Lama Chimey

Quantum Leaps and the Quiet Space Before Your Shift

Reflection on Transformation Through the Five Buddha Families

The Dance of Your Mind’s Potential

Sometimes change arrives not as a slow unfolding, but as a sudden opening — a quantum leap. One moment we are circling the same habitual thoughts. The next moment, we are standing in a wider field. We wonder why we ever believed the cage was locked. These leaps are not random miracles; they are reflections of ripened causes meeting the right conditions. In Buddhist language, they are the dance of mind’s potential revealing itself.

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In my upcoming workshop, we’ll explore how the Five Buddha Families map this inner terrain. We will take a look at how to move from confusion to clarity and from fixation to freedom. You find more information about the workshop here.

The Nature of a Leap

To leap is to trust. Not in the sense of naive faith. It involves a deeper sense of letting go of resistance. You see that the next ground will rise to meet you only once you’ve left the old one.

Margaret Atwood once wrote, “A word after a word after a word is power.” Replace “word” with “moment,” and the same holds true. Power lives not in accumulation, but in awareness — the willingness to be present through the small tremors before transformation.

In Buddhist psychology, quantum shifts happen when patterns of grasping dissolve. The mirror of Vajra wisdom cuts through illusion with precision. The spacious acceptance of Buddha family allows everything to simply be. The warmth of Ratna turns judgment into generosity. The movement of Padma transforms attachment into open-hearted connection. And Karma energy, so often restless, becomes effortless activity.

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These are not ideas to memorize; they are living energies to be recognized. In my upcoming workshop, we will work with them directly — through meditation, reflection, and embodied awareness. Save your spot here.

Reflection and Ripening

Every true leap begins long before the moment it happens. Like water wearing down stone, every small practice, every quiet act of honesty prepares the way. Then, without warning, the surface breaks — and what once felt impossible becomes natural.

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Reflection is what allows this. Not analysis, but stillness that listens. The kind that doesn’t demand results. In that listening, we sense which Buddha energy is calling for attention. Is our mind too heavy, needing the clarity of Vajra? Or too scattered, yearning for the groundedness of Ratna?

During the workshop, we’ll use these five families as mirrors. Each will reflect back a part of ourselves we’ve outgrown. They will also reveal the potential waiting just beyond. Join me in my upcoming workshop.

Readiness Can’t be Forced

Quantum leaps are not about speed. They are about ripening. A readiness that can’t be forced, only recognized. When we stop pushing, we start seeing. The leap happens by itself. It occurs quietly, almost tenderly, like dawn appearing on water.

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In that moment, reflection turns into illumination.
And the mind, finally, remembers what it has always known.

May this be of benefit,

Lama Chimey

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Finding Clarity Amid Uncertainty: Cut What Is Ready, Leave What Is Not

Sitting in the Unknown

As a Buddhist practitioner, I have learned that uncertainty is not an obstacle — it is the ground we walk on. We cannot predict the storms of life, but we can learn to meet them with steady attention, to sit with what arises, and to trust that clarity can emerge in its own time.

One story from the Jataka tales has stayed with me through moments of doubt and confusion. In it, a bamboo cutter finds himself lost in the forest, unsure of what he is seeking. The words of an old monk he meets there have often guided me when I have felt equally adrift: cut what is ready, leave what is not.

When the World Feels Unstable

A bamboo cutter lived in a village beside a dense bamboo forest. Each day he worked with care, cutting only what was ready, moving with the rhythm of the trees.

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Then a season of endless rain arrived. Paths became rivers, roofs collapsed, and his baskets refused to dry. The world he knew — familiar and ordered — became unpredictable.

He tried to keep his routine, but every step felt uncertain. He could no longer find the rhythm in his work, nor the confidence to know what to do next.

Walking Without a Map

One evening, restless and uneasy, he left the village. He didn’t know where he was going, or what he hoped to find. He only knew he needed to move.

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He walked into the forest, the rain soaking his clothes, the wind pulling at his hair. The forest was dark, tangled, unfamiliar. He had no plan. No destination. Just the quiet urgency of a heart searching for some sense of direction.

The Teacher in the Rain

Under a broad tree sat an old monk. His posture was calm, his expression still, as if the storm were simply another presence to sit with.

