Reading Archives (Author)
Discipline Of Tao
A master called Yuan came to Tai-chu Hui-hai and asked: 'When disciplining oneself in the Tao, is there any special way of doing...
The Power Paradox
Life is made up of patterns. And one pattern kept appearing in scientific studies I've conducted over the past twenty years. It's...
An Awe Walk
What gives you a sense of awe? That word, awe—the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your...
Artistic Way of Living
\"Even when you look at a beautiful flower, you just talk about it; your mind interprets it. You note the color, form, texture and scent,...
Riding the Crest of the Unknown
You know little about yourself -– the hidden motives and blind spots, where thought actually takes its shape, where desire is subtly...
Do we Use Thought, or Does Thought Use us?
Have you ever looked meditatively into the cause-and-effect of thought, into the birth and death of thought, the cycle that creates fear...
Creativity of Silence
We can discover a new beauty of life in silence. When once you see that beauty, you will not be interested in the agitated cravings of...
Seeds of Real Action
Why is it that the mind cannot be in the present? The mind moves on and on because it just cannot be quiet. We do not really need...
Without A Yardstick
When you just sit down, real peace immediately appears. Before any object called "peace" appears, peace appears. So there is no room to...
Mental Immunity
Everyone knows that physical pain is bad and tries to avoid it. We do this not only by curing diseases, but also by trying to prevent...
Causes Of Happiness
The purpose of life is to strive for happiness. Every sentient being has the right to survive; this means having a desire for...
Compassion
Compassion can be roughly defined in terms of a state of mind that is nonviolent, nonharming, and nonaggressive. It is a mental...
The Day I Learned Giving
Once when I was a teenager, my father and I were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus. Finally, there was only one other...
Tell Me Your Story
It came to me in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago, four words that could change the world: Tell me your story. These...
To Transcend: Observe Cause and Effect
Self-mastery involves recognizing what we are not responsible for -- the thoughts that enter our mind and flow out, and the emotions that...
Developing Mindsight
Oftentimes people hear the word mindfulness and think “religion,” but the reality is that focusing our attention in this way...
Social Intelligence
One day, late for a meeting in midtown Manhattan, I was looking for a shortcut. So I walked into an indoor atrium on the ground floor of...
Attunement: an Agendaless Presence
Attunement is attention that goes beyond momentary empathy to a full sustained presence that facilitates rapport. We offer a person our...
Three Millimeters of the Universe
Dear Sam, One night in the hospital, a friend came to visit me. I told her I didn't think I could go on anymore. What I was...
Those Who Float
Young as you are, I know you already know something about faith. You have faith in your mother's arms. That's a good start....
Letter to My Grandson
Change is difficult for all of us. The older we get, the more change we face. All change involves loss, and whenever we lose...
Kazoo Player And The Symphony
Imagine there is a great symphony orchestra in a great concert hall and in front of it, like an absurd comedy act, sits a clearly nervous...
Small Kindnesses
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers...
The Skills Necessary To Deal With Anguish
Truly accepting pain is not at all like passive resignation. Rather, it is active engagement with life in its most intimate sense. It is...
Maybe Something We Remember
Believe me when I say I wish I could offer you something like an instant parting of the clouds, a single sentence or practice that would...
The Two Beliefs of Successful People
All day long, you are affected by large forces. Genes influence your intelligence and willingness...
Help Comes From the Strangest Places
Help comes from the strangest places. We are living in the middle of a revolution in consciousness. Over the past few decades,...
I-It and I-Thou
(Reflections on "I-Thou" by Martin Buber) I-It relationships come in two varieties. Some are strictly utilitarian....
Eulogy Versus Resume Virtues
About once a month I run across a person who radiates an inner light. These people can be in any walk of life. They seem deeply good....
Yodeling Above Freedom
There is a thrushing light alive - dancing and whirling; concealed by midlife shadows in my antsy eyes. My snow-shining mountainous...
Kindness, Plain and Simple
I believe in kindness. But it's hard to be kind. We're not trained for it. Kindness is for sissies; we learn that early. "Nice guys...
The Most Precious Freedom
Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate...
Song Of The Birds
For millennia, the language of birds has called us to cross divides. In the Qur’an, Solomon received a bounty and blessing when he...
Look Around In Wonder
Look around, look around, Look around in wonder, Trace the thunderous cloud above That feeds the river under. Look above and look...
Wonder Increases As Speed Decreases
Indulge me for a moment: let’s do a short thought experiment. We’ll compare two different mornings. On one, you’ll fly...
Flow of Money
In a modern society in which most everything essential to a secure and happy life seems to depend on money, the flow of money takes on...
Turning Ourselves Toward Stability And Hospitality
The Benedictine-Camaldolese monk, Bruno Barnhart says it very well: “We humans prefer a manageable complexity to an...
The Humility in True Genius
A universal characteristic of genius is humility; after all, those in whom we recognize genius commonly disclaim it, as they’ve...
When Vanishing Vanishes
There\'s something to love and faithfulness, beauty and goodness, something that is not subject to time. For me, it is enormously...
