Episode 222: Preventing Anger
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
Longtime Buddhist Teacher, JoAnn Fox, explores five powerful Buddhist antidotes to anger and aversion: patience acceptance recognizing karma remembering impermanence seeing other people or challenges as spiritual teachers compassion Learn how to meet challenges with wisdom instead of reaction. Buddha reminds us that peace isn’t about avoiding pain; it’s about understanding it. By practicing a simple yet profound method, W.A.I.T What Am I Thinking, we begin to free ourselves from the fires of aversion and cultivate genuine calm instead. In this way, we can...
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Episode 221 - W.A.I.T. What Am I Thinking?
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
Delusions are distorted ways of looking at things that make our mind unpeaceful and uncontrolled. Anger exaggerates someone’s faults. Attachment exaggerates someone’s good qualities. Both lead us away from reality and keep us trapped in craving or aversion. Buddha taught that what fuels delusions is inappropriate attention. When we dwell on thoughts that feed our delusions, we are engaging in "inappropriate attention." The way all delusions arise: Object + inappropriate attention = Delusion With anger, inappropriate attention might look like replaying an insult, focusing only on...
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Episode 220 - Self-Compassion
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
In this episode, JoAnn Fox shares the practice of W.A.I.T.—What Am I Thinking? to help us cultivate self-compassion and retrain the often-critical voice in our minds. Through mindfulness, we can begin to notice the thoughts that shape how we treat ourselves, and choose a kinder, more beneficial way to respond. The Buddha said: All experience is preceded by mind, Led by mind, Made by mind. Our world is created by our thoughts. Every word, every action, every mood begins as a whisper in the mind. And sometimes, those whispers aren’t so kind. When we notice the...
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Episode 219: The Rain Could Turn to Gold
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
“The rain could turn to gold and still your thirst would not be slaked,” the Buddha said. He was pointing to the endless cycle of craving, the restless thirst that keeps us searching outside ourselves for satisfaction. Even if we were showered with gold, our longing would not end. So how do we free ourselves from this thirst? In this Fan Favorite episode, we look for the answer in understanding the connection between emptiness and craving. When Buddhism speaks of emptiness (shunyata), it doesn’t mean that nothing exists. It means that nothing exists inherently or independently....
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Episode 218: Weaving Spiritual Practice into Daily Life
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
The Buddha said that the minds of his followers should "constantly, day and night, delight in spiritual practice." But what practice can we stitch into the fabric of ordinary days? This fan-favorite epsiode explores a spiritual thread that can run through work, family, errands, and all the passing moments that make up our lives. Cherishing others requires no shrine, no retreat, no special circumstance—only a special intention. To cherish another means we think and act on this intention, "Your happiness matters. I will work for your happiness." Whether it's the barista, a child,...
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Episode 217 -Fan Favorite - Overcoming Fear and Anxiety
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
We’re bringing back a fan favorite episode from the Buddhism for Everyone archives with an exploration of fear, anxiety, and bravery. Fearlessness is often spoken of in Buddhist teachings, but here we go beyond the idea of simply “being brave” to uncover how the Buddha understood fear itself. Together, we’ll look at what causes fear, the antidotes that dissolve it, and how we can tap into the quiet courage already within us. In Buddhism, there is a distinction between skillful fear and unskillful fear. Skillful fear can protect us. An example of skilful fear is noticing a subway train...
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Episode 216 - W.A.I.T. Why am I talking?
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
Have you ever walked away from a conversation and thought, "Why did I just say that?" Oh, me too. But thankfully, the Buddha left us plenty of tools to transform even our speech into something sacred. In this episode, we explore an acronym I recently added to my spiritual toolbox, W.A.I.T. — Why Am I Talking? Before we speak, we can pause and ask ourselves this simple question to check our motivation. Are we trying to connect or control? Are we speaking from kindness or merely from habit? The Four Gates of Speech Another powerful filter comes directly from the Buddha. Before we speak, we can...
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Episode 215 - How to Be Present in Moment
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
This episode is a gentle return to something simple, sacred, and too often forgotten: the present moment. The only moment we ever truly have. We explore what it means to really be present. True calm arises when we're not lost in yesterday's story or tomorrow's worries but rest in the stillness of the now. JoAnn Fox, a Buddhist teacher of over twenty years, will talk about why presence is the ground of peace, the birthplace of connection, and the secret doorway to joy. Let's take a breath and be here now. They do not grieve over the past, Nor do they yearn for the future; They live only...
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Episode 214 - The Dalai Lama's Secret to Lasting Happiness
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
We chase happiness like it’s just around the corner. Could our final destination, “happiness,” be hidden in a new relationship, job title, city, or home? But His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with his childlike laugh and mountain-like presence, has let us in on a little secret: the true source of happiness isn’t getting what we want. It’s cherishing others. It’s being kind. The Dalai Lama says, “The basic source of all happiness is a sense of kindness and warm-heartedness towards others.” Buddhist teachings remind us again and again that when we shift the spotlight from...
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Episode 213: How to Be Mentally Strong When Things Go Wrong
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
This episode is about those moments when life doesn't go according to plan: when things go wrong, fall apart, or just feel too heavy to bear. At these times, mental strength becomes our most valuable refuge. But what does it really mean to be mentally strong? How can we cultivate that strength without becoming rigid or emotionally shut down? We'll be exploring one of my favorite quotes from the great Buddhist master Shantideva: "If something can be done, why worry? If nothing can be done, why worry?" This deceptively simple teaching holds the key to freedom from anxiety, overwhelm, and...
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How does anger arise? Anger observes an object it finds unpleasant, dwells with inappropriate attention on the faults of that object. Then anger arises when the mind has become unpeaceful and uncontrolled. The great Buddhist Master Shantideva said there are two reasons we get angry: when we don’t get what we want and when we have to put up with things we don’t want.
Edict of ancient Rome was: “If you want peace, you must prepare for war.” The result of this traditional way of thinking: 2,000 years of war, misery, destruction and annihilation. Millions of serious casualties. In the atomic age it is now high time we reversed this motto: “If you want peace, you must prepare for peace.” This means disarming instead of rearming.”
—Dalai Lama
Inner peace in the minds of human beings is the only foundation upon which a last outer peace--a world without war--is possible. The way to heal ourselves and society is the same. Loving-kindness and compassion are the antidotes to anger and hatred. A powerful antidote to anger is to accept people as they are. Another is having compassion for their struggles and personality quirks. We all have a personality quirk or two…Thich Nhat Hanh says that "We are challenged to apply an antidote as soon as anger arises, because of the far-reaching social effects of individual anger."
A profound understanding of interdependence arises when we see others with compassion and take universal responsibility for the correlation between our inner peace and outer, or world peace. The vast web of life is such that the action of one person reverberates across the entire web. Do we have a universal responsibility to end the war within ourselves as an act of nonviolence and peace for the whole world?
Always wide awake
Are the disciples of Gotama
Whose minds constantly, day and night,
Delight in harmlessness.
-Buddha, The Dhammapada
If you are interested in learning how you can work with JoAnn Fox as a Life/Spiritual Coach, visit https://buddhismforeveryone.com/coaching
References and Links
Buddha.The Dhammapada. Translated by Gil Fronsdale. (Kindle). Shambala, Boston and London, 2011, pp. 75-76
Dalai Lama. Our Only Home: A Climate Appeal to the World Kindle Edition. Disarming instead of rearming. pp. 87