“How can you remain here?” the bamboo cutter asked. “Don’t you fear the flood, the wind, the chaos?”

“When has the world ever been still?” the monk said.

They sat together, listening to the rain. Finally, the monk spoke again:

“When you cut bamboo, do you know which stalk will bend and which will break?”

“No,” said the man. “I only cut what is ready.”

“Then do the same now. Cut what is ready. Leave what is not.”

The bamboo cutter closed his eyes. For the first time in weeks, he felt a breath settle in his chest, as if the storm itself had softened.

New Shoots After the Rain

Days passed. The clouds slowly dispersed, and sunlight returned, falling across the wet forest floor. New shoots emerged from the earth, straight and resilient.

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The bamboo cutter moved among them, touching leaves, feeling the steady pulse of life. He realized that he didn’t need a map or certainty. All he needed was presence — patience, attention, and a willingness to act only when the moment called for it.

Finding Stability in Uncertainty

Uncertainty is the teacher of patience and resilience. It asks us to pause, to trust, and to act only when the time is right. Life does not require that we have all the answers — only that we remain attentive and willing.

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The bamboo cutter left the forest with a quiet clarity: in the midst of the unknown, presence and careful action are the path forward.

Yours in the Dharma,

Lama Chimey

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Why the Buddhist Meditation Path is Good in the Beginning, Good in the Middle, and Good in the End

The Path Begins in Realization

The Buddha’s teaching is often said to be “good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end” — and that is exactly how I’ve experienced meditation. It begins with grounded clarity, deepens through compassion, and culminates in the fearless recognition of mind’s potential. Each stage contains the seed of the next, showing that the path is a continuous unfolding of insight and capacity.

The First Vehicle: The Discipline of Seeing Clearly

In the Theravada tradition, meditation begins with honesty and discipline. We train to see reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. Through mindfulness of breath, body, and thought, we begin to perceive the impermanent nature of all experience and the futility of clinging. This is the work of disentangling ourselves from confusion — not to escape life, but to stop mistaking illusion for truth.

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I loved practicing with the Theravada community — the simplicity, the silence, the grounded wisdom. Yet I always missed the presence of the bodhisattvas, those luminous symbols of compassion that had first inspired me on the Mahayana path.

The Second Vehicle: The Heart of Compassion

I began in Zen — a blend of Sōtō and Rinzai — rooted in the Mahayana tradition, where meditation expands into the vast field of compassion. Here, realization is no longer about one’s own liberation but the awakening of all beings. The bodhisattva ideal teaches that wisdom and compassion are inseparable. Practices like Metta (loving-kindness) and Tonglen (sending and receiving) embody this spirit of boundless empathy.

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In Mahayana, we learn to breathe with the world — to let the suffering of others open our hearts rather than close them. Meditation becomes an act of courage and participation, not retreat.

The Third Vehicle: The Indestructible View

Vajrayana, often called the Indestructible vehicle, reveals meditation as the recognition of mind’s innate emptiness and clarity. Rather than rejecting thoughts or emotions, we work directly with their energy. The raw, unfiltered experience of each moment becomes the very path. It’s a practice of inclusion — where nothing is outside awareness and nothing needs to be denied.

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When I first encountered this approach, it felt like stepping into a new dimension of freedom. The sacred and the ordinary merged, and that’s what skydancer world is all about. The practice no longer aimed at improvement, but at revealing the full capacity that was always latent within us.

Triyana – The Three Vehicles as One Path

Through Triyana Meditation, I integrate techniques from all three vehicles into every session — the grounded mindfulness of Theravada, the compassionate vastness of Mahayana, and the fearless awareness of Vajrayana, the Indestructible Vehicle. Each reinforces the other; each is part of the same unfolding truth.

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Meditation, in the end, is not about escaping the world, or managing stress, but revealing our full potential through it, by familiarizing ourselves with the minds ways. The path continues to evolve, just as we do — steady, spacious, and indestructibly alive.

If you wish to participate in live Triyana meditation classes, workshops, or retreats, you’re warmly welcome — find upcoming events here.
And if you prefer to begin from home, you can join me in an online meditation course. It’s a way to deepen your own practice at your own pace — discovering through reflections, guidance and practice – the clarity and confidence already waiting within you.

