My ego is feeling rather bruised at the moment. In other words, the part of me that is proud and prone to endless rounds of self-inflation and deflation is feeling a little beaten up. Let’s just say I’ve convinced myself I’m not as beautiful as I would like to look today, scratch that, this week. But hey, despite this surface egocentricity, I am far more committed to vibrancy and health of the heart, than to that of  the overly important head. Besides, this is nothing compared to what I’ve been through with the tyranny of ego before.

My most extreme experiences of ego to date were in the various pockets of anorexia that peppered my late teens and early 20′s, and in the one episode that even crept in at 30. In these intensely obsessive times, my egoistic head has swelled with the sense of triumph at the thinness of my body, the ability to rock any piece of clothing, and the convoluted sense of power that comes with it. The realities however of anorectic episodes, filled with deprivation, self-obsession, and constant anxiety, are the farthest thing from powerful or deep.

Fortunately for my truer self, and unfortunately for ego, I also started practicing meditation in my late teens and sit everyday. I’ve come to understand that, when not super aware, we experience the reign of ego most all the time, and hence most all our thoughts and beliefs are fueled by it. Reminding myself of this, like right now, reveals the aim of sneaky ego, to simply keep on perpetuating its little (or big) self.

The good news is that we can legitimately work toward letting go of ego. Just as Rodney Yee, yoga teacher extraordinaire, has likened yoga practice to a steady chipping away, so too, is the exposition and subtle dethroning of  ego. The anatomy of ego in fact, when you really shine the light on it, just sort of scampers away, like a startled cockroach into a crack. Ego is indeed afraid of the light, or rather truth, and I love how Cheri Huber puts it, the truth in “the realization that there is nothing separate-from All That Is, from God, from Essence.”

Can you, if only for this split second, bask in the freedom of this realization, that there is no separation between you and me and the wonder of it all? Can you be lifted by that sense of unity—minus ego’s pseudo-largesse, judgment, strain, and delusional groping—as if we were all connected across the landscape of the sky, like a wonderfully clear and crystalline rainbow?

I can, at least in this instant, and all I can say is: What peace.

In sweetness,

ML

I take tremendous pride in myself as a parent. Being a mother has indeed been the greatest, most healing gift in my life.  I also take it rather seriously, given I had a really rough start as a child.

Though my parents are still alive, I don’t think of them as parents at all, and learned basically from infancy what not to do. Because of this, I am profoundly committed to giving my kids the safety, stability, and undying love that I never had.

Add to this my early steps onto the paths of Buddhism and yoga, and my life seems more and more spread into a fan of practices, parenting no less spiritual than the other more formal designations.

For now however, let’s stick to the practice of parenting. Let’s really consider it. In my mind, parenting has two legs, one is how we relate to and support our children, and the other oft-neglected leg is how we relate to and support our inner child.

As if the outside parenting leg weren’t exquisitely hard, wow is the self-parenting leg a struggle! This tender, subtle, fragile, and intimate relationship with the child inside—often the piece of us that has been ignored or traumatized—so needs our attention.

Sometimes I see mine, this frightened little girl, nested inside my body, hovering in my left shoulder or down in my abdomen. I visualize bringing her to life in the middle of a garden or wrapping her in my arms, and letting her cry the way my blessed grandmother used to when I would sob into her chest.

How do you relate to your inner kiddo? Or rather, do you relate to yours at all? If nothing else, might I cajole you into looking into this crucial relationship?

And how appropriate that I am sitting here writing on the daybed, where I was in labor for 40 hours in 2009, and where my almost two-year-old Stella just came to me bleary-eyed and rosy-cheeked out of her nap and into my warm arms, needing that love, that solid, steady reminder of deep love. This is exactly what the inner parenting is about too, and come to think of it, what the formal spiritual practices all seem to point to as well: the cultivation of deep love.

