Episode 176 - Light up this world like a moon set free
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
Release Date: 08/14/2023
Episode 227 - Always Rely on a Happy Mind Alone
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
Always rely on a happy mind alone. This Buddhist slogan for training the mind isn't about "positive thinking" or just being happy. A "happy mind" refers to a mind that is peaceful and free from delusions, like like anger, jealousy, pride or attachment. When a delusion like anger is operating in the mind, we no longer see clearly. A delusion is like a warped mirror: everything we see in this mirror is distorted. For example, when we’re hurt we might get angry at someone we love. Anger then makes us see that person as the cause of our pain, a threat, so that we speak and act in...
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Episode 226 - Tame the Monkey Mind
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
Register for the free classes, Continuing the Walk for Peace: An Inner Peace Toolkit: https://buddhismforeveryone.com/walk-for-peace-toolkit In this episode, we talk about your monkey. The monkey on your back. You know the one. The brilliant, overachieving, slightly unhinged creature swinging through your mind at 2:00 a.m. reorganizing your life, replaying arguments, drafting emails you will never send. In an old Buddhist story, a man is given a magical monkey by his spiritual teacher. The magical monkey can do anything. Grant any wish. At first, it’s amazing. The monkey...
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Episose 225 - Is your mind the Matrix?
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
In The Matrix, the red pill reveals the truth behind appearances and opens the path to freedom. In Buddhism, a realization of the true nature of reality is the ultimate path to freedom. In this episode, we explore how waking up to reality gives us the ability to reshape who you are because nothing is fixed learn to bend the “rules” of your reality unplug from emotional reactivity Buddha explained the ultimate truth of reality as “emptiness.” Emptiness does not mean nothingness. This teaching doesn’t mean that nothing exists. We have to ask ourselves, what is reality empty of?...
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Episode 224: Finding Happiness in Others' Joy
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
Imagine feeling a burst of joy every time someone else wins. A friend gets a promotion, your sister finds love, a stranger shares good news, and you feel happiness with them. That spark of delight is the heart of sympathetic joy, or mudita, a Buddhist practice that flips the script on comparison and jeaousy. It turns the happiness of others into a source of our own happiness. It’s not magic, but it feels like it. When sympathetic joy is practiced with the bodhicitta intention to become a Buddha for the benefit of all beings, it becomes "Immeasurable Joy." Immeasurable Joy is a trained...
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Episode 223 - Feed love or Feed Pain
Buddhism for Everyone with JoAnn Fox
We constantly make small choices that shape the reality of our relationships, whether with our partner, children, friends, or colleagues. They determine whether we deepen connection or cause resentment and distance to quietly grow. Every moment holds a fork in the road: Will I feed love, or will I feed pain? In this episode, we look the difference between love and attachment. Love is the wish that another person be happy. Attachment is the wish that they make us happy. Attachment is the habit of selfishness in relationships that causes pain. The strength of a relationship is directly...
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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,...
info_outlineThe Buddha said that an earnest practitioner, even when just beginning the path to enlightenment, "lights up this world like the moon set free from a cloud." This episode explores how to relate to being this light in our world, specifically through the practice of metta, or loving-kindness.
Metta practice involves cultivating a heartfelt attitude of unconditional love, benevolence, and goodwill towards oneself and all sentient beings. Metta meditation is a practical way to strengthen these qualities. It can be done in formal meditation or "off the cushion" with the simple recitation of a metta prayer for someone you're with or thinking about.
A Metta Mindfulness Practice
The metta mindfulness practice suggested in this episode is to deeply relate to being someone who "Lights up this world like the moon set free from a cloud." Recite the following prayer for others you are with (or thinking about) and feel the wish in your heart:
“May you have happiness and peace. May you soon know your Buddha-nature.”
Or simply the metta prayer to:
May you soon know your Buddha-nature.”
Just remember that the practice of metta is not about superficially reciting phrases or well wishes. It involves generating genuine feelings of warmth, kindness, and goodwill. Over time, through consistent practice, these feelings become more natural and integrated into one's daily life, transforming the way they perceive and interact with the world.
Metta meditation is not limited to Buddhists; it can be practiced by anyone seeking to cultivate compassion, empathy, and a more positive outlook on life.
A bhikkhu filled with delight
And pleased with the Buddha’s teachings
Attains happiness, the stilling of formations,
The state of peace. (381)
Engaged in the Buddha’s teachings,
Even a young bhikkhu
Lights up this world
Like the moon
Set free from a cloud. (382)
--Buddha, The Dhammapada
References and Links
Buddha.The Dhammapada. Translated by Gil Fronsdale. (Kindle). Shambala, Boston and London, 2011. (Link)
Buddha (1986).The Dhammapada: Verses and Stories. Translated by Daw Mya Tin, M.A. (Website). Edited by Editorial Committee, Burma Tipitaka Association Rangoon. Courtesy .of Nibbana.com. For free distribution only, as a gift of dhamma. https://www.tipitaka.net/tipitaka/dhp/verseload.php?verse=381
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