Yours in the Dharma,

Lama Chimey

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Awakening or Automation? The Dharma of AI Leadership

AI Generated Image

The Mirror We Built

Artificial intelligence is a reflection of the human mind — but not the mind in its totality. It mirrors a selected few of humankind: those who design it, fund it, and define its priorities. It does not create greed, attachment, or compassion; it amplifies the tendencies already present in those who shape it. From a Buddhist perspective, AI is a projection of mind (citta-santāna), shaped by craving and aversion.

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For all of us, and those of you who are leaders in particular, this is not abstract philosophy; it is practice. Each AI-driven decision, each automated process, expresses the mental states that created it. The question is not whether machines can be ethical — but whether we remain vigilant enough to guide them with intention. In my own dharmic blogging, I often write about how small, conscious choices ripple outward in ways we rarely notice. AI magnifies these ripples, making mindful leadership more urgent than ever.

Check out The Inner Wisdom Program for Leaders here.

Intelligence Without Wisdom

For the time being, AI has no access to wisdom (prajñā). It can calculate, predict, and optimize, but it cannot discern the true nature of reality. The Buddha spoke of ignorance (avidyā) — not simply lack of knowledge, but disconnection from absolute reality.

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Yet we treat AI outputs as oracles, and outsource discernment to algorithms in the hope of certainty. But insight cannot be coded. At least not at this point in time as far as I’m aware. Neither can awareness be delegated. When we mistake data for truth, we fall into the same fog of ignorance — only faster, only more convincingly.

Ethics as Design, Not Decoration

Ethical behavior is not a moral overlay on technology; it is the very seed from which all actions grow. Intention is the root of every effect. A system built on speed, extraction, or self-interest created by a few chosen representatives of humankind it will reproduce those roots endlessly, no matter how many “ethical guidelines” are layered on top.

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Leadership, then, becomes spiritual practice. Not preaching values, but embodying them through design and action. Asking: Who benefits? Who suffers? What qualities of mind are we cultivating — in ourselves, in our teams, and in the systems we create? Awareness without compassion is incomplete; the two must move together.

The Middle Path in the Machine Age

The Middle Path is about avoiding the extremes of nihilism and eternalism. Applied to AI, it means neither idolizing technology as omniscient, nor demonizing it as inherently corrupt. AI is a mirror — but a mirror of a selected few — revealing both clarity and confusion from a limited perspective.

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If we meet it with awareness and inclusivity paired with compassion, it can illuminate habitual patterns, loosen unskillful tendencies, and guide more conscious leadership. If we ignore these principles, it simply industrializes delusion. The dharma invites a quiet rebellion: stay awake, lead with mindfulness and compassion, and remember that insight is still the most advanced form of intelligence we know.

Check out The Inner Wisdom Program for Leaders here.

Yours in the Dharma,

Lama Chimey

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Expanding Our Circles of Loving-Kindness in a World of Cries

Loving-Kindness in a World That Feels Too Restricted

Love is rarely as simple as we might want it to be. It arrives quietly, insistently, sometimes in forms we do not recognize. We celebrate romance, cherish those closest to us, and yet often glance past the vast, unfolding field of beings who share this world with us. Buddhism teaches that love need not be limited, nor should it be. Metta, or loving-kindness, is a practice that stretches the heart beyond desire, preference, and attachment. It is not the flutter of butterflies nor the spark of passion. It is steadiness, warmth, and a quiet resilience. When we cultivate it, we discover that expanding care is not only possible—it is practical, restorative, and profoundly stabilizing.

The Four Doors to Compassion

Loving-kindness opens through what Buddhism calls the four objects of compassion, each a doorway into the world and into ourselves.

Ourselves – Begin with the self, often the hardest and most necessary door. To offer ourselves patience, ease, and clarity is not indulgence; it is foundation. It may take a quiet morning, a deep breath, a gentle acknowledgment of exhaustion or pain. Each act of self-kindness softens the edges of the mind and builds a heart capable of holding more than it imagined.

Those We Care For – Friends, family, mentors—those whose presence feels familiar and comforting. To them, we offer not obligation, but attention. Listening fully, speaking gently, offering patience when irritation rises—these small, repeated gestures weave threads of connection and trust. The brain itself begins to respond, learning that warmth, not expectation, is the language of belonging.

