Reading Archives (Author)
Radical Response
Although not wholly adequate, Matthew Fox's definition of prayer is still my favorite. It is a definition that doesn't even use the word...
Pain of Problems
Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we...
Arriving At Truth
We talked long into the night about what I did and what I had learned, and, when he was satisfied that the journey was not in vain he...
Going Beyond the Roles We Play
We seem so very real. But our bodies are really not our own and we have no control over either their coming or going. We have roles that...
Unencumbered By Thought
There is a process for reaching nirvana and it is this: You must repeat the mantra. And the mantra, which happens to be emblazoned on our...
Law Of Love
I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction. Therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only under...
Blink of an Eye
When it comes to the task of understanding ourselves and our world, I think we pay too much attention to those grand themes and too...
Radiating Photons of Goodwill
Every now and then, I'll meet an escapee, someone who has broken free of self-centeredness and lit out for the territory of compassion....
Accept What Is, Lead To Improve
“Accepting what is” and trusting the Universe is an essential approach to life. But so is “fighting for change.”...
Enjoy Your Work
There was a man who died and found himself in a beautiful place, surrounded by every conceivable comfort. A white-jacketed man came to...
Element of Surprise
Very little about the emerging nature of life supports who we have tried to be. Life invites us to play along, discovering as we go....
Between Yes and No
Root of happiness is knowing that everything changes. That's all there is to happiness. It's nothing you pursue. It's living in the...
Disturb the System
Think about how we generally have treated information. We've known it was important, but we've handled it in ways that have destroyed...
Uncomfortable Place Of Uncertainty
We weren’t trained to admit we don’t know. Most of us were taught to sound certain and confident, to state our opinion as if...
Evolving From Hope to Hopelessness
[Rudolf Bahro said,] "When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be...
Who Do We Choose To Be?
The powerful always defend the status quo because it is the source of their power and privilege. Any change that benefits others would...
Big Enough to Take It All In
To want to see clearly is a true act of fearlessness. To open our heart and mind, to be open to what life is offering us in this moment,...
Absurd Heroism
Consider Sisyphus. As described in both Greek and Roman mythology, Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to an eternity of futile and...
Disturb Me, Please!
In graduate school, I had one professor who encouraged us to notice what surprised or...
Hopium
The problem with hope is that it’s bipolar. Every time we rely on hope, we always bring in fear. Wisdom teaches that...
Love is the Source of Fearlessness
Some of the prison bars that we have constructed for ourselves are our fear of losing our jobs. Our fear of not being liked. Our need for...
The Order on the Other Side of Chaos
I use the word "chaos" to describe those times in an organization when people are confused, don't know what to do, and feel...
To Have Without Holding
Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard...
What Breaks Your Heart?
What breaks your heart? What does your soul long for? And, how is that connected to how you are living your life now? I love this...
I Care And I'm Willing To Serve
Lord I cannot preach like Martin Lurther King, Jr.or turn a poetic phrase like Maya Angeloubut I care and am willing to serve. I do not...
We Start Where We Are
When we learn to be of service to one another without imposing our ideas and advice, eventually the truth of our wholeness begins to...
Emotional Chains
The problem isn't that we're lost or apathetic, narcissistic or materialistic. The problem is we're terrified. A lot of us know we...
Born With One Purpose
We spend so much time on unimportant things -- things with no ultimate meaning -- yet for reasons no one seems to fully understand, such...
Giving it All up to the Stillness
I realize that I have spent much of my life waiting for inspiration. Ever since I was a child, I have had an Inner Voice that has guided...
Businessman and the Fisherman
A young businessman was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Seeing several large...
Thinking, Feeling, Willing
In these difficult times, my great hope is that we can move to a culture that balances our needs and wants with our actions and...
Integrity Grows From A Humbling Realization
"The purpose of life is ... to know oneself. We cannot do so unless we learn to identify ourselves with all that lives." -- Mohandas K....
From Transaction To Trust
The most precious and important things in life are, by definition, nontransactional. And to try to bargain for them is to immediately...
Not Taking Things Personally
An unfortunate side effect of our consciousness residing in our brains is that everything we experience in our lives involves us somehow....
