Thoughts From Annie

This month’s Thoughts from Annie post was originally published in March 2008.  Take It to the Cushion Dear Friends, I have recently been tested by some family challenges: two major situations where I needed to be able to problem solve and get into action, but also be present with my own feelings and needs, and the…

Dear Friends, A few years ago, I got some great advice from the Buddhist nun, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. Jetsunma had recently come out of a 12-year stint living alone in a cave in the Himalayas. She slept sitting up in a box at night so she could stay awake and continue her 24-hour meditation practice. By living this…

Dear Friends, Like most of us, I have been shaken by recent events in the U.S. and abroad and I feel anxious about what my next notification fromThe New York Times will say. When I started practicing mindfulness, I believed it would eventually bring me a clear and permanent understanding of life that would allow me to always feel comfortable and solid. I thought…

While Annie is away on retreat this month, we are sharing an excerpt from her book, Things I Did When I Was Hangry: Navigating a Peaceful Relationship with Food. Ten Thousand Hours of Pancakes Once our kids were a certain age, they had sleepovers nearly every weekend. For a while we kept a six-person tent…

One Hot Mess in the Mud Puddle of Life Dear Friends, Last week, as I was diligently writing a review on Goodreads for a friend’s new book, I decided to see whether my book (Things I Did When I Was Hangry) had any new reviews. I noticed one of the new reviewers (we’ll call her…

Dear Friends, My friend Daniel came back from the movie The Revenant and announced, “This is the story of my life.” If, like me, you haven’t seen the movie, here is the IMDb synopsis: A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left…

Love, Compersion and Buddha Nature Dear Friends, So here’s something surprising I learned recently—one of our daughters is polyamorous. In case you’re like me and aren’t sure exactly what polyamory is, it’s having multiple partners without nuptials and not, as I first thought, having sex in multiples. The way it manifests with our daughter is…

While Annie is away in India this month, we’re taking the opportunity to share an excerpt from her book, Things I Did When I Was Hangry. Picking Up the Baby While my kids were growing up, I was either working or in graduate school. I got up early to meditate, went to class or worked,…

This month’s post was pulled from our Thoughts from Annie archives. It was originally posted in Summer 2010. Dear Friends, In June, I had the rare and humbling opportunity to speak on a panel with three very distinguished Buddhists and peace activists: Colman McCarthy, Hugh Byrne, and Bill Aiken. The panel was part of the first…

Dear Friends, Since my book about mindful cooking and eating came out in September, I have been speaking and teaching more about the practice of mindful eating, and how to work with habits that cause us to suffer. Especially at this holiday time of the year, it can be difficult to “manage” our eating when…