Reading Archives (Author)
Arrivals and Departures
A cab driver describing his 'view': And this (pointing to the windshield)...this is like my little window to the world, and every...
Living at the Right Speed
Fast and Slow do more than just describe a rate of change. They are shorthand for ways of being, or philosophies of life. Fast is busy,...
Pale Blue Dot
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of,...
No One is Better Off
All human beings are at the same level. At the beginning of my apprenticeship with Don Juan Matus, he tried to make me see how common...
Use Our Whole Selves
I can see now that I started my professional journey on the day at age 4 when I declared to my parents and to the world, \"Mom, Dad, I...
Reveal Your Own Wholeness
All mental healing is based on the awareness of the presence of pure Life, or wholeness, at the center of the patient. It is a calling...
Practice of Being Real
The practice of being real is something highly underrated. We have been taught to appear in certain ways to get the approval of others....
Stepping into the Present Is a Gift
Most of us have heard of ego and let ego run our lives without realizing it. But few of us know how deeply our ego—the small, less...
The Posture of Presence
For years I have been searching for an education that is meaningful -- an education that doesn't press me into predetermined categories...
Send Love -- It Matters
Somewhere someone needs help. Send love. It matters. If you can't get there yourself, Then take a deep breath. Breathe in the...
As Way Opens
Lately I’ve been thinking about the traditional Quaker phrase, “Proceed as way opens.” Proceed as way...
Good Bones, Pushing Water
We had a small water crisis at our home this week. The break happened within a wall, and so we didn’t realize at first that a...
We Contain Multitudes
Walt Whitman once wrote, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain...
The New And Ancient Story Of Interbeing
Why does the sun shine? A random result of coalescing gases igniting nuclear fusion? Or is it in order to give its light and warmth to...
Storyteller Consciousness
For words to truly be powerful, we must align them with our creative intention. Only then can we create the stories of our lives....
Three Questions For A Better World
My friends have helped me see the deadly consequences of the growing gap between rich and poor. A wise African religious leader...
The Great Dictator
I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. ...
We Practice Forever
Charlotte Joko Beck's rules to help her students with their practice (ironically, or perhaps not, all these rules are directly...
A Bigger Container
We can talk about “oneness” until the cows come home. But how do we actually separate ourselves from others? How? The pride...
Our Practice Is To Close The Gap
Our whole life consists of this little subject looking outside itself for an object. But if you take something that is limited, like body...
Willing to Experience our Suffering
A few weeks ago someone gave me an interesting article on suffering, and the first part of it was on the meaning of the word...
Life is Relationship
Every moment of our life is relationship. There is nothing except relationship. At this moment my relationship is to the rug, to the...
Walking the Razor's Edge
When we aren’t into our personal mischief, life is a seamless whole in which we are so embedded that there is no problem. But we...
We Are All Beggars
A lived theology of the bottom does not see the world through good and evil lenses. This is not a denial of the existence of evil,...
Say Wow
Each day before our surroundings become flat with familiarity and the shapes of our lives click into place, dimensionless and average...
I No Longer Pray
I no longer pray— now I drink dark chocolate and let the moon sing to me. I no longer pray— I let my...
Ten Rules For Being Human
Rule One: You will receive a body. You may love it or hate it, but it will be yours for the duration of your life on Earth. Rule Two:...
Web of Life
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every...
Want To Escape
Q: Many people are aware of the truth of suffering but do not move on to the second step, awareness of the origin of suffering. Why is...
Spiritual Shopping
There is a general tendency to be involved with all kinds of fascinations and delusions, and nothing very much takes root in one's being....
Psychological Materialism
Even if you are against the materialism of society and you do not want to support it, refusing to work is still grasping at the wrong end...
Into The Chrysalis
Chrysalises both inspire and baffle me. The thought that a caterpillar can crawl into a sac made of its own body and dissolve its form...
Mistakes: Results That Show The Truth Of Things
The biggest fears are actually the biggest opportunities. I have seen falls. I have seen blood. I have seen gashes and swelled joints...
When My Life Is In Danger
A few years ago, an elderly monk arrived in India after fleeing from prison in Tibet. Meeting with the Dalai Lama, he recounted the years...
Beginner's Mind Vs. Expert Mind
We collect, store, and accumulate so much weight in this life. The thousands of thoughts, ideas, and plans we have are imprinted on...
Aliveness and Harmony
A man is alive when he is wholehearted, true to himself, true to his own inner forces, and able to act freely according to the nature of...
The Empty Boat
He who rules men lives in confusion; He who is ruled by men lives in sorrow. Tao therefore desired Neither to influence others Nor to...
Planetary Beings with Planetary Hearts
The instinct to fit in and feel safe seems stronger – to maintain the status quo – to be as comfortable and insulated as...
You Were Made For This
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our...
We Were Made for These Times
My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered....
Just This Once
I’d like to share a story about how I came to understand the potential damage of “just this once” in my own life. I...
Being Human
I wonder if the Sun debates dawn some mornings not wanting to rise out of bed from under the down-feather horizon if the sky grows...
A Flame In A Dark Cave
It was just another day of that, when it happened. I don’t know why, but the teacher suddenly broke off what he was saying and...
Who Me, Stealing?
When I’m teaching the five (ethical principles of Yoga), I often feel a little stumped with conveying the practical application of...
Why Silence Can Feel Agitating
In the mid-2010s, researchers at the University of Virginia ran a now-famous experiment. They asked college students to sit quietly for...
True Humility: Selfless Respect for Reality
From the potential unique location – the site of devastation that we might become – we understand that we are no grander...
Fishing Before You Know How To Fish
Through the pines and the one maple I hear her. I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish. I...
Not Loneliness, But Aloneness
Alone is a state of being. Not loneliness, but aloneness. It is something sought rather than avoided. You can find it in just a moment, a...
We Actually Never Experience 'It'
The "I" of the narrating mind is nothing more than a fictional but convenient construct used to organize all the separate...
Heart Is Not About Emotions
"Put the mind in the heart." From page after page in the Philokalia, that hallowed collection of spiritual writings from the...