It seems that joy is in high demand and short supply these days. At the intersections of increasing cost of living, less free time, and an abundance of social and political upheaval, it's not a surprise that many of us are looking for more skillful ways to deal with life's stresses and find more joy.

The following excerpt is a short writing on loneliness by H.H. the 17th Karmapa, the current head of the Karma Kagyü lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. This writing hit home for me in so many different ways, as it takes a lot of courage to speak one's truth despite the social and political consequences. It is also very rare for the head of a Tibetan Buddhist lineage to be so publicly vulnerable.

The day I became a Buddhist monk was one of the best days of my life. If I had to compare it to something, it's sort of like a wedding day, but you are marrying yourself! I had been preparing for it for over 7 years, and it felt like the fruition of a lot of hard work and aspirations.

Growing up in a middle-class California household, a child of the 80's and 90's, I had most of my needs taken care of and more. When the latest video gaming system would come to market I would beg my parents for it and would most likely get it.

Many of us struggle to stay afloat these days. We have increasing social, financial, and work burdens that often stretch us in many different directions at once, and a meditation or spiritual practice can unfortunately easily slip into just being one more thing on the to do list.

On the Buddhist path we generally treat opening the unconditional heart as a process. This is because the love and care we show up with in the world is an act and not a product.

On November 3, 120 participants gathered at Garrison Institute for a six-day silent retreat with Tsoknyi Rinpoche. The retreat, “Dreamlike Enlightenment: Understanding Illusion from a Dzogchen Perspective,” explored the intersections of a grounded sense of emotional well-being in the body, and the Dzogchen path of inner freedom through recognizing our own inner luminosity or rigpa.

For the most part, I loved being a monk. I learned ways of being with myself that I don’t think I would have had the opportunities for if I took another route at age 28. Although challenging, being a monk was an incredibly precious opportunity to look at my mind and emotions from within the boundaries of the Buddhist monastic tradition.

Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of warm summer days at jazz festivals with my family, as my dad played bass with some of the best in the industry.

After returning to Colorado from my first trip to Nepal I was asked to teach the Tukdrub Trinley Nyingpo Guru Rinpoche Sadhana to the local Pundarika community in Crestone. This is a complex development stage practice within the Vajrayana tradition, coming from a cycle of Nyingma treasure teachings.

Nepal has an allure and mysticism that calls many to its valleys and mountains. Bordering Tibet, India, and Bhutan, it has been a gateway to the Himalayas for centuries. It boasts 8 of the worlds 10 highest peaks, and is the birthplace of the Buddha.

Crestone, Colorado is a tough place to explain. It’s a boggling confluence of majestic mountains, spiritual communities, and conspiracy theories. It attracts millionaires, monks, and traveling bands of mountain hippies.

Over the nine years I spent as a Buddhist monk I encountered some very unique challenges. Eventually what came to be one of the biggest challenges was simply a lack of Western monastic community within my tradition.

For me retreat life was often a paradoxical combination of simple living and psychic surgery. At times it felt like I was being pulled apart from all sides, my inner demons raging, at other times I couldn’t fathom living any other way.

I was a sensitive kid growing up and was teased a lot. Over time this somehow became normalized as I received it from both classmates and so called friends. I longed to just be accepted for who I was and left alone.

Leaving my retreat cabin to travel was often bitter sweet, as although it was always nice to get a break, take teachings, and to get a little social time in, the opportunity to practice intensively under very conducive retreat conditions was and is rare.

I have a complicated relationship with boredom. I didn't grow up in the iPhone generation, but I did grow up when Nintendo and Sega ruled. I vividly remember waiting in anticipation for school to finish so I could go over to my friends house and binge on the latest video games until my mom had to drag me home.

Arriving back home after three months of being in India was a mild culture shock. The first thing I noticed was all of the billboards lining the freeway as I drove from the airport with my dad. I felt both the sadness of leaving a country so rich in spiritual wisdom and the comfort of being able to roll down the window and breathe fresh clean air.

Traveling through India by train is both a joy and a slow torture when you are a large 6’2 man. On any plane, train, or automobile, it is almost a guarantee that your body will be forced to contort into some awkward physical posture or another. To make matters worse, I somehow ended up on the wrong train (with a much smaller bunk than I paid for) from New Delhi to McLeod Ganj.

After a circuitous trip that culminated in a grueling (and bumpy!) overnight taxi ride, myself and my travel companions (two nuns) pulled into Mundgod, India. We quickly learned that getting into Drepung Monastery was not going to be as easy as we thought.