Reading Archives (Author)
Where The Ganges Murmur On A Sunny Day
Have you ever unlocked the main door and entered your home after a vacation of two or four weeks? You are greeted by the smell of a...
Door Without a key
Alike for those who for To-day prepare, And those that after some To-morrow stare, A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries "Fools!...
Don't Leave Me Raw
A woman was standing over a fire, having poured a handful of dry, hardened chickpeas into water. As the water warmed up to the point of...
How Is Your Heart Doing?
In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask them how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, Kayf haal-ik? or, in Persian, Haal-e...
Praise Song for Wide Open Space
Wide open spaces fill my heart with a sense of awe. It can be a plain, a desert, a view from a mountaintop, a vista. Somehow wide open...
The Way You Live Today
Your entire destiny is contained in and determined by the way you live today: the orientation you give to your thoughts and feelings,...
Oprah Interviews Dalai Lama
O: What is our purpose here on earth? DL: To help one another. O: So the whole reason we are on this planet is to serve each other? DL:...
Become the Change
Some people might find it ironic that I've never been much of a TV watcher. Aside from old reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, I stopped...
The Invitation
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's...
The Call
I have heard it all my life, A voice calling a name I recognized as my own. Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper....
Moments of Grace
Once in a while, we are given moments of real grace. Sometimes, during my early-morning meditation, a place within me opens and parts...
Catching Anger
A Zen student came to Bankei and said: "Master, I have an ungovernable temper -- how can I cure it?" "Show me this temper," said...
Come To Your Own Conclusions
"Always remember, whatsoever I say to you, you can take it in two ways. You can simply take it on my authority, 'Because I say so, it...
The Fallacy of Togetherness
Make friends with those who are on the path at least as much as you are. If they do not take you forward, at least they do not become a...
The Art of Staying in Balance
The most difficult thing, the almost impossible thing for the mind, is to remain in the middle, to remain balanced. And to move from one...
Truth is Alive through Alertness
Your truth can be alive only if it comes through alertness, not through precepts and principles. Each moment, you have to be alert in...
Divided You Suffer, United You Dance
Do things with your whole heart, with as much intensity as you are capable of. Anything done halfheartedly never brings joy to life....
Only Real Thing
Relationship is a mirror, and the purer the love is, the higher the love is, the better the mirror, the cleaner the mirror. But the...
A True Rebel
It is an old association, and a misunderstanding, that to be a nonconformist is to be a rebel. The nonconformist is a reactionary; he...
When Stillness Comes on Its Own
"The old habits will continue; the thoughts will go on rushing. And your mind is always in a rush hour, the traffic is always...
No Homes, Only Houses
There is no home, there are only houses. We try to make homes out of houses, but in fact, home is projection -- there is only a house...
Sadness Starts Laughing
Be of good cheer. Let cheerfulness become a climate that surrounds you day in, day out. Cheerfulness should not remain just an emotion...
Your Abundance
Love is innocent when there is no motive in it. Love is innocent when it is nothing but a sharing of your energy. You have too much, so...
Totality Not Perfection
The very idea of perfectionism drives people crazy. The perfectionist is bound to be a neurotic, he cannot enjoy life till he is...
You Carry Your Wound
You carry your wound. With the ego, your whole being is a wound. And you carry it around. Nobody is interested in hurting you, nobody is...
Effort And Effortlessness
With effort, reach to effortlessness. With seeking, reach to a state of no-seeking. With mind, arrive to no-mind. There are two types...
Change Your Mind Not Actions
My own experience is that if you can be silent, and if you can transcend mind and your consciousness can grow, it does not matter what...
Mind is a Projector
Mind is a projector. You sit in a movie house and you see a thousand and one things passing on the screen, and the screen is empty;...
Four Types Of Listening
In my years of working with groups and organizations, I have identified four basic types of listening. “Ya, I know that...