Join me if you will in dedicating your parenting and all other practices to this same quality of affection, this outpouring of radiant love. Our hearts certainly have the capacity for it. If only our wild, critical minds would get out of the way! Or rather, if only we got out of theirs…

In sweetness,

ML

Have you ever exalted in something so simple as a slice of fruit, the branch of a tree, the sleeve of a shirt, an old worn sneaker, or the dripping umbrella leaning by the door? Do you believe that the magic, celebration, and depth of the world can be found in any one of these everyday things?

What I’m writing about today is cultivating our appreciation for spirit, the sublime energy within us all, through the appreciation of this same spirit in the most ordinary of objects. The reason? We are so often cut off, bewildered by, and stranded from spirit in our suffering-prone, rampant minds, that coming to experience spirit out in the world is at first more accessible than experiencing it inside.

I can’t help but think of William Carlos Williams here and his famous poem about a red wheelbarrow in the rain. Much like a still life painter, WCW manages to infuse and amplify that wheelbarrow with the ethereal.

Same with our toddler Stella and the small apple she lines up for after her yoga class every Wednesday. There is nothing special about this apple, just one of a great many in the basket awaiting the children when class is over. Yet, the apple palpates with such remarkable spirit, its power obvious in how she asks for it, how she holds it in her sticky little fingers. While she takes maybe three or four bites tops, the eating of the apple is not what makes it so much more meaningful than itself. It is rather how she is able to blow up and saturate the thing with such glowing energy, how she is able to give it a pulse, as if it were alive.

The elevation of and exaltation in everyday stuff is wonderful training, our attention made crisper, our gratitude deepened. Might you practice feasting your eyes and lifting your hearts with the sight of a mere avocado, or lemon, or apple on the counter waiting to be tasted? When your understanding of ordinary shifts from basic, drab, less than excellent to containing the divine, you will know it. From here, from this feeling of rock-turned-to-gold, you can then move your gaze back to your very human and wonderfully ordinary life—where so much of the work is—and behold spirit within you.

Suzuki Roshi said, “Ordinary mind is not something apart from what is holy.” In even our little dramas, our bigger heartaches, our most banal and boring moments, there is spirit. The ordinariness of all these things makes us human. The sacred in all of these things is also what makes us human. It is our job, in toil, distraction, frustration, and play, to kindle and rekindle this relationship between the holy and the plain.

Start by discovering the vital energy in any old piece of fruit. That’s good enough. Then slowly, with practice, you can jibe your attention and discover that vital energy in your own existence, where spirit lies embedded, gleaming and unperturbed, at all times.

In ordinary sweetness,

ML

What is spiritual practice? Furthermore, do you have one?

Simply put, I define spiritual practice as something you do every single day that draws you deeper into who you really are, by connecting you with your divine self.

Please don’t be put off by the word spiritual here! Spiritual doesn’t have to entail–though it often does–meditation cushions, prayer beads, chant books, yoga mats, or any other such paraphernalia. A spiritual practice might be baking, gardening, running, knitting, playing piano, painting, hiking, meditating, golfing, doing yoga, tai chi, or calligraphy. It is not so much about the form but about the profound and connective quality of the time spent within it.

The practice part means just that: you do it daily, over and over, not in a gross way, but rather in a this-is-what-makes-me-who-I-am way. Without the aim of ever stopping with it, you practice as contribution to your ever-unfolding life on this earth. It can feel beautiful and compelling, harrowing and agonizing, annoying, vexing, boring as hell, or as ordinary and routine as brushing your teeth. Above all it is your rock, the ultimate placating pillar, steady and reliable as they come.

There have been times when, driven by such desperation, my yoga, pranayama, meditation, and journaling practices served as literal life preservers, day by grueling day. In these pockets, practice translates directly as necessity. In the coasting phases of our lives however, or during the highly celebratory ones, spiritual practice feels as joyous as the spread of a bright authentic smile, or as easy to fall into as a hammock under the stars, in the perfect climate, and between the two most exquisite trees.