Love Like Water
Water in its clear softness fills whatever hole it finds. It is not skeptical or distrusting. It does not say this gully is too deep or...
The Work Of Love Is To Love
My own time on earth has led me to believe in two powerful instruments that turn experience into love: holding and listening. For every...
Living In The Freshest Chamber Of The Heart
Our ability to find something to love, and to love again for the first time depends greatly on how we resolve and integrate where...
The Energy of Being Real
"Mana" is a term originally used in a Polynesian and Melanesian cultures to describe an extraordinary power or force residing in a person...
Be Alight with Who We Are
There is always purpose in being, but not always being in purpose. How easily we get caught up in defining who we are in relation to...
The Rabbit And The Garden
In the movie Phenomenon, John Travolta's character has done everything he can think of to keep this pesky rabbit out of his garden....
Waterfall of Words
There was a time in my life during my years in college when I was so talkative that the waterfall of words kept others at a safe...
The Exquisite Risk
At any moment, if quiet enough and open enough, we can drop into the fabric of existence in which everything, even pain, has its vivid...
The Practice Before The Practice
From the moment we open our eyes, we are meaning-seeking creatures, looking for what matters though we carry what matters deep within us....
To Separate and Unify
The destruction or healing of the world hinges on which way this thought unfolds. Whether we pull things apart or put things together...
Honoring the Gill Inside You
A simple fish nosing its way along the bottom is in itself a profound teacher, and like the deepest teachers, it doesn't even know it...
To Witness and To Hold
We have been battered by modern times into obsessive problem solvers, but as life pares us down into only what is essential, it...
Wisdom in Blinking
We blink a thousand times a day. A thousand times a day the world goes dark. A thousand times a day we wake. We can't escape this...
The Unwatched Space
I tried so hard to please that I never realized no one is watching. I imagined, like everyone else at school, that my parents were...
Outlasting the Fog
We all have these moments when the rose loses it color for some reason, or the music no longer stirs us, or the sweet, gentle soul across...
The Great Divide
The great divide: On the left there is business It loves to think and problem solve Move fast and talk with resolve Perform so hard...
Superstition
Walking under a ladder. Breaking a mirror. A black cat darting across our path. Whoa! Most of us scorn superstitions as silly beliefs of...
Blessed Unrest
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all...
A Newly Rich Life With Yourself
Do not despise your inner world. That is the first and most general piece of advice I would offer. Our society is very outward-looking,...
The Broken Piano In 1975
My favourite piece of music is Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert, an hour-long piece improvised, as all of Jarrett’s concerts...
Three Supports For Turning Towards Mystery
There are three primary supports for nonconceptual awareness. These three supports are obvious in many ways, and yet, their simplicity...
Definition of Greatness
The setting is clear. James and John are making a specific request of Jesus -- "Now when you establish your kingdom, let one of us sit...
I Have Decided to Stick With Love
I’m concerned about a better World. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood and sisterhood;...
We Shall Overcome
I refuse to accept the idea that the "is-ness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal...
Love Your Enemy
"Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which...
His Own Eulogy
Every now and then I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common...
Drum Major Instinct
There is deep down within all of us an instinct. It's a kind of drum major instinct.a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the...
Building a Creative Temple
Whenever you set out to build a creative temple, whatever it may be, you must face the fact that there is a tension at the heart of the...
Pilgrimage to Nonviolence
First, it must be emphasized that nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards; it does resist. If one uses this method because he...
Renewability Makes Something Valuable
In the village, people used to build their houses out of traditional materials, using no iron or lumber or nails, but the houses...
Keeping The Smoke Hole Open
In Siberian myth, when you want to hurt someone, you crawl into their tent and close the smoke hole. That way God can’t see...
Three Types Of Leadership
There are three ways that human beings can accomplish anything together and each of them has its own type of leader. Very simply, the...
What Is Your Storyteller Doing?
At 8:28 AM I slipped into the pool at my gym for my half hour swim. There was a water aerobics class that began at 9:00, which left just...
Starlings In Winter
Chunky and noisy, but with stars in their black feathers, they spring from the telephone wire and instantly they are acrobats in...
When Death Comes
When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps...
The Central Commitment Of The Creative Life
Intellectual work sometimes, spiritual work certainly, artistic work always -- these are forces that fall within its grasp, forces that...
