THOUGHTS
TRAVEL NOTES · IDEAS · STORIES · FAIRY TALES
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Tim Parks
Came to vipassana through chronic pain. His book Teach Us to Sit Still tells how the practice changed his relationship to his body.
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The Steam Room
Fairy Tales # 27. A man asked his friends to wait a minute, stayed in the steam room, and came out not where the beer was being poured.
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Why Personal Happiness Does Not Exist
A month and a half inside the Meditation Teacher Program, spent on mindfulness, love and compassion. Why our own happiness is impossible without them, and why they are the instrument through which we feel our connection with all living beings.
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Elizabeth Gilbert
Meditated for months in an ashram in India, including vipassana: hours of watching thoughts without a mantra.
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Oleg Who Went Out for Raspberries
Fairy Tales # 26. Oleg went to the mountains for four raspberries and came back different. Then different again. Then different once more.
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Pico Iyer
About 100 silent retreats over more than 20 years at the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur. Wrote about them in Aflame.
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The Boss of the Block
Fairy Tales # 25. Leo shouted that he was the boss here. Mark said “all right” and began to count what he could lose.
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Where Hatha Yoga Came From: the Tibetan Trace and Tsa Lung
The legend says Krishnamacharya learned “real” hatha yoga in Tibet. There is no proof. But new research shows that the root of hatha yoga is indeed Buddhist, and that the texts indeed went to Tibet.
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Protected: The strongest source of energy? In one word?
This is a personal video note from my training with Mingyur Rinpoche. It is password protected for now. After the program ends in late July 2027, I will make it public.
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Protected: Why I started Meditating
This is a personal video note from my training with Mingyur Rinpoche. It is password protected for now. After the program ends in late July 2027, I will make it public.
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George Saunders
A longtime practitioner of Nyingma Tibetan Buddhism. Says he was meditating through writing long before he knew the word.
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Air
Fairy Tales # 24. A pigeon told Nick he was breathing wrong: he should breathe in what belongs to others and breathe out what is his own.
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Ruth Ozeki
A Soto Zen priest since 2010. Sees meditation and writing as parallel contemplative practices.
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The Lamp in the Chest
Fairy Tales # 23. Peter had a small lamp in his chest, which he kept for himself. Until one day he wished that everyone would be well.
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Natalie Goldberg
Zen practice for more than 40 years as a student of Katagiri Roshi. Her method treats writing and zazen as one practice.
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Two Chairs
Fairy Tales # 22. Alex had two chairs, Friend and Enemy. He seated his guests by merit. Until he sat on the floor.
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The Golden Key and the Sardines
Max received from the Teacher a golden key to a gate, behind which lies everything he has not yet understood and everyone he could help. He used it to open cans of sardines.
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Meet the Storm: My Method for Breaking Bad Habits
Why fighting a habit makes it stronger, why beating yourself up after a slip brings you right back to it, and what to do instead. With a short practice at the end.
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About Mr. Empathberg and Mr. Compasson
A boy’s hat fell into the river. Mr. Empathberg cried together with him, and Mr. Compasson took out the hat and went to drink tea.
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About Alex and Boredom
Alex sat down to meditate, and Boredom came at once, carrying a chair. Instead of chasing her away, he told her he was glad to see her.
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Peter Matthiessen
Zen practice from the 1970s. Ordained a priest in 1981, received transmission from Bernie Glassman in 1997 and led his own zendo on Long Island.
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The Beauty Basement
Anton came to a beauty salon to become attractive. Maria suggested starting with curiosity, and then took off his shell.
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Anne Waldman
Tibetan Buddhist practice since 1970 as a student of Chögyam Trungpa. Still runs the summer writing program at Naropa.
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The Man with Six Masks
Yevgeny Onegovich had six masks and not a single free evening for himself. One day he sat quietly, and the world did not fall apart.
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Three Gardeners
One old garden and three gardeners: one with a stick, one with an elixir, one with a cup of tea. Which of them looks after the garden best?
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Three Styles of Practice
There are three styles of practice: letting go, transformation, and knowing the nature of things. The first style, letting go, is about rules, boundaries, and staying away from what causes harm. For our actions this is important. But if the mind gets trapped in the belief “this is right, that is wrong,” we become tense…
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Allen Ginsberg
Student of Chögyam Trungpa. Completed a three-month seminary and practised shamatha-vipashyana; co-founded the poetics school at Naropa in 1974.
