How little can you get by with? I asked myself this question on the weekend while re-engineering the bookcase in my living room and the closet in my bedroom. The answer …‘very little, actually’…wasn’t all that surprising since I’m a minimalist at heart anyway. The title of this post kind of says it all. Implications for Me I live...

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I’d be applying the principles that Jeffrey Tang wrote about here is his guest post on ZenHabits. Yesterday I tackled the bookcase that tends to collect things I hurriedly need a place to store (which violates the essence of minimalism). Here’s the before shot. It shows how jumbled it had actually become as a...

I’m reading How To Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  Yesterday, as I was flying from Anchorage to Seattle, I had my Kindle open and I read these words. Their effect on my awareness was like being in the head with a Louisville Slugger. …if the practice of patience really moves your mind and brings about a change,...

In Buddhism, meditation plays an important role in seeing reality for what it is. Seeing means becoming aware of the moment by moment nature of existence; the awareness that precludes human dissatisfaction or suffering. Seeing is observing the world without becoming embroiled in its drama. Therein lies the freedom so many seek. Getting There Is Hard Work As a...

Face reality. Now. As I read more about Buddhism and meditation, this thought keeps returning to my consciousness. It’s like a mantra being forced on me by the Universe, God, the Higher Self ..all of the above rolled into one. Facing what is here, now. Living in this moment. Not worrying about the past which is powerless over us nor envisioning the future to...

Revisiting Goals for 2010 In my post outlining my Goals for 2010,  I wrote that I was focusing on three goals for the year: My three goals are located in three separate areas of my life. They are: Business - Develop one of my blogs into a cash-generating entity that will become part of the Barry 2.0 effort to be economy independent within 3 years. This goal is...