Reading Archives (Author)
The Interplay of Awareness, Presence and Compassion
Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche
Many Masters have said: "Urge on the horse of awareness with the whip of presence!" And, in fact, if awareness is not quickened by presence it cannot function. Let's examine an exampl...
A 13-Year-Old In A Museum
Nancy Collier
On a recent visit to the Museum of Modern Art with a friend and her daughter, meandering through the museum’s exhibits, I was struck by how often my friend’s 13-year-old daughter asked us ...
My Word Of The Year
Nancy Gibbs
My word of the year is listen. It’s one of those words whose meaning is in its music. Listen is a quiet word, that half swallowed L and diffident I and softly hissing S. It defies the clamoro...
Before You Know What Kindness Really Is
Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved,...
My Neighbor's Corn
Naren Kini
There was once a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he gre...
Why Can't We Tolerate Emptiness?
Natasha Dem
Why is it so hard for us to tolerate emptiness in our minds? The prevalent belief that action always equals progress may be a contributing factor. We perceive emptiness as an undesired state, somethin...
Three States Of Water
Natureza Gabriel Kram
Imagine that you’ve never been to Earth. You visit first in winter, where someone introduces you to water. From a glass, they pour it out over your hand. You drink. Remarkable. Imagine that y...
Meeting Our Own Mortality
Navin Amarasuriya
Stories have helped us make meaning of the world, from ancient times when our ancestors whispered around campfires. Inner mental models that explained the outside world shaped our perceptions, and for...
Where's Your Umbrella?
Nazeer Ahmed
The rains failed again that year. It was the third year in succession when there was no rain. The crops had disappeared and the land was a brown swath of dusty rubble. Trees had lost their leaves year...
Purpose of Life
Neal Donald Walsch
Here is the meaning, the purpose of your life: to create yourself, to create who you are. To express, to experience, to declare, to fulfill, to be, who you really are. Every decision you make -- ev...
Irony Of Marriage
Neale Donald Walsch
Largely, marriage has been used by those societies, religions, and families as a mini-prison, as kind of a contractual arrangement that says: "Everything will be, now and forevermore, the wa...
The Oppressor and the Oppressed Must Both be Liberated
Nelson Mandela
I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must...
The Grand Predicament
Nic Askew
A fear of not belonging drives much of what we do and how we are. Unknowingly it can define the experience of a life. Most of us live with an underlying sense that we are not yet enough. And ...
Connecting Craft and Creativity
Nicholas Hlobeczy
NH: When trying to work creatively things can begin to go downhill. All of a sudden you find yourself down in the valley, down in the doldrums. You wonder how you got there. Inattentiveness plays its...
Plan of Life
Nicole Grasset
For most of us, the first thing we must do is to work -- to have a roof over our head, bread in our mouth, fire in our chimney -- for ourselves and for those who are dependent on us. Work chosen...
Pain Expands Our Capacity For Joy
Nikole Lim
Daily, my work requires me to delve into the hellish reality of unimaginable experiences of gross abuse. Neither words nor images can fully convey the emotional crises, psychological torment, and hear...
Graduation
Nimesh Patel
Have your eye on the goal, but then let it all go For everything changes, as you will come to know Every plan you make, and every seed you sow Is impermanent, nothing is ever yours to own Once y...
Daily Life of Art
Nina Wise
Since the inception of the human species and until only decades ago, daily life was infused with art making. We crafted our own tools, we sewed our own clothing, we built our own shelters, we cultiv...
Nothing and Everything
Nisargadatta
Love says: I am everything. Wisdom says: I am nothing. Between the two my life flows. Q: How can I find peace when the world suffers? A: The world suffers for very valid reasons. If you want to he...
I Am That
Nisargadatta Maharaj
The real does not die, the unreal never lived. Once you know that death happens to the body and not to you, you just watch your body falling off like a discarded garment. The real you is timeless ...
The Challenge of Gift-Giving
Nitin Paranjape
I am afflicted with a trait which I suppose is common, yet I feel peculiar. Even though I like receiving gifts, I find myself feeling awkward giving them. I suppose at the core is an assumption that t...
When My Father Faced An Emergency
Nora Bateson
Someone asked me once if I had ever seen my father in an emergency situation, and if I might describe how he dealt with it. At the time I replied that I had never witnessed him in any danger, or in an...
What Is Holding It Together?
Nora Bateson
For you, a respite of uncontainability. Safe pages for words, to taste them as they find their rightness. Let them rest in their silky beds of lyrical dreams. Let them run like rivers down mountain-si...
How Caterpillar Turns Into A Butterfly
Norie Huddle
If you kneel down on the ground and look at a caterpillar very carefully, you'd probably think he's a pretty nice furry fellow with a rather boring life. And you would be right. BU...
Emptiness And Compassion Go Hand In Hand
Norman Fischer
The word “emptiness” is a fair translation of shunyata, but it has the drawback of sounding negative, even despairing. The Chinese, searching for a word that might translate shunyata...