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Practice for Feeling Better: Why It Is Not Enough
Tsoknyi Rinpoche calls the wish to feel better a goal of samsara. Why practice for the comfort of the ego does not lead to freedom.
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Gary Snyder
Lived in Kyoto from 1956 to 1969 as a student of Rinzai Zen at Daitoku-ji. Daily zazen and koan work.
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Two Doors Out of One Room
Fairy Tales # 16: One neighbor loves his sofa, the other his rucksack, and each thinks the other is odd. Until the Old Woman at the spring asks them one question.
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The Warrior’s Path. The Open Heart and the Mantra of the Path
Life can harden the heart, or it can soften it. A short map of how to meet that choice: the vulnerable point, uncertainty, form and emptiness, the Heart Mantra and a six-step practice.
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Cold
Fairy Tales # 15: Cold A man in a certain town was always right. Or so it seemed to him; his wife did not think so. They had lived together a long time and were used to it: he spoke, she disagreed, and the house was peaceful, the way it is with people who have…
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Anxiety at Three A.M.
Fairy Tales # 14: Anxiety at Three A.M. One man woke up at three in the morning because of anxiety. The anxiety was sitting at his feet and smelled of wet cardboard. – That’s it, – the man thought. – I’m done for. I’m the only one awake, and the only one with anxiety. He…
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Compassion Has No Object
Tibetan Buddhism has a practice of love and compassion. Modern science calls it “connection”. The neuroscientist Richard Davidson names it as one of the four pillars of a healthy mind, together with awareness, insight and purpose. People who start this practice often meet one difficulty: directing these feelings at themselves. I met it too, even…
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Wim Hof
Forty-four minutes in full contact with ice. His method rests on three pillars: breathing, gradual cold exposure, and focus.
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The Same Boat
Fairy Tales # 13: The Same Boat Seven people were in the boat: Nikolai Ivanovich, his mother-in-law, Fyodorov the yard-keeper, a student with no surname, a lady with a goose, a man everyone took for the captain, and a man who took himself for the captain. The boat was leaking. Each of them knew it…
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Jerry Brown
I was following my breathing. And working on the koan mu: ‘Does a dog have Buddha-nature?’ I was doing muji every day.
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The Sorrow Taster
Fairy Tales # 12: The Sorrow Taster In a certain town there lived a taster of sorrow. It was an old, respectable profession, and nobody needed it. One day a committee came to see him and brought six small glasses: – Name the variety, – said the committee. The taster tried the first one, closed…
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Aung San Suu Kyi
Six years of house arrest became her longest retreat. Daily Vipassana practice, guided by Panditarama and Chanmyay Sayadaws.
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Jerry Seinfeld
I’ll tell you my biggest regret: I didn’t know the importance of morning TM during the Seinfeld days.
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Invulnerability
Recently I noticed a change in myself. It came from a small moment. My curator in the program was preparing me for feedback on my work. She asked me in advance not to be upset if something in her comments felt wrong to me. At that moment I realized that I do not get upset…
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Неуязвимость
Недавно я заметил в себе перемену, и заметил её по совсем небольшому поводу. Мой куратор в программе готовила меня к обратной связи по моей работе и заранее просила ни в коем случае не расстраиваться, если что-то в её замечаниях покажется мне не так. И в этот момент я осознал, что не расстраиваюсь вообще. Ничто не…
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Protected: Don’t give up. Stay aware. (Video).
This is a personal video note from my training with Mingyur Rinpoche. It is password protected for now. After the program ends in late July 2027, I will make it public.
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Howard Stern
It’s like brushing your teeth, it’s a technique. I don’t think I could really live without it.
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Steve Jobs
If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm.
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Tina Turner
I have never separated my spiritual practice from my life as a rock singer. When I was going through the hardest times of my life, I was chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
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The Button
Fairy Tales # 11: The Button A man in a certain town ran all his life. In the morning he ran to work, in the evening he ran home from work, and in between he ran after buses. He couldn’t stop, because he didn’t know that you could. And one day he was running after…
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Reality
Fairy Tales # 10: Reality A man in a certain town believed that he saw everything not as it really is. He believed that if the Earth had once looked flat to everyone and then turned out to be round, there was no trusting your eyes after that. He believed that his eyes photograph nothing,…
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LeBron James
Meditating helps a lot for me personally with taking a lot of deep breaths, closing my eyes and just centering myself and listening to my inner self.