My Work is Loving the World
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast;...
Meaning of Yin and Yang
Everything has a right to live. Everything wants to exist and we have to respect that. The weaker side in any relationship...
The Way of the Farmer
Extravagance of desire is the fundamental cause which has led the world into its present predicament. Fast rather than slow, more...
The Difference Between Natural and Unnatural
For thirty years I lived only in my farming and had little contact with people outside my own community. During those years I was...
Do-Nothing Cultivation
The usual way to go about developing a method is to ask, "How about trying this?" or "How about trying that?" bringing in a variety of...
Cultivating An Eagle Mind
Human qualities often come in clusters. Altruism, inner peace, strength, freedom, and genuine happiness thrive together like the parts of...
The Fish, The Net, And The Water
Once the fish said to the turtle: “I have heard about a huge thing that is called ‘the ocean.’ Does it really exist?...
Go Placidly Amid the Noise and Haste
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be...
Now I Become Myself
Now I become myself. It's taken Time, many years and places; I have been dissolved and shaken, Worn other people's faces, Run...
The Day I Learned The Value of a Smile
My paternal grandmother who raised me had a remarkable influence on how I saw the world and how I reckoned my place in it. She was the...
Objectivity and Relationships
Why has expressing love become such a problem when it's a fundamental human characteristic? This is where I think we have over analyzed...
Groundlessness
Hope is what propels us into action. We’ve been taught to dream of a better world as the necessary first step in creating one. We...
Going Beyond Hope and Fear
For me and most of my colleagues, life these days is a roller coaster ride between hope and fear, oscillating wildly between what's...
The Messiah Is One Of Us
Once upon a time there was a wise abbot of a monastery who was the friend of an equally wise rabbi. This was in the old country, long...
I-ness At Arm's Length
The activities you are engaged in of serving the nation and the people are good. But to acquire the full bliss through "karma yoga",...
The Danger of Service Without Spirituality
Service, even when it is utterly selfless, ought to be guided by spiritual understanding; for selfless service, when unintelligently...
I Have Noticed
I have noticed that emptiness is just another word for spaciousness. I have noticed that attachments,...
The Simplest Meditation
How can everything be perfect if it’s so screwed up? That question goes to the heart of the situation we find ourselves in,...
Gymnastics Of Attention
I once tried an improv class to see if that would finally help calm my stage nerves. It didn't. But I did learn something amazing....
What Breathes Us?
When you touch your bliss, it rings, confirming with the showering of further delight. A song emerges from the core of your being when...
Attachment is Habitual Thinking
We all judge our experiences through the filter of habitual thinking. In other words, we are unconsciously driven by how we think,...
Giving Within For-Give-Ness
People often say that Jesus taught, "You should turn the cheek if someone smites you; you should turn the other cheek if they wrong...
Enlightenment is Intimacy with All Things
Depending on how we use it, the mind can obscure or reveal truth and thereby create hell or heaven for us. In that sense, where we...
You Are Saved By Your Love
Love is the power that reveals truth and drives our search for it. You may have noticed that if you study something deeply - an animal, a...
Longer Ladders Don't Get You To The Moon
Sundials came into being over 3,000 years ago, telling time-based on shadows cast by the sun. But they were thrown off by variations in...
End of Absence?
As we embrace a technology’s gifts, we usually fail to consider what they ask from us in return — the subtle, hardly...
Difference Between Healing and Curing
In my thirty years of working with cancer patients, I've seen a profound distinction between curing and healing. Curing is what a...
The Process Of Understanding
We'll focus on the union of two apparently contradictory gestures: simultaneous holding and releasing. Holding. I...
We Can See Only What We Can Think
Fortunately or not, everything we do is led by our thinking. There's just no way around it. Even if I say, "I'm going to...
Zero-Sum Game of Violence
When we have a non-violent outlook, we no longer look on a dispute as what's called a 'zero-sum game.' Instead of thinking that for me...
Zorba The Greek
From a book review of 'Zorba The Greek': The plot of Zorba is deceptively simple: a bookwormish writer (called in the novel "the...
