We like to see people beat the odds.  But how do you choose which dreams to chase?  When is chasing the "impossible dream" foolhardy vs. visionary?  

We exist at three different levels of awareness -- the level of the senses,  the level of conscious awareness, and the level of conscious connection.  Living at the level of the senses traps us, because, as soon as we rely upon the senses to define our world, we become confined by our own definitions.  This applies not only to our perception of the world, but to our self-perception, as well.  Moving through conscious awareness to a state of conscious connection manifests evolution and change.

One of the core tenets of both Buddhism and Vedanta is the rejection of categories and labels. By contrast, we have come to rely on roles and labels to define ourselves. The shortfall of this lies in its limitation. In thinking, "I am this" or "I am that", we have lost sight of the ability to dignify ourselves by the simple statement, "I am". Nowhere is this more apparent than in what has become the seeming cultural imperative of defining ourselves as our disorder.

It's been said that advertising is a form of sorcery. Consider the use of brand logos. Symbols bring reality into being.

Dance therapy has recently been recognized in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, autism, and posttraumatic stress. And dance—whether you can move and groove with the best or not-- offers more than just good medicine; it unites the heart and soul of humanity on a global level. Enjoy a compelling film, a testament to the power of dance, that was 14 months in the making, spans 42 countries, and includes an international cast of thousands.

We are all searching for something. What that something might be is never really a certainty, but it typically displays itself as a nagging sense of something unfinished or a thing undone that plagues our days and troubles our sleep. It is a restlessness within the human heart described by St. Augustine as "...humanity's innate desire for the infinite..."

I have practiced the martial arts for almost 35 years. In that time I received many useful lessons and, ultimately, have come to realize that, beyond the physical, many of the most valuable aspects of the martial arts are the lessons of social intelligence and mental discipline. That is what makes this particular activity useful for shepherding the development of skills that address the challenges of ADD/ADHD, for both children and adults.

Would you feel like you'd still like to be president after you have just been liberated from six years of captivity?

Everything is workable. This intones that every obstacle is an opportunity, every problem is a challenge and every challenge provides us with options.  If we regard any situation that we encounter throughout the course of our lives as unworkable -- whether that situation be social, psychosocial, psychological, metaphysical, philosophical or spiritual -- then we are living in fear, not fearlessness.  Fearlessness is in seeing the options, rather than the obstacles.

When we think of the Buddha, we think of peace, light and tranquility. Like all things, there must be a balance for this. For the buddhas it comes in the form of the mahakalas and the four karmas (actions) of transformation.  The mahakala is useful as a both symbol and a practical tool of personal evolution in that it evokes transformation and change in such a way as to bring us closer to a state of enlightenment or, at least, wakefulness. It also reminds us that the path of dharma is not always good, sane or compassionate; sometimes it is ruthless and cuts deeply to find the truth of our lives.

Atheism is said to pose a major threat to morality. Some theists claim that disbelief leads to moral relativism and undermines the motivation to do good deeds. Recent research can help us see what is true and false about these anxieties.

I begin with a bit of self-disclosure. I don’t have a religious or spiritual bone in my body. (Yes, maybe even less than Richard Dawkins.) But this doesn’t mean that I’m not open-minded about research on happiness and religion. As I write in my book, The How of Happiness, just because (most) religious beliefs cannot be empirically tested or falsified doesn’t mean that the consequences of having religious faith, participating in religious life, or searching for the sacred cannot be studied. Indeed, a growing body of psychological science is suggesting that religious folks are happier, healthier, and recover better after traumas than nonreligious ones.

What should Apple do when Steve Jobs departs? Take a hint from the Dalai Lama.

As overseas uncles often do, yesterday I had a quick catch-up phone chat with my six-year-old nephew, Gianni (who, to set the scene, is currently waiting for both of his front teeth to come in). My sister had just explained to me that Gianni was eager to share something very exciting with me.

Many people regard the Eastern practices as some special or secret vehicle for escaping the pain of their lives. They see it as a tree from which one may pluck the most beautiful of flowers. But for us to pick the flowers from a tree, we must first cultivate the ground, the roots and the trunk, which means working with our fears, frustrations, and pain - in short, our suffering.

Rowing is a unique sport. It is endlessly complicated, so much so as to make a golf swing seem like sitting in a Lay-Z-Boy. At the same time, it is also about the simplest of things...learning to be still.  The deep spirituality associated with that stillness is much akin to the spiritual ethic of learning to be in the world, but not of the world.

Johnny Unitas, Michael Jordon, Wayne Gretzky, Chris Sharma, Laird Hamilton: our list of modern athletic deities tends towards the mortal side of the equation, but this wasn't always the case. For nearly as long as there has been sport, there have been gods of sport.

We are not physical beings having spiritual experiences; we are spiritual beings having physical experiences.

A true and complete Yoga practice can provide us with a system for living that supports the structure and consistency upon which human being thrive, and which, ultimately, is one of the keys to lasting emotional health.

We can live our lives in one of two ways - in fear or in certainty. The fear that we live in is fear of losing what we have (clinging) and/or fear of not getting what we want (desire). Either way it comes down to attachment. Certainty is about letting go of attachment, gathering evidence, and discovering what's important.

Last night I caught myself in a lie. But it's a very complicated lie, and I suspect there's rich ground here for some new experimental ideas. Around 2 am, I woke up only to realise that the duvet cover had slipped off my feet, leaving my toes exposed. I experienced the most peculiar sense of discomfort by virtue of this fact...