Strangers – The brief encounters, the glances, the lives we touch lightly. Recognizing their shared humanity, even in passing, reminds us that the world is far larger than our immediate circles. A nod, a smile, a pause to notice someone’s struggle—these tiny gestures echo quietly in the mind, strengthening empathy, softening judgment, opening space for care to flow where it is not demanded but offered freely.

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Those We Find Challenging – The hardest doorway of all. Difficult colleagues, neighbors, even strangers who provoke irritation. To extend care here is to strengthen the heart and steady the mind. It does not excuse harmful behavior, nor does it require engagement; it simply cultivates freedom. Remember always: you have the choice to step away from conversations or spaces that feel toxic, online or in person, while maintaining a measure of inner generosity. In this choice lies the essence of loving-kindness.

In my digital course, Introduction to Triyana Meditation, I guide students through practices that cultivate this expansive care. For those curious to explore gently, a mini, bite-sized course will soon be available, an invitation to experience the practice before committing to the full journey. Link to full course here.

Practical Ways to Cultivate Loving-Kindness

Even without formal meditation, there are countless ways to practice loving-kindness, small and practical, yet transformative.

Small Daily Actions: Listen fully. Offer patience. Notice small needs and respond with attention. A cup of tea shared, a door held open, a smile given freely—these gestures ripple far beyond the moment, altering the texture of our interactions and quietly rewiring the mind toward care.
Awareness of Reactions: Observe irritation, judgment, or aversion as they arise. Let these feelings be noticed without forcing them away. Your response is a choice, and in that choice lies freedom. Each moment of deliberate kindness, even inwardly, strengthens the capacity to respond with gentleness.
Digital Mindfulness: Step back from heated conversations online, or any exchange that drains or unsettles you. Protecting your energy is itself a form of care—both for yourself and for the conversation. Choosing not to engage is not withdrawal, but an intentional act of loving-kindness in action.

Through repeated attention to these practices, the heart gradually expands. What once felt like a finite circle grows, quietly and insistently, capable of holding more, noticing more, responding more with patience, warmth, and care.

Choosing a Heart That Expands

Loving-kindness is not romantic love, though it may feel warmer than desire. It is not possession, though it holds the world softly in the hand. It is immediate, practical, and transformative. Through everyday choices, subtle gestures, and awareness of where we place our attention, the heart can stretch farther than we often believe.

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If you are ready to expand your loving-kindness through beginning or deepening this practice, Introduction to Triyana Meditation offers guided loving-kindness meditations and much more. Read about it and sign up here. And for a gentle first step, the mini, bite-sized course will soon be available, perfect for exploring the practice before committing to the full journey.

Each moment spent wishing ease, extending care, or choosing mindful engagement strengthens the heart. Start small, notice the shift, and remember: every act of loving-kindness ripples farther than the eye can see. If you can’t wait to step further into the practice, and commit to making it a priority in your life, the full course provides deeper guidance and structure. I’m here to guide you. Are you ready? If so, start now, the world needs your loving-kindness!

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You know, the world softens where care is offered. It widens quietly, imperceptibly, until the boundaries we once assumed were fixed begin to dissolve. And in that space, the heart discovers its remarkable capacity to expand—beyond preference, beyond habit, beyond expectation.

Go love the world,

Lama Chimey

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Brytningstid: Embracing Change and Letting Go with Autumn’s Grace

There’s a hush that arrives before the leaves surrender their green. A pause so small it’s almost imaginary—like the breath before someone speaks a truth they’ve kept hidden for too long. The sun’s angle grows tender, the shadows lengthen and hesitate. This threshold between seasons—what in Swedish we call brytningstid—is not a clean cut but a gradual tilting of the light.

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I’ve learned that the heart recognizes this shift long before the mind does. It’s not a melancholy so much as a summons: a call to look at the way all things slip from one form into another. In Buddhism, we do not see this as loss. It is the river of becoming, the same river that has carried us from breath to breath, birth to birth, leaf to leaf.

