It’s mostly about preventing the heart from closing. — I know I often write that “This is it! Just do this and you’re on your way to spiritual bliss!” Well, this Ram Dass teaching is it! Do it and you’re on your way to spiritual bliss! Seriously, his teaching on the heart is a game-changer. …

It’s about an inner talk that gives us a choice. — Let’s get right to it. Someone does something or says something that upsets you. Or some bad driving stranger cuts you off. What most of us do most of the time when this happens is… get upset. “I can’t believe she said that. What a bitch!” “What an idiot! Who…

It’s about being of service. — When we think about ‘being of service,’ we typically go to the bigger, macro versions. Like saving whales, feeding the poor or working to protect rainforests. But I’ve been trying something of late that works on a much more micro level. It’s about actively and consciously trying to be of…

The good, the bad and the funny. — My dad was an advice geyser so paring this down to five lessons was no small task. Everything from driving (“Never back up farther than you have to.”) to tennis (“There’s no excuse for double faulting.” More on that later.) to dealing with difficult people (“Never take shit from anybody.”) …

An exercise to aid in letting go. — You have your mother-in-law over for dinner. As she’s leaving, she makes a subtle, ever so passive aggressive comment about the quality of the dinner you served. And you get so pissed you want to wring her neck. Then she’s gone. Out the door. Out of sight. But five minutes…

Like everything else in nature. — I find that certain words and phrases come in handy when I’ve been knocked off my center. Lately, I’ve been reminding myself to ‘flow with life.’ What does it mean to flow with life? This could be explained in myriad ways, but here’s one. When we flow with life, we…

You know your course better than anybody else. — Ram Dass was a soaring soul our world was fortunate to have for almost nine decades. Known as Richard Alpert until his guru gave him his Hindi name, Ram Dass influenced an entire generation of Westerners, mainly American, from the late 1960s until his death in 2019. One of the…

And my plan for working on it. — Ten years of regular meditation, practicing mindfulness and chopping wood and carrying water on the spiritual path have done wonders for me. I’m calmer, more focused, more compassionate and just plain happier. But I’m not all the way there. I still lose my temper on occasion, mostly when my kids…

I agree with him 100%. — Happiness is a tough topic. Why? Because what we deem happiness to be guides how we live our lives. And there is much disagreement over what happiness is or should be. Here’s what the late Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh believed: “Many people think excitement is happiness. But when you…