Month: March 2018

The Architecture of Love

Published by dmcblog

By Katharine Kaufman // “Living things must disappear, everyone you meet inevitably splits.” — from the Butsu Yuikyôgyô (Jp.) or Buddha’s Last Admonitions Sutra* After Trungpa Rinpoche died Joshua Mulder was asked to care of Rinpoche’s relics. Joshua, along with many, designs and builds the Die Zauberflöte of Stupas. A stupa is a mound of rocks to serve as a home for bones, ashes; a cairn that tells me where to go next on the path I am walking on, especially if it’s foggy or for whatever reason I can’t see ahead. The stupa is a body— my body, the body of the Dharma. A place to practice, and in my case, a place to get warm. January. If the cover of my New Yorker magazine is any indication of what’s to come, it’s going to be a tough month. At Shambhala Mountain Center Joshua leads us up the path to the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, pausing to remind us to open our senses to the phenomenal world. Damaris, my friend from Oregon, says every time …

4 Proven Ways to Awaken Purpose at Work

Published by dmcblog

By Zach Mercurio // There’s no shortage of advice telling us we need to find purpose in our jobs. And for good reason—having a sense of purpose at work can increase both engagement and fulfillment. In our personal lives, a sense of purpose can even help us sleep better, feel healthier, and live longer. Yet while it’s clear purpose is important, it’s less clear how to discover it without taking expensive purpose surveys, quitting our sometimes mundane jobs, or making drastic career changes. But there is hope for everyday people in everyday jobs to discover purpose and reap its benefits. Over the last few years, I’ve been lucky enough to work with people who do our society’s necessary and repetitive work—people like janitors, bus drivers, and mechanics. And I’ve learned two critical lessons: 1.) There is a compelling purpose in every job, and 2.) There are research-backed actions we can take to uncover it. Here’s how to start. 1. Stop trying to “find” your why. One of the biggest misconceptions about purpose is that it’s …

Beyond Suffering: At Home In Yourself (Part 1)

Published by dmcblog

By Blake D. Bauer // One must learn to love oneself with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam. — Friedrich Nietzsche Deep down, we all want to feel ‘welcome’, that we ‘belong’, and that we’re accepted just the way we are. We also want to feel appreciated, simply because we’re alive and not just for how we please others. Essentially, each of us holds a longing to feel at home within ourselves, because when we feel safe to simply be ourselves, where no one is judging us, and we can let our guard down to be vulnerable, our heart opens and allows the peace, joy and love within us to flow freely. To feel the warm embrace of unconditional love that most of us associate with the idea of ‘home’ is how we as human beings come to blossom and thrive. Even if our own experiences at home, either as children or as adults, have never been as loving or as warm as …