The Silence Before the Turning

In the Jātaka tales there is one story I return to each autumn, perhaps because it, too, carries the weight of the season’s hush. It tells of a Bodhisattva—the one who in a later life would be born as the Buddha Shakyamuni—wandering in the high mountains as summer was giving way to cold winds. There he encountered a starving tigress and her five cubs, all too weak to draw breath. Moved by compassion so complete it made no calculation, he laid down his body as nourishment for her and her young.
(Scholars refer to this as the “Hungry Tigress Jātaka,” where the Bodhisattva sacrifices himself to feed a tigress who, in her desperation, might devour her cubs.)

What brings that scene to mind is what unfolded lifetimes later: when he was reborn as the Buddha. Those same beings—the tigress and her five cubs—reappeared as five wandering ascetic practitioners. They were his old companions from the years he had spent in severe yogic austerities, practices he eventually left behind after realizing that physical practices alone could not lead to liberation.

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When the newly awakened Buddha met them again near Deer Park, they were skeptical—seeing him as one who had strayed from their path of discipline. But as they listened to what he had realized under the Bodhi tree, their minds, already ripened by long practice and past karma, opened. Some of them came to realization during that very first teaching, known as the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. What had once been an act of sacrifice returned as the blossoming of wisdom. The circle closed, quietly, with a tenderness that autumn seems to understand.

The Autumn Lesson

Now, when I walk beneath thinning branches, I notice the way each leaf lets go—gently, without bitterness. They drift down in spirals, soft as the memory of a promise fulfilled. There’s no argument with the wind, no bargaining with the tree. I am inspired—reminded—what it means to fall with grace.

I reflect also on the words of His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, who says:

“Once we realize that our personalities are not fixed and that we can decide to actively change them … compassion and other inner qualities … need to be cultivated gradually, over time, and in concert with other qualities.”
—from Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society

That insight speaks well to our seasons of transformation: change is not a wound but a slow unfolding. We do not lose something essential; rather, we permit ourselves to evolve.

Autumn teaches this lesson better than any sermon. The tree does not weep for the leaves it loses. It does not believe it has been diminished. It trusts the bare branches to hold through winter, trusts the sap still running quietly within, trusts that the emptying is part of a larger rhythm.

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As a Buddhist priest, Lama, and as a fellow human being, I find this trust—this willingness to release what we cannot keep—may be the deepest practice we can learn. To lean into the breaking point of a season, of a chapter in life, without turning away or clinging to what once was. To let the shedding be a blessing, not a defeat.

Letting Go with Grace

Dear reader, you might be standing somewhere in your own brytningstid. Perhaps it is not autumn outside your window, but you know the feeling: that subtle tilt of light in your life, the quiet suggestion that something is ready to be released.

You have known the weight of holding on. You have known the ache of things changing against your will. And yet, as you look more closely, perhaps you can sense that what feels like breaking is also an opening.

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May you, in this season or the next, listen for the wisdom in the falling leaves. May you see that change need not be feared as loss, that release can be its own kind of nourishment. The trees will stand through winter’s silence; so will you.

When the time comes, may you, too, fall with grace—and trust that the ground will receive you gently, ready to nourish what will rise again.

Yours through change,

Lama Chimey

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How Convenience Turned Us into Birds Flying Into a Clear Glass Window

We live inside a paradox. The modern world has gifted us more convenience than any era before. Food arrives with a tap. Conversations happen across continents in seconds. Knowledge, once preserved in monasteries and libraries, now rests in our pockets. It should feel like liberation. Instead, many of you, leaders not the least – tell me they feel trapped—by stress, distraction, and the smallest of obstacles.

The truth is that convenience has not freed us. It has made us fragile. And in the absence of real challenge, we often manufacture friction to fill the void. This is where Vajrayana Buddhism offers a different lens: what if the obstacles we avoid are the very raw material of leadership and transformation?

The Trap of Endless Comfort

Convenience is not the enemy. In Buddhist practice, we deliberately simplify our lives so that we can pay attention to what matters most. A meditation cushion is a convenience compared to the bare ground. A text handed down from a teacher is a convenience compared to figuring it out alone.

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But there is a tipping point. Too much comfort dulls our edge. The mind, unchallenged, becomes impatient and brittle. The smallest disruption—a delayed email, a misinterpreted comment, a system glitch—sparks outsized frustration. In organizations, I see this ripple outward: teams get frustrated not because the problem is catastrophic, but because their capacity to work with discomfort has been quietly ruined.