Surrender Your Data
Surrender your data, and I will give you wisdom. Empty your bank accounts, and let me show you value. Shut your eyes to entertainment,...
Spiritual Activism
I'm an environmentalist and I'm very much into cars that get high mileage and don't pollute, and I see that somebody's...
The Highest Spiritual Path
The highest spiritual path is life itself. If you know how to live daily life, it all becomes a liberating experience. But first you have...
Transmutation
The energy is expressing itself because you stored it in there. Every way you think — "I've been this way since I was little"...
What You Have Given Your Mind to Do
If you mistreat an animal, it becomes afraid. This is what has happened to your psyche. You have mistreated it by giving it a...
The Surrender Experiment
Life rarely unfolds exactly as we want it to. And if we stop and think about it, that makes perfect sense. The scope of life is...
Pain, the Price of Freedom
Wise beings do not want to remain a slave to the fear of pain. They permit the world to be what it...
The Anatomy Of Falling
Leaving the seat of Self is not generally a willful act. The laws of attraction will cause it to happen. Consciousness is always drawn to...
Blind Spots
Studies suggest that less than 50% of what we "see" is actually based on information entering our eyes. The remaining 50% plus is pieced...
Dark Side Of Empathy
Empathy that connects, that builds, that heals requires a code of ethics. It requires restraint. It requires trust. It asks the...
Attention Is Inseparable From Interrogation
Our attention is much more than we generally think. It is much more than a simple mental or cerebral mechanism. It concerns our whole...
Heart And Soul Bonds
Our lives are greeted by different types of relationships. Some fun, some cozy and intimate, some crazy and adventurous, some...
Why I Make Movies
All movies are an illusion. We think we are seeing motion but in fact we are seeing twenty-four still pictures every second. Half the...
Changing Existence into Flow
"[Flow means] being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and...
On Good and Evil
Contemporary understanding of matter and energy also suggests a new way of thinking about good and evil. Evil in human affairs is...
Keep No Accounts With Love
You are the tree of Life. Beware of fractioning yourselves. Never set fruit against fruit, a leaf against a leaf, or a bough against a...
Accessing Desire As Loving Motivation
When Yannai, my sister Inbal’s son, was three and a half, his grandparents were visiting and were staying in the downstairs room....
Who Is Having This Pain?
The good news about pain is the way it cries out for attention. If you place your mind on your pain, you know just where your mind is....
Saying Yes To Our Lives
All my life, I have been enamored of the God-intoxicated ones. Those rarified souls who slip into ecstatic states and spontaneously...
Thirsty For Wonder
Contemplative life flows in a circular pattern: awe provokes introspection, which invokes awe. Maybe you’re making dinner and...
Fullness On The Other Side Of Emptiness
In many mystical traditions, across the spectrum of the world’s religions, we find a paradoxical teaching that says the most...
The Dark Side of the Sacred
Emotions live in the body. It is not enough simply to talk about them, to be a talking head. We need to focus our attention on emotions...
Part of the Ocean
Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air...
Embarrassed by Silence
He enters the classroom, sits down, doesn't say anything. He looks at us, we look at him. At first, there are a few giggles, but...
Wave is Part of the Ocean
"I heard a nice little story the other day," Morrie says. He closes his eyes for a moment and I wait. "Okay. The story is about a...
The Phenomenon of Boredom
The labeling of a huge part of human experience as boring is a relatively new phenomenon. The concept of boredom -- a sense of emptiness...
Secret of Aikido
The secret of Aikido [a form of martial arts] is to harmonize ourselves with the movement of the universe and bring ourselves into...
To Do Something Well
"If you want to do something well, what ever it may be.... you must become what you are doing and not remain a small person looking at...
Missing Drop In The Ocean
A friend of Mother Teresa from her early days came by hoping to have a quiet word with her and found, to her pleasant surprise, that...
Give It Your Best Anyway
It is reported that Mother Theresa had this on her wall ... People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them...
No Better Place to Meet Yourself
Moussa Ag Assarid (MAA): I don’t know my age. I was born in the Sahara desert, with no papers. I was born in a nomadic camp of...
Reflections on Life from Death Row
Reggie once told me that we could use these cells like meditation cells used by monks in monasteries. But prison is not a monastery....
Me We
Me We....