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 comfortable even in the face of fear. People who maintain perspective and values regardless of circumstances. People whose lives are not driven by shame, 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 (happiness!) through intentional cultivation of the our natural capacities. Thousands of years of ancient wisdom, corroborated by contemporary science, has given us a clear outline of how this is possible. 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 at any inkling of an uncomfortable emotion, or 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 our culture is telling that you are not good enough as you are (unless you buy this product!). Think of our dopamine-driven reptilian brain prescribed opioids, our inner-critic comparing us to thousands of others on social media, our inherent drive to create smothered by Candy Crush, our negativity-biased brain flooded with violent sensationalized media, our heartfelt craving for connection drowned out by porn and AI bots, our caveman instinct for calories offered an unlimited supply of ice cream cake, our fight-or-flight energy getting stuck on ON because we sit sedentarily reading emails at a desk all day.

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, but I digress), 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 modalities, empirically studied mindfulness meditation and similar 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. A way of being happy.

All it takes is a little watering.