September 30, 2008. Panic, fear, and dread swept across the United States and around the world after the U.S. House of Representatives failed to pass a proposed bailout bill to rescue Wall Street firms and the crumbling credit markets. The U.S. stock market immediately dropped over 700 points, and markets in other parts of the world opened the next day with more declines.

Over the next weeks, even after the Congress passed a "rescue" bill for the economy and other countries moved to stabilize their financial systems, the markets continued a very rocky ride. Unemployment rates climbed, and whole sectors of the economy appeared to be near collapse. Economists and politicians alike predicted a long and hard recession ahead, tight credit, and more job losses. Those with retirement accounts and minimal savings worried about the quality of their lives in the future.

Out of all this, one thing is becoming crystal clear: all of us are going to have to find ways to live with financial insecurity. Here are some readings and practices to help you cope.

  • Robert A. Johnson and Jerry M. Ruhl on Inflation, Deflation, and the Middle Way
    In their book Contentment: A Way to True Happiness, one of the best spiritual books of 1999, Johnson and Ruhl note that modern life pushes us to inflate to the point of celebrating too-muchness, which is invariably followed by a deflation and a feeling of not-enoughness. Contentment lies in the middle way, and a bit of humor can help put things in perspective.
  • A Prayer to be Saved from Wanting
    The eighteenth century Jewish sage Rebbe Nachman of Brezlov offers a prayer covering some of the issues that come up in a time of financial insecurity: wanting what is not mine, jealousy, and desiring money or possessions. He asks for trust and satisfaction with what he has.
  • Wayne Muller on Knowing What to Cut and Let Go
    Muller draws some lessons from watching his fruit trees being pruned. What's important in the yard as well as in spiritual practice is cutting away what must be cut and letting remain what must remain. We must be clear and strong enough to make the cut when it is time to simplify our lives.
  • Wayne Muller on Exploring a Life of Simplicity
    What areas of your life would you like to simplify? What could you let go of easily? What choices and changes could you make? This meditation leads you through an exploration of these and other questions.
  • Jose Hobday on Living Without Encumbrances
    Fasting has been recognized as a spiritual value for centuries in many traditions. It reveals the truth that if we have less, we have more. Simple living means living without encumbrances that hold us down so that we can move with generosity and grace.
  • Jay McDaniel on Chanting the Grace Mantra
    "Lucky life. Oh lucky life. Oh lucky lucky life." This mantra acknowledges that there is a deeper grace operating in our lives. Our luckliness lies in our capacity to respond creatively to our circumstances and to know that we are animated by a source of wisdom and compassion that is forever new. Call it the Freshness Deep Down.
  • Chagdud Tulku on Understanding Impermanence
    In challenging times, we need to abandon our assumption that things will continue as they are, advises Tibetan meditation teacher Chagdud Tulku. Understanding that everything is impermanent enables us to appreciate what we have and enjoy it while it lasts.
  • Harold Kushner on a Ritual to Acknowledge Impermanence
    For the autumn holiday of Sukkot, Jews create a small annex to their homes where they meet with friends, drink wine, and eat ripe fruits. The flimsy annex, taken down at week's end, and the fruits, which will spoil if not eaten, are reminders of the beauty of things that do not last. It doesn't have to be the time of Sukkot, and you don't have to duplicate the entire ritual to enjoy both beuatiful and impermanent things and to signal your intention to live in the moment.
  • Timothy Miller on Living on the Pleasure Planet
    Imagine that Earth is a pleasure planet in our corner of the universe, and the smallest details of your existence appear in a new light. This useful fiction tricks your restless mind into wanting what you have.
  • Reflecting Upon Your Wealth
    "I am one of the richest people who ever lived." There are lots of ways to measure this wealth. A good practice, which we rarely do, is simply to reflect upon this fact.
  • Martine Batchelor on Letting Go of Comparisons
    Buddhist meditation teacher Batchelor examines the effect of making comparisons. It is a natural thing to do but a painful way to life. It gives us tunnel vision that takes away our enjoyment of what is possible for us. Cultivating appreciation can dissolve the power of this pattern.
  • Rejoicing at the Happiness of Others
    Repeating a phrase to wish happiness, good fortune, and continued joy on another over time helps us recognize and be grateful for our own happiness, good fortune, and joy.