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Feeling the Body
When I used to do yoga, my attention was on the breath, and I didn’t see much in it for me. I was more at home with dynamic exercise and sport. But as I studied the phenomenon of meditation and went deeper into the subject, I came to understand what these “low-intensity” body practices are…
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Richard Gere
Since I was twenty-four, for a minimum of forty-five minutes, maybe two hours if I’ve got a lot of time that day.
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The Very Same
Fairy Tales # 9: The Very Same A man in a certain town had heard that Tibetan Buddhism has a teaching like this: that in every person there is something that does not change. It goes by different names: vajra nature, Buddha nature. Modern psychology calls something similar basic goodness. They say it can’t be…
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Nelson Mandela
Regular meditation, say about 15 minutes a day before you turn in, can be very fruitful in this regard.
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U Thant
This is a sort of mental quiet. It is a certain feeling of detachment, to separate oneself from the conflicts outside.
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The Thought Catcher
When I first started meditating, after yet another trip to India and a visit to the Isha Yoga Center in Coimbatore, I assumed that getting distracted meant I was failing. That attitude comes from our habit of chasing achievement and quick, tangible results. We want to deepen our practice as fast as we can and…
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Phil Jackson
If we can create a little space in the consciousness of these players, not only will they be better players, they’ll be better people.
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Eating Right
Fairy Tales # 8: Eating Right A man decided to eat right. He had read somewhere that a person is made of what he eats. Eat a cutlet, and there you are with an ear made of cutlet. So you have to eat carefully. The man went into a shop and saw nothing edible there.…
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Gone to Live in the Forest
Fairy Tales # 7: Gone to Live in the Forest A man in a certain town had lived there so long that one day he thought: what if it’s better to live somewhere else? He thought it and went off into the forest. The forest was on a mountain. The mountain was two thousand metres…
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David Lynch
Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.
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Protected: Gold in the Mud (Video)
This is a personal video note from my training with Mingyur Rinpoche. It is password protected for now. After the program ends in late July 2027, I will make it public.
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Novak Djokovic
Mindfulness helps me process pain and emotions. It lets me focus on what’s really important. It helps me turn down the volume in my brain.
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Yuval Noah Harari
I could not have written this book without the focus, peace and insight gained from practising Vipassana for fifteen years.
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Just don’t serve them tea
Leave your front door and your back door open. Allow your thoughts to come and go. Just don’t serve them tea. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi (Shunryu Suzuki Roshi was a Japanese Sōtō Zen master who helped bring Zen Buddhism to a wide audience in the United States.)
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Permission
Fairy Tales # 6: Permission A writer named Probkin came to a certain country and was so amazed that he sat down on a stone and stayed there until evening. The country was very good. The mountains stood where they should, the rivers ran down and not up, and people poured wine without asking your…
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Ray Dalio
Transcendental Meditation is the single most important reason for whatever success I’ve had.
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Going Back to the Source
When teachings accumulate layers of interpretation, sometimes the clearest direction is upstream: back towards the source. A reflection on Tilopa’s Ganges Mahāmudrā Instructions.
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Clint Eastwood
I am a great supporter of Transcendental Meditation. I have been using it for almost 40 years.
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Himself
Fairy Tales # 5: Himself A man in a certain town wanted to become a doctor. And he did. He treated a few people and thought: – Something isn’t right. Then he became a masseur and an acupuncturist. He poked people with needles. People screamed, but got well. And he thought: – No, something still…
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The Professional
Fairy Tales # 4: The Professional A man very much disliked working. In fact he disliked doing anything at all. What he liked was doing nothing. Because he always had a feeling that if he did anything, it would be in vain, or he would have to do it over. And that would be in…
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A Man Who Fed on the News
Fairy Tales # 3: A Man Who Fed on the News A man in a certain town decided not to waste time on food and began to feed on the news. In the morning he ate the headlines, at lunch the comments under the headlines, and in the evening he finished off whatever someone had…
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Incidents on the Street
Fairy Tales # 2: Incidents on the Street A man in a certain town didn’t like walking down the street. But once he had to, because he had things to do. The things were these: to go and to come back. And he went. Down the street walked a man with money. He carried the…
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An Inevitable Meeting
Fairy Tales # 1: An Inevitable Meeting A man never invited anyone over. Everyone invited him, and he didn’t invite. People told him: invite someone, or nobody will come to you. He answered: whoever needs to come will come. People told him: and if nobody comes? He answered: then it wasn’t needed. One day there…
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Permission to Pass It On
I have completed the Tsa Lung Teacher Certification Program with Tulku Lobsang Rinpoche. What this means for the retreats, the ski tours, and the time between them.
