7 Best Articles on Zen
The most useful articles on zen from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Zen Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved on zen by Refind users in 2023 so far.
How to ...?
How to Let Go of Obsessive Overthinking
By Leo Babauta Sometimes, our heads won’t stop thinking about something. Our thoughts will spin around and around, not willing to let go, obsessing. It might be about another person, a big event…
«Don’t look at the object of your thoughts or the problem you need to solve … but the fear that’s having you want to obsess and overthink»
How To Be Better At Being Good To Yourself
Tips and tricks for becoming a more mindful, active, and zen human being
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles on zen—all under 10 minutes.
Become Your New Habit
By Leo Babauta Quitting an old habit or forming a new habit is fairly simple when it comes to the steps to doing it: find your trigger and do a new habit at that trigger over and over. Remind yourself…
«CLINGING TO OLD MENTAL PATTERNS The mental patterns that keep us stuck in old habits are tied to our old image of ourselves.»
Powerful Training for the Mind
By Leo Babauta Every one of us has thought patterns that keep us stuck: Discouragement: What’s the point, I’m going to fail anyway, why even try, it’s too hard. Rationalizing: It’s OK to skip this, I…
«Try the new thought pattern. Say it to yourself and try really believing in it. Fully empower it. See what effect it has.»
How Zen Koans Unlock the (Gateless) Gate of Enlightenment
A koan is a riddle or puzzle that Zen Buddhists use during meditation to help them unravel greater truths. We look at some examples to see how these enigmatic sayings work.
Making peace with our unpeacefulness: Claude AnShin Thomas' path from war to Zen Buddhism
Claude AnShin Thomas enlisted in the US Army at 17, served as a helicopter gunner and crew chief in the Vietnam War, and was awarded numerous medals and a Purple Heart – all before becoming ordained…
To experience Zen-like awakening, try going the headless way
Try to point to your true self as you’d point to a brick wall, and other experiments in Zen-like awakening
Publications
We monitor hundreds of publications, blogs, newsletters, and news sources in Zen, including:
Leo Babauta
Creator of Zen Habits. Training in uncertainty. Zen student, vegan, dad, husband.
Mark Manson
3x #1 NYTimes bestselling author. Best known for F-Bombs and uncomfortable truths. Giving life advice that doesn't suck since 2008.
Quanta Magazine
Big ideas in science and math. Because you want to know more. Launched by @SimonsFdn. 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. http://quantamagazine.org
Aeon+Psyche
Aeon is a magazine of ideas and culture. Psyche is our sister magazine focused on the human condition. Visit http://aeon.co and http://psyche.co for more.
Tricycle Magazine: The Buddhist Review
🧘 Print + Digital magazine with a mission to share Buddhist teachings globally. ➡️ Begin your day positively with #Buddhist wisdom: http://tricy.cl/3MdVrzn
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks the most relevant links from around the web for you. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful. We favor timeless pieces—links with long shelf-lives, articles that are still relevant one month, one year, or even ten years from now. These lists of the best resources on any topic are the result of years of careful curation.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets the most relevant links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, mark as read, read later, «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Which sources does Refind monitor on zen?
We monitor hundreds of sources on zen, including Leo Babauta, Mark Manson, Quanta Magazine, Aeon+Psyche, Tricycle Magazine: The Buddhist Review, and many more.
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
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