This is all great you say, but how do I actually do it? First you have to admit that practice is essential, and something you must do. Next, you must designate, carve out, and stick to the time for it, often letting go of something else in order to keep it alive. Many people find it easiest to maintain practice first thing in the morning. But what does that mean you give up? Sleep? Or is it the extra hour on the computer before bed the night before so that you don’t lose the time in bed? There are choices here. It is up to you.

In short, and for you to take as inspiration or affirmation, here are my top ten benefits of spiritual practice:

1. It provides clarity in the midst of our overflowing and demanding days.
2. It cultivates the attention required to complete our tasks.
3. It lifts our mood.
4. It creates a sense of steadiness and grounding in change.
5. It keeps us afloat and even-keeled in even the most riotous emotional storms.
6. It helps us see our lives on a macro level.
7. It helps us understand our lives on a micro level.
8. It draws us into the simplicity of the moment.
9. It touches us so deeply that without it we would feel lost or downright not right.
10. It connects us to and reveals true spirit.

Ultimately, we must summon the courage to make room for spiritual practice, and the experiment that it is, as instigator at any given time of peace, elation, chill out, aha, tears, or evocative reflection. We must be willing to face whatever arises within this uncanny vehicle and to touch the sacred in ourselves every precious day.

How do you feel about that?

In sweet practice,

ML

How does it feel to be deeply inspired? Who in your life arouses these feelings in you?

Inspiration is a whacky singular thing. No two people could ever possibly be inspired by all the same greats, though there are of course mass overlaps when it comes to the luminescent icons of our time, the visionaries who inspire the world. Still, some inspirations are so close and profoundly intimate that nobody else might ever imagine their incredible power to open the heart of another or bring about exaltedness.

Just as an electrician said to me years ago in San Francisco: “There’s no right or wrong to your feelings,” there’s equally no right or wrong to who inspires you. They might be remarkably solid people, or huge walking hearts, or amazing talents, or wise teachers. There is no hard and fast rule. Anyone can inspire. What’s important is that you are more awed and awake when in their midst. What’s important is that these inspirations not only deeply touch you, but that they move you to emanate your own subtle or stand out magnificence.

Dorothy Whipple, one of my favorite British writers, wrote in her novel Greenbanks, “‘Mmmm,’ said Charles. ‘The French have an expression “Bon comme le pain.” When I heard it, I thought of you. You’re good, like bread; you’re essential, you know, Mother. The world couldn’t get on without people like you.’” This was a son speaking to his mother. Don’t his words capture to a tee the feelings that our own inspirations elicit?

It is so vital to take the time once in a while to give shout outs to these lights, these beacons that have palpably made our lives and often many other lives around them better. Why not make a list, then some calls. Or why not send out emails and tweets to your personal inspirations? Let them know just how pivotal they are to you, and that the world just wouldn’t be the same without them. Now’s as a good a time as any.

My grandmother Sylvia, though she’s been gone for 9 years, is my essential inspiration, the “good like bread” beam of glorious hope that will always see me through. I know she feels how safely nested she is in my heart, and that she will forever float along beside me, in all my endeavors, triumphant or failed, because she of all people has taught me about love; and love is after all the marrow of life.

Sylvia, brightest light of them all, this one’s for you.

In sweet inspiration,

ML

For many of us, trying to inhabit our bodies is like rummaging in the dusty dark with a single sub-par flashlight. We get so hooked on our outsides, and spend so much time trying to look perfect, that we cede the actual experiencing of our bodies as they are. Of course, we all feel extreme physical stuff when it is happening, the intense workouts, the painful and ailing episodes, as well as the highly pleasurable moments when we are drawn into intoxicating sensation. Yet, I’m talking about a softer more sensitive awareness and taking up of residence in our physicality.

Can you imagine being in such close correspondence with your body? Can you imagine truly feeling such phenomenal structure?