This is not weakness. It is habit. We have trained ourselves to expect ease, and so we are startled by friction, like a bird flying into a clear glass window.

Turning Poison into Medicine

Vajrayana Buddhism teaches a radical view: nothing is wasted. Even the poisons—anger, fear, doubt—can be transmuted into clear wisdom. Obstacles are not interruptions on the path. They are the path.

This principle is vital for leadership. A leader who embodies this way of seeing does not try to eliminate all difficulty from the workplace. That is neither possible nor desirable. Instead, they show how to meet resistance with awareness and clarity. Friction is not denied or smoothed over. It is acknowledged, worked with, and ultimately transformed.

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Think of it as alchemy of the mind. The raw heat of frustration can be refined into the clarity of problem-solving. The heaviness of fear can be reshaped into the solidity of courage. The restless energy of doubt can be redirected into inquiry and innovation.

But this does not happen automatically. It requires training, discipline, and what I call Wise Inner Leadership—the capacity to lead oneself before attempting to lead others.

Leaders and the Myth of Seamlessness

Modern leadership often obsesses over efficiency, productivity, and seamlessness. But seamlessness is an illusion. Life is inherently uneven, unpredictable, sometimes sharp-edged. Leaders who try to create perfectly smooth systems end up with brittle cultures: one unexpected challenge, and everything splinters.

Vajrayana leadership is different. It does not ask: “How do we remove all friction?” It asks: “How do we relate to friction when it inevitably arises?” This shift changes everything. Instead of reacting with blame, acting out or avoidance, leaders can cultivate resilience in themselves and their teams. They can normalize discomfort as part of growth, not as a failure.

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Convenience has its place—it clears unnecessary noise so that our attention is free. But when convenience becomes the goal itself, it weakens the very capacities leaders need most: patience, resilience, and the courage to transform the unknown.

Choosing the Path of Wise Inner Leadership

So here is the invitation. Do not allow convenience to dull you. Use it wisely, but do not let it define you either. Welcome friction not as punishment, but as training. In organizations, this might mean creating spaces where challenges are named openly, where teams are guided not to panic but to pause, reflect, and transform.

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This is the work of Wise Inner Leadership. It is the core of my guidance program for leaders—and very soon, I will open an exclusive try-it-out for a limited group of leaders, for a limited time. If you feel called to explore how Vajrayana wisdom can strengthen your leadership, you will find more details here: The Inner Wisdom Program. Guided in Swedish or English.

Convenience can smooth the surface of life, but it is clear presence that gives us sustainability. Presence that meets difficulty without shrinking and without lashing out. Presence that can hold an organization steady when everything around it shifts. This is the leadership our times are asking for: awake, resilient, and unafraid.

Your guide to integrating the Dharma into your everyday life,

Lama Chimey

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Why are you acting like a Robot? Reclaim Your Humaness Through the Power of Sati

The Morning Begins with Awareness of Your First Breath

The first breath of the morning is a doorway. On one side lies sleep, on the other, the day. What we do in that threshold matters. If the first thing we reach for is a glowing screen, we lose control of our mind. This happens before we even know where we stand. But if we begin with presence—with a pause, with breath, with awareness—we reclaim that fragile space between dream and duty. In Buddhist practice, this is the essence of sati: remembering now.

Start Your Day Off-Screen and On-Purpose

When we speak of sati—mindfulness—we mean more than simply paying attention. It is the power to remember this moment, to meet it without distraction.

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Our phones train us to forget. Online, we are constantly asked to prove we are not robots: Click here to verify. Select all the images with bicycles. The irony is that by living automatically—rising, scrolling, reacting—we risk becoming robotic. We forget that we are incarnated beings, tender and raw, living in the flesh.

Remember Now: Reclaim Your Humanness from Autopilot

The body is not who we are, but it reminds us. To incarnate—in carne (Spanish)—is to dwell in the flesh. The warmth of a cup between your palms, the stretch of muscle, the cool air of morning on your skin—all of these are invitations to remember our true essence.

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Without judgment, with upekkhā—equanimity—we can simply allow what is here, neither clinging nor pushing away. This is how I guide my live meditation classes, always returning to the steadiness of equanimity.