Meaning: Where Monk and Child Meet
The monk in us is very closely related to the child in us or, if you want, to the mystic in us — and we are all meant to be mystics. We...
Inner Voice Vs. Ego Voice
I was recently talking to a friend who was laboring over whether or not to move in with her boyfriend. She had previously...
What to Remember When Waking
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake, coming back to this life from the other more secret, moveable and frighteningly...
The World Also Has a Soul
"There is a core delusion at the center of our struggles in all organizations. A core delusion that narrows our sense of self and...
The Great Tragedy of Speed
Speed in work has compensations. Speed gets noticed. Speed is praised by others. Speed is self-important. Speed absolves us. Speed...
Time is a Season
Most traditional human cultures have seen the hours of the days in the same way as they have encountered the seasons of the year: not as...
Everything Is Waiting For You
Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no...
We Are What We Choose to Be
On rare and precious moments, someone will tell me about when he used to play the saxophone or when she used to dream about opening a...
I Will Not Die an Unlived Life
I will not die an unlived life I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living...
Letting Someone Know They're Not Alone Is No Small Thing
Months ago, I decided to explore volunteering for a hospice organization. My initial curiosity came up when I contemplated wanting to...
Compelling Authenticity
At one time I got interested in trying to understand how great leaders created enormous social change -- take Christ, take Muhammad,...
A True Leader
Leader presumes follower. Follower presumes choice. One who is coerced to the purposes, objectives, or preferences of another is not a...
You Become What You See
What you see you become. What you see is a selective act of attention and interpretation. Although you are inundated by billions of bits...
The Seven Traits of Creative People
The deepest reality you are aware of is the one from which you draw your power. For someone who is conscious only of the material world,...
Law of Least Effort
If you observe nature at work, you will see that least effort is expended. Grass doesn't try to grow, it just grows. Fish don't try to...
Residing in the Space Between
Everything that we call form and phenomena, that we call observer and observed, is all coming from the same place, including our own...
Pursuit of money
Below are excerpts from the Associated Press article, "Deion Sanders Reflects on Troubled Past", published on Sep 27, 1998:...
Who Am I? I Am Thine!
Who am I? They often tell me I stepped from my cells confinement Calmly, cheerfully, firmly, Like a Squire from his country house....
The Difficulty In Listening
Nasruddin was at the teahouse one afternoon when Arif the hakim walked in. “How are you, Mullah? I hope you and your family are...
Evolution's Gold Standard
Feeling low? According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, when people feel bad, their sense of touch quickens and they...
Thoughts Are Just Thoughts
What we normally call the mind is the deluded mind, a turbulent vortex of thoughts whipped up by attachment, anger, and ignorance. This...
Science of the Heart
"If you change your perception, you change the experience of your body and your world." Your perceptions underlie how you think and...
Genjo Koan
Enlightenment is like the moon reflected in the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is...
Being Nice Isn't The Same As Being Kind
Kind people go beyond what's expected of them. They go beyond the easy response to offer the best of who they are. They do it without...
The Mystery of Silence
Silence cannot really be described. It is not the absence of sound. It makes it possible to notice sound. It is still, but its stillness...
Listening As An Act Of Transformation
Two villagers came to a rabbi with a dispute. When the rabbi invited them to sit down and talk about it, they glowered at each other as...
What Can You Trust?
In young people’s minds right now, the main issue is what they can trust in their own experience. In the 50s and 60s, we trusted...
End Of The World
The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world ... it is also the end of a way of knowing the world. "When a world...
The Best Day Of My Life
The best day of my life—my rebirthday, so to speak—was when I found I had no head. This is not a literary gambit, a witticism...
Our Early Experiences
My mother had muscular dystrophy, which is a degenerative disease of the muscles. It’s hereditary, runs in our family. And so, she...
Subsconcious Blueprint
If you were building a new home for yourself, you know that you would be intensely interested in regard to the blueprint for your...
Presence Of Things Beyond Flesh
Lecturing has always come easily to me. Backed by the technical, the theoretical, a few supporting slides, and a captive audience of...
Voluntary Simplicity
There is no special virtue to the phrase "voluntary simplicity"--it is merely a label and a somewhat awkward label at that. Still, it...
Make Death Your Ally
Death is an important ally for appreciating life. I am not referring to a morbid preoccupation with death. Rather, I mean the felt...
Conscious Simplicity
Here are three major ways that I see the idea of simplicity presented in today’s popular media: 1) Crude or Regressive...
The Nature of Knowing That We Know
The word "consciousness" literally means "that with which we know." It has also been termed the "knowing...
The Shambhala Warriors' Weapons
There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger. Great barbarian powers have arisen. Although these powers spend their wealth...
Spiritual Materialism
What first comes to mind to speak about is my own spiritual materialism. I find that as I'm reading or reflecting upon the teachings...
Living With a Rebel Within
Your true mind is a mind of joy, free from all suffering. That is who you really are. That is the true nature of your mind and the mind...