Fresh into January, given how predictably most of us have already resolved to make our shapes better, leaner, and sexier, mightn’t we amend the body-improvement pledge a little? Mightn’t we make it more profound by folding inhabitation and experience of it into the description?

Here are the main hints I’m giving you (and me), meant to promote legitimate body experiencing, not some conjured, brain-centric idea, but all-out, full-on, real-flesh feeling:

*Every day, move your body. This isn’t limited to intense sweaty physical exercise people—though of course this is great for most of us. I mean anything from walking meditation and really showing up for each step, to lovely, slow and deliberate stretching, where you scan and pause at your legs, spine, shoulders, and so on.

*Every day, give your body at least one thing that makes it/you hum with deep satisfaction, from a nutritive green juice to the most fortifying smoothie, or delicious colorful salad, or handful of clean raw nuts, the list goes on and on.

*Every day, at least once, consciously drop out of your heavy brain, and sink into the melodious swirling vitality of what’s happening below it. Inhabit what your body feels like right then and there, slumped in that chair, stiff on those legs, distracted in that car, curled up watching that flick. Don’t fix. Just be conscious.

*Every day, break at least once from the usual criticism and measurement. Quietly say thanks to your wonderful body instead, then go on knocking yourself out with assessment if you must. At least start the trend of feeling body grateful, and it will hopefully morph from a trickle to a stream, where the obsessive sizing up is ultimately the thing that’s knocked out, not your blessed body.

I am so totally on this journey with you. I’ve actually dedicated 2012 to forging a more profound relationship with my body. The big resolution, instead of toning up my thighs and butt—which in all honesty I’ll be doing mild bits of—is to more subtly develop a mindful body dialogue.

Inhabiting our bodies is indeed a thoroughly in-the-present job. These sacred vessels are what make all the talk about meditation, mindfulness, and awakening come to life. Best to start now, one experience of the foot, the hand, the neck, the chest, the belly, the ankle, the knee, or the hip at a time. Happy New Year.

In sweet body,

ML

This past weekend my husband and I went up to the Adirondacks, and wow was it magical. The landscape was powerful, beautiful, and gentle all at once. I spent the days staring out a huge window overlooking snowy fir trees and the lake, still not frozen, undulating rhythmically beyond them. I took long morning walks on trails half covered by snow and branches, smelling the pinecones, appreciating the green, stopping along the water, breathing the crisp air, and looking up into that clear open sky.

To be surrounded by such noble largesse at all times, in yoga, sitting, and writing practices even, was inordinately soothing. Over and over, I was reassured by the voluminous presence of those ancient trees of just how small my hang-ups and me actually are.

An old literature mentor used to advise me that when things got really rough to simply look out the window at the wind rustling through the branches of a tree. She felt that this elemental vision was enough to bring anyone back to their roots, or more succinctly, to the root of all living things, namely movement, energy, and pulse.

That tree, those branches, that wind, those leaves are never in great debate over better or worse, or in anguish over their incessant disruption. No, that tree, those branches, that wind, those leaves, are just that, exactly who and what they are meant to be. They are simply their divine, revelatory, real, and unfussy selves.

Whether you are struck by a lone shoot pushing through the cracks in city pavement, the runt tree on your block, the intermittent flow of sweet rain, the seeming forest of the park, the night or early morning sky, or the fallen leaves, please let nature be your teacher and think deliberately on these things:

• Let nature be a part of your every day.
• Let nature fill you with joy and overwhelming peace.
• Let nature mirror your own elemental and affectionate nature.
• Let nature remind you to accept your own organic shape.
• Let nature lead you into an authentic expression of you.
• Let nature always ground you.

Though my husband and I had to say goodbye to all that rugged upstate beauty, I have a new little pinecone sitting on my altar. It harkens from one of those early mornings hikes, and is here as talisman and anchor, to remind me, and hopefully now you, of all these substantial and essential things.

