Left Brain Buddha
the modern mindful blog
Collateral Damage: Talking to My Children About War
A few weeks ago, we took our children to a Fourth of July celebration sponsored by the Children of the American Revolution. The event included a flying pancake breakfast, as well as volunteers dressed as soldiers and camp nurses who taught the attendees about the...
Mindfulness and Gratitude: Expectations
Words for a Mindful Moment with the Breath “Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, “Well, that’s pretty much what...
Kill the Buddha. Keep Meditating.
There's a Buddhist saying: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!" It sounds pretty violent and un-Buddhist, but it means if, in your search for enlightenment, you think you've found the Truth, you must kill it, and keep searching. Anyone who claims to know...
Meditation Tips for Struggling Meditators
Meditation for People Who Don’t {Yet} Like to Meditate
Self-Esteem isn’t Selfish
The Around the World In Six Weeks Parenting Blog Carnival continues today! Over the next several weeks, Deb of Urban Moo Cow, Jessica of School of Smock, Lauren of Omnimom, Stephanie of Mommy, For Real, and I will be writing about our reactions to Christine...
Breathe + Smile: Mindfulness and Gratitude
Breathe: Words for a Mindful Moment with the Breath I've been thinking a lot about place lately ~ the places I inhabit, how they sustain and nourish me, and seeing the beauty, literally, in my own backyard. My Buddha in my backyard Smile: Gratitude We have lived in...
Your Life is a Do-Over, But Parenting is a Rerun
My favorite line from the movie City Slickers is “Your life is a Do-Over.” Buddhism teaches much the same thing: Every moment, we begin anew. Each day, each hour, each breath is a do-over. But regret is different. There are things we wish we could have done...
Mindful Eating: We are HOW we eat
Food and eating are important parts of culture. Thinking of food only in terms of calories, nutrients, and ingredients is like thinking of language as simply a collection of phonics, syllables, and parts of speech. Food, like language, is a form of expression. It is...
Mindfulness and Gratitude: The Beauty of Blogging
Mindfulness: Words for a Moment with the Breath Gratitude: Why I Write ~ The Beauty of Blogging This week I am grateful to write. As a kid, I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I wrote many books and stories, and even about 50 pages of a novel as a teenager {it...
Parenting without … Sleep!
When some fellow bloggers and I first heard about Christine Gross-Loh's new book, Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us, we were intrigued. This book addresses many of the tough questions of parenting: Where should kids...
Breathe + Smile: Monday Mindfulness and Gratitude
Mindfulness: Words for a Mindful Moment with the Breath I am currently reading Rachel Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I love this passage below, as Harold embarks on his pilgrimage to walk from southern to northern England. Here he discovers "the...
Independence: Creating Family Traditions
Finish the Sentence Friday: The best 4th of July I ever had was... I have wonderful memories of celebrating the 4th of July with my family as a child. When I was in elementary school, the moms in the neighborhood would organize a parade ~ we’d decorate our bikes and...
Mindful Parenting: Practicing Mindfulness with Your Children
An important part of my mindful parenting practice is teaching mindfulness and gratitude to my children. Today I’m sharing some mindfulness practices we have established in our family. {For reference, my daughter is 6 and my son just turned 4}. Establishing a Quiet...
Breathe + Smile: Monday Mindfulness and Gratitude
Mindfulness: Words for a Mindful Moment with the Breath Gratitude: The Smile File The moments of gratitude and the smiles from the week that I want to hold on to: ***** I love this quote by Elizabeth Lesser. Meditation, mindfulness ~ it's all about discovering the...
Dinner in the Age of Enlightenment: Voltaire and the Buddha
“If I could have dinner with anyone in history, it would be with…” Wow. When I saw this Finish the Sentence Friday prompt, my first thought was, “How unfair for a HISTORY TEACHER!? How do I choose? It’s like asking me which child I love the most!” My second thought...
Daring Greatly … Quietly
Two Books That are Changing How I Think About Myself, Parenting, and Blogging Reading. One of my favorite summer activities. I've recently finished reading Brene Brown's Daring Greatly and Susan Cain's Quiet. I absolutely recommend you read these books! They have made...
Summer in a Binder: A Serious Alternative to Scrapbooking
As soon as I typed this post’s title, I immediately started singing it to the tune of “Girlfriend in a Coma” by the Smiths: “Summer in a binder, I know, I know, it’s serious...” {Oh, I miss the ‘80s...If you’re nostalgic for some UK alternative 80’s rock, or you have...
Breathe + Smile: Monday Mindfulness and Gratitude
Mindfulness: Words for a Mindful Moment with the Breath Make your Monday mindful! Today's passage is from Barbara Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World, from her chapter on Reverence. "The easiest practice of reverence I know is to simply sit down somewhere outside,...