Anchoring Your Morning Practice

Try beginning your day with just ten minutes of this remembering. Direct your awareness towards your breath as it is, without changing anything. Just be with what is. Make a warm drink and notice the weight of the cup in your hands. Stretch gently, as though greeting your body anew.

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Then step outside. Feel the elements on your skin—the touch of wind, the smell of rain, the warmth of sunlight. These are not trivial sensations. They are reminders that you are alive, that you are connected to the fabric of the earth itself.

Your Steady Morning Rituals Shapes Your Mind

Write down the first things that come to mind without judging it. Write in a journal: a dream, a thought, or one clear intention. Let it be one sentence you can remember and repeat every morning. Not as yet another robotlike sure, but as a vow springing from kindness.

Examples:

I vow to bring patience into this day.
I shall care for my own heart so I may care for others.
Today I wish to do no harm.

When such a sentence arises, it becomes both anchor and compass. Journaling is not just a quaint practice; it is a powerful way of meeting your own mind. In my digital courses, writing is an integral part of meditation training, because it deepens awareness and gives shape to what otherwise slips away. Explore my courses here →

This simple ritual is not only where Buddhist practice may begin, but also how it is sustained. Remembering now, through our thoughts, words and actions. Like water dripping steadily on stone, each morning of mindful presence wears a path deeper into the mountain of our habitual mind. Over time, what seems immovable—the stone of distraction, restlessness, and reactivity—yields. Practice makes its way to the core.

Let Presence Be Your Compass

So tonight, make a small preparation. Put your phone somewhere other than your nightstand. Place a notebook there instead. When you wake, write, stretch, breathe. Remember now.

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This is not self-improvement; it is remembering to live. Not as a performance, but a return to humanness. Begin your day not as a machine proving you are human. Instead, start as a being who has incarnated tender and raw. You have the chance—every single morning—to touch the essence of who you truly are.

Yours on the path,
Lama Chimey

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What does Buddhism Say About Love, Trust, and Partnership?

In Buddhism, love is not an object you stumble upon, clutch tightly, and fear losing. It is not a trophy for the fortunate, nor a prize for the deserving. Love is metta—loving kindness—an essence already present within every living being, though often buried beneath layers of fear, desire, and misunderstanding.

When the Buddha spoke of love, he paired it inseparably with compassion. To love someone is not only to feel warmth toward them, but to wish—truly wish—for their freedom from suffering. It is a discipline as much as a feeling, and a practice as much as a gift.

Love Beyond One Shape

The world likes neat boxes: one partner, one story, one ending. But Buddhism does not insist on one singular shape for love. Monogamy, polyamory, or other forms of committed relationship are not judged by their outlines, but by their substance.

What matters is trust, what matters is respect. These are the ground on which love flourishes. Without them, any form of relationship becomes fragile. With them, love becomes a steady force, capable of holding the complexities of life without collapsing under the weight of them.

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Love, in this sense, is less about possession and more about stewardship: tending to the fragile ground of another’s wellbeing, watching your own steps so as not to trample the roots.

Vows, Choices, and Sacred Rites

For monks and nuns, celibacy is not a casual choice but a vow. During my years as a nun, I understood it not as repression but as discipline—supporting practice by leaving behind the distractions of desire and attachment. It is a path that clears space for awakening.

Now, as a priest, my life is different. Not all lamas conduct weddings, but I have chosen to integrate the Dharma into daily Western life. This is why I hold a marriage license and am authorized to perform weddings and other rites of passage. In these ceremonies, I witness how love can be sanctified not by dogma, but by intention— people standing side by side, promising to meet life’s changes with kindness.

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Marriage, then, is not ownership, but a vow to practice compassion together. It is a spiritual training ground in its own right, whether blessed in a temple, a garden, or a windswept beach. You can read more about the weddings and other ceremonies that I conduct here.

The Heart of Loving-Kindness

If compassion is the body, loving kindness is the heartbeat. Metta is not sentimental, not sugar-coated. It is steady, fierce, sometimes difficult. It is the willingness to extend care even when the easier option is to turn away.

In Buddhist practice, metta meditation is the cultivation of this quality. We begin with ourselves, because a withered heart cannot give. Then we extend it to those we love, those we struggle with, strangers on the street, and even to those we might call enemies. The practice reshapes us, widening the circle of compassion until it encompasses all beings.

