The seeds we water are the seeds that grow

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh once said, “When the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats were met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked all would be lost. But if even one person on the boat remained calm and centered, it was enough. It showed the way for everyone to survive.”

This is who the world needs. People with the strength to meet life’s biggest challenges without running away. People who inhabit the present moment through all the beauty and the chaos. People who are unafraid even in the face of fear. People who maintain perspective and values regardless of circumstances. People whose lives are not driven by anxiety and self-absorption, but whose lives are instead driven by love and compassion. People who are…happy.

These people may sound like a combination of a superhero and a saint, but the reality is that anyone is capable of this through intentional training of the mind. Thousands of years of ancient wisdom, corroborated by contemporary science, shows this to be true. Unfortunately, the modern mind is usually trained by the messages and vices of modern society that put our evolutionary drives on overdrive.

Think of how the mind is being trained when we can pull out our phone (or worse) at any inkling of an uncomfortable emotion, or think of how the mind is being trained when society tells us again and again that happiness is some far off destination we can reach if only we have more money, or when society is telling that some humans/beings are more valuable than others. Think of our inner-critic comparing us to thousands of others on social media, our dopamine-driven reptilian brain prescribed opioids, our negativity-biased brain flooded with violent news and sensationalized media, our fight-or-flight response getting stuck on ON while simply sitting at a desk in an office.

It’s no surprise that we live in a society wrought with unprecedented levels of chronic stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, suicide, and addiction.

If we are not purposeful with how we train the mind (and the body, which is not separate from the mind), or water the seeds of the mind in other words, the mind will not bear the fruit of well-being, fulfillment, and happiness we aspire for. Now more than ever, our innate seeds of compassion, curiosity, connection, love, joy, and serenity must be watered. These seeds manifest not only in our own minds, but continue to grow outward through our interactions with the world. We change the world by watering our own seeds.

Our mission is to help people free themselves from the tyranny of the poorly trained mind. Guided by Buddhist and other Eastern teachings, modern psychology/psychotherapy and empirically studied mindfulness meditation and breath/body techniques, our aim is to provide accessible teaching, inspiration and community as an offering to live larger than the fear, loneliness and anxiety that would otherwise dictate our lives. It is an offering to experience a dramatically different way of being.

All it takes is a little watering.