to-day, a clear understanding of these forms of attachment and aversion can serve as a way to become mindful of our motivations and bring clarity and skillfulness to our actions. In this way, we can ultimately become free from the suffering that these unconscious, habitual ways of engaging with the world can bring.

Compassionate Conversations with special guest Sunil Joseph

In this special episode of Reflections on Buddhism, we’re joined by Sunil Joseph, an empathy coach, mindfulness teacher and lifelong Nonviolent Communication (NVC) student, to talk about how we can use the principles of NVC to access our shared common humanity, thereby supporting our practices of lovingkindness and compassion in both everyday life and times of crisis. By understanding the difference between what we “need” and what we “want,” and seeing those basic human needs reflected in other people, we can start to truly bring nonviolence to our speech, our thinking and our perceptions of others. In this rich conversation, Ven Tenzin and Sunil offer practical insights into bringing this radical practice in our own lives based on their own practice in places as varied as traffic jams, social media platforms, and the workplace. They also discuss the truly liberating and transformative effect of these practices in their work with students experiencing incarceration.

Learn more about Sunil at his website, myempathycoach.com.

Listen now at KSQD.org.

The Path to Genuine Happiness

Capitalist consumer culture puts a huge emphasis on finding happiness in the external world. But, this hedonic happiness is shown, both in our experience and in the scientific experiments, to be fleeting. In this episode, Ven Tenzin speaks to a second, more durable type of happiness that is not nearly as predicated on external factors -- Eudaimonic happiness, which is derived from what we bring to the world.