Daily: Today Is the Day You Have
A small instruction.
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One Year of Writing Slowly
An anniversary note. A year of small letters, slow walks, and a quiet writing room.
Daily: Stand Outside for Three Minutes
A small practice for the changing season.
Outdoor Meditation: A Field Guide
How to take the practice out of the bedroom and into the world that is, after all, the actual point.
Letter: On the Voice in Your Head
A republished Sunday Stillness letter, from a winter morning.
Open Awareness: A Sitting Practice
A meditation for those who have outgrown breath-counting and want to just be present, without an object.
Daily: Watch One Thought Go By
A small instruction for the noisy mind.
The Archer and the Master
A short story about effort, expectation, and the difference between trying hard and trying well.
Book Notes: Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The book that translated Buddhist practice into the plain language most of us could finally hear.
Daily: Five Things You Didn't Notice This Year
A small year-end exercise for the people who keep saying the year went too fast.
How to Sit With Sadness
A short practice for the days when something heavy has come.
Sitting in Silence: A 20-Minute Meditation
Once you have practiced for a while, this is the sit you grow into. No instructions during. Just presence.
Daily: Sit With Your Tea Until It Cools
A small refusal of urgency.
In Praise of Doing Nothing
A defense of the hour you keep almost feeling guilty about.
Book Notes: The Art of Communicating, by Thich Nhat Hanh
A short, practical book about saying less and listening more, by the Vietnamese teacher who taught me to wash dishes.
Daily: Ask One More Question
A small instruction for the people you talk with today.
How to Listen Without Planning Your Reply
The form of love we are most short of, mistaken for the form of speech.
The Woodcutter Who Stopped to Sharpen the Axe
An old story for a person who has been working hard and getting less done.
Why Boredom Is Holy
An attempt to defend the most maligned and most necessary feeling of our time.
Daily: Leave Five Minutes Early
One small change in the architecture of an ordinary day.
A Three-Breath Reset Between Meetings
The shortest meditation in this archive. Fifteen seconds. Use it forty times today.
Mindfulness at the Desk: A Realistic Guide
How to bring some of the practice into the eight hours that pay for everything else.
The Second Arrow
A teaching from the Buddha about the suffering we add to the suffering we cannot avoid.
Daily: Name the Feeling, Then Return to the Breath
A small practice for the moment something is happening inside you.
Anxiety Is Not the Enemy
A different way of meeting the feeling that has been visiting you since you were small.
The Monk Who Forgot to Hurry
A short story about a young monk, an old monk, and a long path.
On Eating Slowly
The cheapest, oldest, most reliable mindfulness practice — and you do it three times a day.
Daily: Until the Tea Cools
A small instruction for someone trying to do too much.
A Body Scan for People Who Hate Body Scans
A short, no-incense version for those of us who get bored at the elbows.
The Body Knows First
Before the mind has a story, the body has a feeling. Listen to the body.
On Doing Less
Productivity culture sold us a faster horse. Sometimes the answer is fewer horses.
Why Your Phone Wins (And How to Take Some of It Back)
It is not because you are weak. It is because the phone was built by people who were paid to make sure of this.
The Stoic at the Bus Stop
A small story about Epictetus, a missed bus, and a man on his phone.
Book Notes: The Miracle of Mindfulness, by Thich Nhat Hanh
The little book that has stayed on my desk for ten years and still has more to give.
What Attention Actually Is
It is not focus. It is not concentration. It is the most ordinary thing you have, and the rarest.
Daily: Feet on the Floor
A small instruction for the moment between sleep and the day.
How to Begin a Meditation Practice When You've Failed Twice Before
A short, plain-language guide for the third attempt. No incense required.
The First Breath of the Morning Is Free
A small note on the moment between sleep and the day.