Reading Archive (Patience)
Live the Questions Now
In the great silence of these distances, I am touched by your beautiful anxiety about life, even more than I was in Paris, where...
My Misgivings About Advice
My misgivings about advice began with my first experience of clinical depression thirty-five years ago. The people who tried to...
Business Lessons from A Quiet Gardener
The people who know me best know that at heart I am just a quiet gardener. My garden has probably taught me the most about how things...
Seeing Fully
We were poor monks who needed buildings. We couldn't afford to employ a builder — the materials were expensive enough. So I had...
The Power of Patience
If we can be quieter, more in the moment with what is actually happening, a world of perception opens up for us based on where we are,...
Being Judicious, not Judgmental
One of the most difficult but necessary skills we need to develop as meditators is learning how to be judicious without being judgmental....
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...
Lessening the Power of Negative Emotions
I profoundly believe that real spiritual change comes about not by merely praying or wishing that all negative aspects of our minds...
To Find Something, Don't Look For It
Between takeoff and landing, we are each in suspended animation, a pause between chapters of our lives. When we stare out the window into...
Every Piece is Meant For You
Ever since I was young I enjoyed solving puzzles and having the pleasure to see the bigger picture afterwards. But even after all that, I...
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....
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...
Neighbors Are Our Practice
Meditation is only one of the many qualities that is emphasized. It's a very important one because we have to understand our mind, and we...
Doing What You Love
You should be doing what you love. What you love is as unique to you as your fingerprints. You need to know that because nothing will...
Anger as an Opportunity
An alias member (who prefers to stay anonymous) shares these thoughts: "How can I practice patience when there is no one to be angry...