Growing up down the street from advanced Buddhist practitioners (like Daniel Goleman, or Joseph Goldstein, or Sharon Salzberg), is no guarantee that your life will be easy, and that you will just know how to avoid suffering. How do I know this? Because I learned from Dave Smith, of www.davesmithdharma.com.

Between the ages of 11 and 18, Dave experienced the death of two loved ones. Like others, he watched as some of the people closest to him tried to pretend that nothing was wrong.

Buddhism and meditation have been the most transformative forces in his life. As one of his early dharma teachers said to him,

"Now you have wisdom - because your heart has been ripped open."

And part of that wisdom is the recognition that what we all need is to learn how to be sad. And that equanimity means accepting sadness and tragedy in the same way that we accept joy and happiness.