But, for example, the preliminaries in Tibetan Buddhism? This is about the fact that you’re going to die and you have to come to terms with it, not how to be relaxed and less stressed. It may be that you’ll become more stressed.

It is true: many if not most of the applications of meditation and mindfulness in the West are, at best, side-paths alongside the main road to liberation. And yet, most of the folks taking them are not interested in “liberation,” and even if they were, they don’t have the kinds of lives conducive to really pursuing it. Which is fine; there are lots

For the Buddha of the Pali Canon, the goal is liberation: the cessation of suffering, the end of the endless hamster-wheel of dependent origination, of mental formations leading to desire leading to clinging leading to suffering and so on. Nibbana, or nirvana, was not originally conceived as some magical heavenly world, or even a permanent altered

think of Western adaptations of Zen oryoki (eating meditation), Theravadan walking meditation, and the Tibetan encouragement to experience “small moments, many times.”

More broadly, here are some of the things mindfulness has been shown to do: • Cut the relapse rate in half for patients suffering from depression7 • Reduce loneliness among elderly people8 • Quadruple the speed of healing from psoriasis9 • Improve overall immune function10 • Lower the rate of relapse among recovering addicts11 • Improve attention,

It’s only in the last century that folks have been told that meditation alone will make them kinder and more generous. (On the contrary, meditation has been taught in Japan to help warriors and businessmen be more ruthless.)

As Foucault tried to tell us, any dissemination of information—which the dharma is—is inherently an exercise of power. As such, any claim that “I’ve got the answer” is also a claim of authority, of “listen to me.” Yet for all the venerable guru traditions in Buddhism, I am struck by how different the Buddha himself was when it came to questions of

You don’t escape from being human, even if you do get enlightened. You may think you do—you may enter into some exalted states, gain psychic powers, and attract followers who think you’re an avatar of the Divine. But that is just delusion.

I often come back to the five basic precepts: not harming, not stealing, not committing sexual misconduct, not lying, and not being too intoxicated to care.