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Voices
There is a new page on the site: Voices. Your words and feedback after our programs, and an invitation to add yours.
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Wind & Mind
Wind decides a lot in the mountains. It moves snow from one slope to another, loads some faces and strips others, builds the cornice that makes a ridge worth avoiding. By the time you arrive, most of the decisions about where you can ski have already been made for you. You read what the wind…
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Protected: Why a Mountain Guide Decided to Teach Meditation (Video)
This is a personal video note from my training with Mingyur Rinpoche. It is password protected for now. After the program ends in late July 2027, I will make it public.
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Notes Along the Way
I have lost many good ideas by telling myself I would write them down later. They often come during or after activities and journeys. If I do not write them down, I soon forget them. FIELD NOTES is where I want to keep these thoughts. There will be stories, practical discoveries, questions, mistakes and observations…
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Plains Sickness
Home, after Tibet I understood one more thing: mountain sickness is not what I went through in Rilong. It began after I came back to the plains, and it torments me every day. The mountains call me back. If it were not for work, I would come home only to get a haircut, wash and…
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Forbidden City
Beijing, 2004 We went to see the Forbidden City. What can I say? I would not call it a bomb. Crowds everywhere and not much to see: endless, slightly dull courtyards flowing one into the next, and then, oops, the palace is over. “Is there really nothing better to do in Beijing than this cultural…
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The Black Tent
Kham, 2004 We came down off the plateau as if by steps: a ledge, another ledge, and each one we wanted to call the last. When it was completely dark we put on our head torches and kept picking our way along the path, until at one of the bends we lost that too. We…
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Wolf Tracks at Dusk
A plateau at 4,500 metres, fresh snow crossed by wolf tracks, the sun behind the ridge. The most common cause of trouble in the mountains is losing composure.
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When You Stop Waiting
Kham, 2004 Once again I watched an axiom of life at work: help, rescue or a way out comes exactly when you no longer hope for it and stop peering ahead, waiting for it. Maybe, for things to resolve faster, you simply need to accept them sooner and stop waiting. As the samurai say: do…
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Maybe We Died Yesterday
Kham, 2004 Four hours up beside a half-frozen waterfall, through thorn bushes that caught my wide rucksack and threw me back. I was dizzy from hunger. Losing consciousness for even a second meant falling thirty or fifty metres into the roaring water, and I was not ready: at home I had a family, a snowboard,…
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Poems in a Hot Spring
Minus ten in the air, hot water from the rock, two hours under the moon reading each other every poem we could remember.
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A Newspaper on the Chorten
The pass near Jara Lhatse, 2004 We reached the top at 14:56. There are no maps of this area, and the locals simply call it the pass by Jara Lhatse. It was the fifth birthday of my newspaper that day, so in a fit of festive high spirits I named the pass after it and…
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A Song on the Pass
Near Jara Lhatse, about 5,000 m, 2004 One of our guides stopped below the pass and took off his heavy Tibetan coat. My only theory was that he needed the toilet. Kirill said the meaning was different: the spirits of the pass would feel sorry for a freezing Tibetan and not keep him up there…
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Paid in Painkillers
Lhagang, 2004 The seven of us: four short Tibetan horses and three riders whose tired feet almost dragged along the dusty path. We had hired the horses and a local guide to get over the ridge before dark, and paid him a few painkiller tablets. “I have never been over that pass,” he muttered. “But…
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Today One Mountain, Tomorrow One Mountain
No guide, no map, and an old woman who had never been there telling us exactly when we would arrive.
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Om on an Icy Road
Tawu to Lhagang, 2004 Snow had fallen, the night froze it, and only after the bus had skidded over the gorge several times did the driver give in to the passengers’ pleading and put chains on. Oncoming lorries floated across the road towards us. I pictured them picking our flattened bodies out of a flattened…
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A Sweet from a Skull
Nyitso Gompa, Tawu, 2004 We started our visit from the roof, having met nobody on the way up. Two monks appeared. We expected displeasure; instead they asked to be photographed. One of them became our guide and turned out to be the head of the Tantra hall. There, as a sign of respect, he took…