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And yet, it also returns us to the most intimate relationships we know. To love one person with metta is to love them not with clinging, but with spaciousness. It is to recognize that they are not ours, but themselves—free, luminous, impermanent.

A Buddhist View of Love

A Buddhist view of love is not about formulas or laws. It is not fragile, though it may feel delicate. It is resilient because it is rooted not in control but in compassion.

The question we return to, again and again, is simple: Does this bring harm, or does it nurture freedom? In every form of relationship—whether in partnership, in marriage, or in the vow of celibacy—that question is the compass.

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To live with love in this way is to walk a path guided by kindness, shaped by compassion, and strengthened by honesty. It is to choose, moment by moment, to make of love not a possession but a practice. And in that practice, we return to what was always there: the quiet, inexhaustible essence of loving kindness itself.

With Metta,

Lama Chimey

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Living the Bardo: Continuity and Presence

Recently, I was asked to hold space at a great gathering. The theme: transitions. Bardos. The rawness of impermanence.

Hundreds of people came.
Rows of bodies, breathing.
Eyes open, eyes closed.
Hands resting, hands folded.

The room hummed quietly, with the weight of expectation, of curiosity, of searching.

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It was not fear that moved them. Not grief. Not despair.
It was recognition. Continuity.
That even as forms dissolve, presence does not.
That even when life shifts, the thread is unbroken.

I realized, in that room, my mission made tangible:
to weave the sacred into the everyday.
To make the teaching of the bardo close as breath. Immediate. Intimate.
The Karmapas embody this kind of work on a master level in their returns.
Life continues. Awakening continues. Compassion continues.
Death is not the end.

The Gathering

I guided their presence carefully.
From sight to listening.
From the surface of things to the deep stillness beneath.
The lights dimmed.
Dimmer.
Darkness.

Silence grew.
Not heavy. Not oppressive.
A silence that held attention like a lantern in shadow.

I asked them:
“Why. Why are you here? In this body. At this time?”

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Some whispered inwardly.
Some let the question rest on the surface of their mind.
Some felt it in the body, a pulse, a tremor, a recognition.

They moved together through reflection.
They felt the bardo as reality, not as theory.
The space between breaths became passage.
The pause between words became doorway.

And I watched.
Hundreds of people, each touching continuity.
Not learning it. Living it.

Continuity and Choice

The bardo of death is universal. Everyone moves through it.
Most are carried by the winds of their habits, scattered without direction.
Ordinary beings are tossed, blown, driven.

Awakened masters move differently.
The Karmapas step with clarity.
They return, life after life.
By vow. By compassion. By choice.

In that room, this was reflected.
I spoke of the red thread of mind, unbroken across centuries.
Of teachers returning.
Of vows persisting, like rivers cutting through stone.
In their faces, some people recognized it.
Recognition not of the mind, but of awareness itself.
Immediate. Bodily. Felt.

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Some closed their eyes.
Some looked around.
Some simply breathed, letting continuity settle.
The sacred, woven into the ordinary, became visible.
The teaching was not abstract. It was present, alive.

Embodied Presence

I was reminded as I held the space, how living this teaching is.
The sacred is not distant.
It is the space between breaths.
The pause after a thought dies.
The silence after a word.
The presence of one human being facing another.

Hundreds of people, sitting quietly, felt it.
They did not leave with theory.
They left with a lived experience: presence is continuous.
Life is not ended by change.
The mindstream flows onward, through every passage.

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The Karmapas have done this work for centuries.
Returning again and again.
Showing that awakening continues.
That compassion is unbroken.
That the sacred can be woven into every ordinary moment.

The teaching of the Bardo

The gathering ended.
The room emptied.
Presence lingered.
People now carries this imprint with them — a living reflection of continuity, a mirror of the Bodhisattvas’ vow.

The teaching of the bardo was no longer distant.
It was as close as breath.
As real as the pulse beneath their hands.
As immediate as the awareness that flows through each moment.

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Life continues. Awakening continues. Compassion continues.
The red thread of presence runs unbroken.
Through centuries. Through this gathering. Through every moment we notice.

I give thanks to all of you for trusting me to hold the space.

Lama Chimey

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