As a smart kid growing up in an economically depressed area, my adolescent ambition-and that of many of my peers-could be summarized in the two-word mission “Get out!” As in: get out of this backwater state and find an interesting place to live where you can meet intelligent people and make a good living doing challenging work that has a real ( Read more... )

There seems to be a predictable trajectory for people who get interested in Vipassana meditation. At first it’s all about information-gathering: learning as much as one can about the dhamma by inhaling Buddhist books and dhamma talks.

Not surprisingly, when I went through that phase, I did it to the nines. From 2004 through 2008, I read ( Read more... )