In natural sweetness,

ML

Our lives are predicated on choice. The freedom to choose just about anything is truly our blessed right, however we are so often enslaved to the process of deciding, and caught up in there being a hierarchy amongst the potential answers—the best, the worst, the mediocre—that the liberation bit gets lost.

What adds to the trickiness is that embedded in this hierarchy, and pounded into us from early on, is not only the best/worst classification, but too, and even more problematic, the right/wrong one. In mathematics, this is true; there is one right answer, one right choice. Yet when it comes to life decisions, like where to live, where to work, whom to date, where to raise children, how to nourish our whole selves, the right/wrong, black/white thing is pretty unreasonable, or more pointedly pretty artificial. We grow so afraid of choosing “wrongly” that we go crazy in the process, presuming that we are potentially on the brink of ruining our lives.

I have notoriously struggled with making decisions. When I was living at Zen center so many years ago, there came a time at the end of the practice period where I had to decide if I was going to continue my leave of absence by staying on, or go back to school. I agonized. I lost sleep. I had formal and informal meetings with Norman Fischer, the abbot and leader of the practice period at the time. He even gave me a Japanese calligraphy of the word Decision, as he had been made so intimately privy to my struggle. You know what I ended up doing? Neither, but that’s another story.

What was once deep agony has with practice been downgraded to moderate stress, which obviously still stirs the pot. A couple months ago, I got anxious in deciding which multi-vitamin to take. I chose one that in my mind sounded really great, pure, and was food-based, so was by far, I convinced myself, the most fantastic of the bunch. Well, I took it and had a horrible allergic reaction. And for one or two days I got really upset with myself for my choice. Why did I do it, if I had only chosen differently, you get the drift. I mean, seriously, how was I supposed to know? The main thing, when we make one not-so-fortuitous decision, is to absorb it, drop our fear, and of course act wiser when food-based is an option in the next supplement showdown.

There is also the sense with decisions, that someone, anyone, everyone out there, knows better than we do, as if they were the ultimate experts on us. It’s silly, honestly. But if you have a hard time deciding like I do, let me be the first to tell you, you truly are your own supreme expert. You truly do know what is the best choice for you. You just have to give yourself a chance to be quiet, and intuit out what feels true, not from a reactionary frenzied wild place, but from a deep delicious in-touch place.

Here’s my final plea: How about you set as your base intention taking the pressure off of making decisions, and let yourself be guided more organically instead, so that the next time you freeze in the cereal aisle, you smile and know it is symptomatic of being frozen about the bigger forks in the road. You smile too because you know that this classic moment is the perfect clue—and cue—for you to seriously thaw out and relax.

In sweetness,

ML

Why are we so afraid of change?

It’s crazy that I’ve always sought self-development and deep change, but at the same time freak out about them regularly. Ever since I got sick in 2006, and healed myself over the ensuing three years, I have devoted my life to supporting others along their transformative journeys. I have at times forgotten just how radically I had to change to arrive at a place where I could even contemplate helping someone else do the same.

Why Buddhism appealed to me so young, and why Zen practice became a haven in my life as early as my teens, was how fully I could relate to the idea that the only real constant is change. Self-destructive and hostile as I was back then, I must have thought: Hey, wow, Buddha, you are the only authority figure who I don’t have a problem with, and how cool that you are speaking all about impermanence, a language I totally get!

Here’s why: I never felt stable or secure in my house growing up. I didn’t know what I would get when I walked in the door—raving lunatic, eccentric nurturer, sad hysterical wreck, or feverish poet. You can imagine, as a child this was terrifying. I wish I could say I was at ease with change as my mercurial mother was all I knew, but precisely because of my experience with no-ground, because of not having had a root, change has instead always made me desperately uncomfortable.