When we cling to desire, our ego identity measures how well it is doing by how many of our desires are met. Renunciation, the conscious giving up of certain attitudes, views, behaviors, and goals, helps us form new relationship with both our egos and our desires, thus enhancing our lives.

  • Ego-Renunciation Practices
    Here are three ego-renunciation practices that loosen the ego's grasp on the mind: renouncing your attachment to being right, no longer measuring the success of your life by how many of your wants are met, and giving up being the star of your own movie.
  • Duane Elgin on the Simplicity Movement
    A quiet revolution is stirring: voluntary simplicity, soulful simplicity, compassionate living. It is a life beyond advertising's lure that taps the real sources of satisfaction and meaning: gratifying friendships, a fulfilling family life, spiritual growth, and opportunities for creative learning and expression.
  • A Guided Meditation on Simplicity
    Beginning with an exploration of any impulses to busyness or distraction, this meditation moves on to help you reflect upon how it might feel to be in the stillness of non-doing and to let simplicity be a source of renewal and creativity in your life.
  • Leonardo Boff on Trust and Faith
    Trust in a Greater One is a spiritual route that can enable us to transcend fear, which nullifies our joy in life and hinders our freedom. In this context, Psalm 23 still comforts us today because it nourishes our capacity for trust and brings us back the serenity needed to continue on our personal and group adventure on this tiny planet.
  • Being with Your Fear
    Ezra Bayda, a Buddhist meditation teacher, offers a simple practice for practice for being with your fear, feeling it, recognizing when it is present, and experiencing it just as it is. When we can do this, we move closer to the vast mind beyond our fear, and our fear becomes much less frightening.
  • Susan Jeffers on Embracing Uncertainty
    Life can be truly rotten on an objective level, but what matters is how we experience it on the subjective level. Do we interpret something as good or do we interpret it as bad? Jeffers quotes Wingate Paine, who wisely said, "Bad is how we see those experiences whose part in our growth we do not yet understand."
  • Reminding Ourselves that Things are Uncertain
    Buddhist teacher Ajahn Chah notes that whatever states of mind, happy or unhappy, occur, we need to constantly remind ourselves that "This is uncertain." We may get all upset about something that is not certain at all. Practicing this realization brings wisdom.
  • Joan Chittister on Hope in Times of Struggle
    Catholic progressive Sister Joan Chittister places the spiritual practice of hope in the context of faith that the future is in God's hands; she also sees hope as a response to the reality that life is a struggle. "The spiritual task of LIfe is to feed the hope that comes out of despair."
  • A Prayer of Trust in Times of Fear and Stress
    In times of widespread unemployment and economic stress, the words of Trappist monk Thomas Merton have an authentic and relevant ring to them. Many of us are walking without knowing the way, and it is difficult not to give in to fear and a feeling of being lost. Merton's famous prayer counsels us to have faith that God is with us in this crisis and will never leave us to face our perils alone.
  • Philip Simmons on Seeing God in Suffering
    The author wrote this absorbing memoir when he was dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. He provides many inspiring examples of dwelling not on suffering but on the beauty and blessings of an imperfect life. "May we attend with mindfulness, generosity, and compassion to all that is broken in our lives," he writes. "May we live fully in each flawed and too human moment, and thereby gain the victory." His advice applies not only to illness but also to any times of distress.
  • Bo Lozoff on How Anything Can Happen
    It doesn't help to resist difficulty. Bo Lozoff counsels that we accept the simple truth that anything that can happen to a human being may happen to you. There are many things we have control over and many things we have no control over. A simple mantra practice can help us refine our understanding of which is which.
  • William John Fitzgerald on Blessings
    Despite any difficulties we might be experiencing, if we look around with the eyes of wonder, we are bound to discover many blessings in our everyday life. Focusing on these through intentional prayer is one way of training ourselves to see the bigger picture. Through blessings, William John Fitzgerald celebrates everything from gravity to cell phones that can rescue us in trouble.
  • Nancy Roth on Little Prayers
    Another way to reinforce an attitude of gratitude is to make a practice of creating small colorful prayers as you go through your day. For example, in the grocery store, you might pause for a moment of praise: "Creator of all that nourishes us, you give to us the needs of the body."