Aspire to become the best possible version of yourself, cultivating a human life where your values are embodied in actual forms of life, rather than just following rules. Make choices by asking ‘what is the wisest/most compassionate thing to do?’ in each unique situation, risking a response without knowing all consequences.
Recognize that who you are is a work in progress, a project, and actively engage in shaping, refining, and irrigating yourself. This ethical practice involves letting go of what impedes cultivation and encouraging qualities that help refine and develop oneself into the best possible version, leading to human flourishing.
Embrace the world you’re in, notice your reactive habits (cultural, psychological), let them go, and ground yourself in a non-reactive awareness. This allows for presence to the world’s issues (climate crisis, social injustices) and enables responses from core wisdom and sanity, rather than preferences or aversions.
Practice Vipassana meditation/mindfulness to open up moment-to-moment awareness of the body-mind complex. This trains one to be still, clear, and stable in paying attention to breath and sensations, helping to become more intimate with feelings, sensations, thoughts, and emotions without judgment, accepting what is happening right now.
In meditation, get grounded in your body-mind, then open yourself to the question, ‘What is this?’ and stay with that questioning. This practice brings a quality of curiosity, perplexity, and astonishment into consciousness, fostering deep humility and freeing the mind from habitual ways of thinking, potentially leading to creativity and imagination.
Engage with solitude as an inescapable given of being human, embracing this dimension of life to thrive, and understanding it as a space of inner freedom. Solitude, in this context, is a synonym for nirvana – the absence of greed, dislike, and confusion – allowing one to be with oneself without being driven by attachments and fears.
Cultivate the ability to preserve the ‘sweetness of your solitude’ (sanity, clarity, stillness found in meditation) even in the midst of a busy, engaged life with others. This integration of participatory and solitary lives provides a resource, courage, and clarity to engage with the world without abandoning one’s inner peace.
Cultivate or refine your inner moral compass, using the feeling tone of your actions as a guide for what’s appropriate. This embodied sense of ‘does it feel right?’ or ‘does it align with the person I aspire to be?’ is a more reliable guide to an ethical life, while acknowledging humility and the possibility of mistakes.
Approach Buddhism as something to do rather than something to believe in. This perspective can inspire deeper engagement with the tradition.
Be rooted in a tradition (sink roots deep to flourish) but avoid being stuck in it (insisting on its absolute truth and rejecting conflicting opinions). Being rooted allows for growth and adaptation, while being stuck inhibits change and finding one’s own voice.
Identify and let go of unhealthy identifications and attachments, even to deeply held traditions or beliefs. This can lead to a sense of lightness and freedom, as one no longer feels compelled to justify everything in terms of external adherence.
Use the Dharma as an encouragement to find your own voice and respond compassionately and wisely to the questions of our time. This allows for integration of other influences (psychology, science) and engages with modernity.
Take the risk of translating the insights of Buddhist traditions into new forms of language, expression, and art forms that engage with contemporary modernity. Buddhism has always reinvented itself to adapt to new circumstances, and this is how it can continue to speak to the needs of people today.
Stay with the profound strangeness of the world rather than seeking clever answers or clinging to beliefs, doctrines, and theories. This ‘marination in mystery’ is liberating, frees the mind from entanglement in views, and opens up creativity and imagination.
Recognize that issues like climate change require a philosophical or religious framework to respond to questions that transcend our biologically evolved capacity for immediate ethical intuition. While basic ethical intuitions (like cooperation) are natural, complex global problems don’t easily translate into a felt sense of crisis, necessitating a broader framework for response.
Start meditating, regardless of age. It’s never too late; meditation is particularly good for the aging brain and can help one stay sharp and happy.
Practice mindfulness while driving by paying attention to whatever is happening right now, including your physical and mental sensations. This can make you a much safer driver and turn commute time into a mindful practice.
Read ‘Buddhism Without Beliefs’ by Stephen Batchelor. It is a recommended introduction to Buddhism for early and skeptical readers, presenting Buddhism as something to do, not to believe in.
Go to 10percent.com/survey and give a few minutes to send your thoughts. This helps provide feedback on what the podcast is doing right and where it could improve.
Watch the documentary ‘The Guardians of the Amazon’ on YouTube or Hulu. This allows you to see what you think and provide feedback on Twitter.