Though Zen has slowly brought me around to the ever-fleeting nature of things, I still often feel like I’m swimming upstream. Right now for instance, I’m back in another wild cycle of change. Over the past two weeks, I’ve found myself wishing pretty vehemently for plateau, if I could only cruise for a spell, while I take others through their stuff.

Ghandi of course was famous for his message on changing self first, and my wise yoga teacher has reminded me of this a great deal recently, when I’ve complained about not getting a break and just wanting to help everyone else. Suddenly I feel like I haven’t gone through a thing, like I am at the beginning of all the changing I have to do, that I haven’t seen anything yet. And you know what? For the first time in ages, I’m pretty calm about it.

SO, if you are either resisting or in a state of rapid change, here are four things that help:

1. Let go of needing to know how everything will turn out.
2. Take refuge in routine, do the practices you love daily, and stick with them.
3. Talk and write about everything you are going through.
4. Remember that nothing is permanent. This phase too will pass.

Most of all, I love what Norman Fischer says, “Life comes and goes. Life comes and goes very quickly. We don’t need to worry so much.” When in doubt, find your footing in change. Instead of fighting the current, take cue, and for once in your life, flow downstream.

In sweetness and change,

ML

Let’s just say I’m in a place of in-between. I am, after 36 years, coming to terms with my body. I’ve gained weight to get my hormones up and running, my skin is dry, broken out, and super sensitive, as is my belly. This story is not new. I’ve been here before, and it is hard, really hard. But I am accepting me more too. I’ll tell you why: Because my sad indefatigable habit of non-acceptance is getting exceedingly boring.

Is non-acceptance your habit too? Is it one that you are genuinely looking to dissolve?

The habit of non-acceptance is why the self-help movement exists, to guide us into self-acceptance. Don’t you think? I mean, if we were all deeply OK with ourselves, with our insides (neuroses, anxieties, obsessions, anyone?), and with our outsides (flab, wrinkles, pimples and all), there would be no constant striving and no endless prescribing to fix our self-negation problem, right?

What I am writing about specifically is how to work with this habit. What I am tackling is how to negotiate this old and insidious, ugly but awfully familiar, it-feels-good-because-it-hurts type habit. I hope this resonates with you.

As we develop, we get caught in the habit of non-acceptance so thoroughly that we check out more and more from the actual feeling of it. We feel lousy about having such ingrained thoughts and beliefs of the I-am-a-piece-of-junk variety. We don’t have a way to cope when we’re young, and instead of looking into the snowballing habit, we just sort of skirt it; and keep on feeling badly.

I propose instead of skirting, which also becomes routine, that we pay attention to our habits of mind instead. I propose we really focus on what we’ve come to tell ourselves about ourselves, not as means to feed the fire, but to say hey if this is routine and a deep one, I better make friends with it. Suppose we invited our habit to sit and have a juice or a chat with us, so we could actually look at each other, and be friends—radical acceptance, as Tara Brach likes to say, yes, but also quite practical.

Only once we are present to the habit, only once we see it and the flaw of the message inside of it, does self-acceptance grow. We think of just tossing non-acceptance away, of course we do. Yet, rather than tossing it, let’s commit to re-shaping it.

I’ll give you an example: Last week I had a facial. It was moving, it was big, it was everything. And you know why? Because even though my skin was freaking out and reactive, the lovely J just looked at it. She gently and openly observed my skin doing its wild thing. She looked carefully and without bias, all friendship, and then she decided how to work towards helping it along, how to work towards supporting and promoting its transformation. This is what I’m talking about with non-acceptance too. Outright transformation!

Our non-acceptance habit, when met with grace and geniality morphs into self-acceptance, or more pointedly, into the love of self as it is. If nothing else, hear me on this: We are all adequate and abundant right now—you with all your stuff, me with all my stuff. Even our habits can be received, just as they are. Instead of dumping them, befriend them. This is accepting, for real, when we accept our non-acceptance. This is where things get interesting.

In sweetness and acceptance,

ML