Siddhearta's Essence of 2017.

2017 was a very challenging year for most of us. There has been a lot of baseline anxiety, tension and frustration with our outer world and the perceived trajectory that we are all on. I really decided to focus a lot of my time and energy to meditation and teaching various courses for Younge Drodul Ling that were practice focused and useful. During much of the past six months, my writing has been mixed with my contemplation for these courses, which I have organized as a two part series on Bringing the Mind to Rest. These are in no way complete or comprehensive, but have been useful for me as I have been teaching those courses to other students. I hope you will enjoy reading through them on your own time.

Bringing the Mind to Rest series and other selected works.

I appreciate all of your support over this past year. I know it is easy to get sucked into the media these days, so thank you for choosing to take a moment to spend your time with me, listening to me, sitting with me, and hopefully using a tiny bit here and there to connect back to your own life and practice. Our practice is most important during times of change and uncertainty, continue to nurture and use it.

Here is an overview of the top posts from 2017, in no particular order.

Endless iterations. 
Reverence. 
Feeling Stuck. 
Complexity, simplified.
Barchay. 
Buddha heart.
Lit up. 
Unpaid debt.
Dharma. 
Idolatry. 
Feeding concepts.
Born free.
Say yes.
Different emanations.
I hope. 
Honor.
Buddha eye. 

I wish you all a wonderful New Year!
May you enjoy health and a peaceful mind!
May you focus on your practice,
generously share love and kindness,
and may you accomplish the aims of yourself and others!

Siddhearta's Essence of 2016.

2016 was a great year (or a terrible one, if you choose to see it through the media lens).   

Writing this blog has been a challenge this year.  I wrote a lot this year for other projects and I would say that I shared more this year than ever before.  But what I share here is different.  It has a different tone.  It is often me speaking to me, sharing something that needs to be shared.  Most of what I share here doesn't come from me sitting down to write, it comes in a flurry, in a flash.  It slips in between the gaps, into my dreams or just comes from the heart.  It often feels more like catching than writing, and I need to do a better job of being open and listening so that I can catch those messages. 

Of course this is also why I write.  There is an element of revelation and liberation.  We see truth, but we also see hindrances and problems.  The practice is to carry both as the path, to use both so that we can eliminate our own obscurations and ignorance in order to awaken our hearts and minds.  

I appreciate your support and encouragement over this past year.  Thank you for your dedication to your own practice and having the courage to carry it into your daily life.

Here is an overview of some of the top posts in 2016, in no particular order.

This might be your chance.
Householder tradition. 
What do we leave for posterity?
Our biggest challenge. 
The slippery slope of self-compassion. 
The truth of suffering. 
Only so much room. 
A better version of yourself.
The path from here to there. 
First, tumult. 
Throw back the fish. 
Disconnected. 
Willing to go. 
Concealed. 
The world is deceitful.  
Unless.
Overwhelm challenges.   

I wish you all a great New Year!
May you enjoy health and a peaceful mind!
May you focus on your practice,
generously share love and kindness,
and may you accomplish the aims for yourself and others!

Siddhearta's Essence of 2015.

2015 was a year of formation. 

Many of the changes that have occurred over the past several years are starting to take take on stronger forms.  One of the best new shapes in my life has been my daughter, I enjoy spending our mornings together, learning from each other and playing.  I appreciate this brief moment in time that we get to do this, to share and influence each other, to watch each other grow. 

I haven't been as consistent writing this year due to many changes in my life, both personal and professional.  I thank you for supporting me, for taking a moment out of your day to share this space, to influence each other and to bring new form to our life. 

Thank you.

Here are some of this years highlights:
1.  A story of my teacher and appreciating those before you.
2.  What it means to be remarkable.
3.  I wrote about doing no harm and how to work with anger.
4.  How passionate amateurs become professionals.
5.  The experience of groundlessness and how to rest in movement.
6.  How teachers change us.
7.  Compassion and its activity.
8.  Karma and the influence of our choices.
9.  Questioning ourselves and our potential.
10.  The difficulty in starting a daily practice.
11.  5 faults to developing a stable practice.
12.  What a perfect day looks like.

I wish all of you a great year, a year of health and happiness.
May you find what you are looking for,
May you share generously,
May your kindness bring light to the world around you,
and may your determination accomplish not only your own aims, but the aims of others.

Happy New Year!

Thank you, dear reader.

It can be a strange experience to share your thoughts and feelings across the blogosphere.  The connections you make, the conversations you have, the hearts touched and the faces you never see.  It can be both entirely personal and yet entirely connected at the same time.  It is hard to put into words the impact that others make in your life, usually the only thing that gives due justice is thank you.  The Tibetan for thank you is thujeche, which literally means great compassion or kindness.  Here is to celebrating your kindness and your support.  Thank you.

I sit, stand and walk,
catching fleeting reminders
of where we have been
and where we want to go.
Moments of clarity and insight,
of fear and anger and exaltation, 
strewn across a lifetime of moments,
captured in bottles left to drift at sea.

May you stumble upon what you need,
a worn wood inscription,
a chance encounter,
a guidepost on your journey,
a cairn on a forgotten path,
a note in a book you've always had.

Wherever you are,
this battle is not your own.
Those paths you walk,
those lonely and precarious paths,
you are not alone. 
We are out there,
we are all over,
and we walk with you. 

Siddhearta's Essence of 2013

2013 was a great year.

Writing for me is a practice of clarifying my intention and my actions.  It is a joy to be able to share it with all of you.  I am truly blessed to have so much support in my life and I thank you for supporting me on my path. 

This is Siddhearta's second year of existence, and it has started to take shape and move out of the randomness that is was in 2012.  I look forward to seeing how it continues to evolve and what shapes it assumes in 2014. 

To give you an overview of 2013, here are the top 15 posts ranked by pageviews.

1.  Perfecting Patience
2. A Fruitful Life
3. What do you stand for?
4. A Simple Vessel
5. The Code.
6. Wealth Distribution
7. Legacy
8. Is what you are doing meaningful?
9. The Battleground
10. Gods and Demons
11. Two Faced
12. Dig Deeper
13. Simplicity
14. Your Practice
15. The Lens

I wish all of you a great year, a year of health and happiness.
May you find what you are looking for,
May you share generously,
May your kindness bring light to the world around you,
and may your determination accomplish not only your own aims, but the aims of others.

Happy New Year!