Reading Archives (Author)
The Interplay of Awareness, Presence and Compassion
Many Masters have said: "Urge on the horse of awareness with the whip of presence!" And, in fact, if awareness is not...
A 13-Year-Old In A Museum
On a recent visit to the Museum of Modern Art with a friend and her daughter, meandering through the museum’s exhibits, I was...
My Word Of The Year
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...
Before You Know What Kindness Really Is
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth....
My Neighbor's Corn
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...
Why Can't We Tolerate Emptiness?
Why is it so hard for us to tolerate emptiness in our minds? The prevalent belief that action always equals progress may be a...
Three States Of Water
Imagine that you’ve never been to Earth. You visit first in winter, where someone introduces you to water. From a glass, they pour...
Meeting Our Own Mortality
Stories have helped us make meaning of the world, from ancient times when our ancestors whispered around campfires. Inner mental models...
Where's Your Umbrella?
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...
Purpose of Life
Here is the meaning, the purpose of your life: to create yourself, to create who you are. To express, to experience, to declare, to...
Irony Of Marriage
Largely, marriage has been used by those societies, religions, and families as a mini-prison, as kind of a contractual arrangement that...
The Oppressor and the Oppressed Must Both be Liberated
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...
The Grand Predicament
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...
Connecting Craft and Creativity
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...
Plan of Life
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...
Pain Expands Our Capacity For Joy
Daily, my work requires me to delve into the hellish reality of unimaginable experiences of gross abuse. Neither words nor images can...
Graduation
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...
Daily Life of Art
Since the inception of the human species and until only decades ago, daily life was infused with art making. We crafted our own tools,...
Nothing and Everything
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?...
I Am That
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...
The Challenge of Gift-Giving
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...
When My Father Faced An Emergency
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...
What Is Holding It Together?
For you, a respite of uncontainability. Safe pages for words, to taste them as they find their rightness. Let them rest in their silky...
How Caterpillar Turns Into A Butterfly
If you kneel down on the ground and look at a caterpillar very carefully, you'd probably think he's a pretty nice furry...
Emptiness And Compassion Go Hand In Hand
The word “emptiness” is a fair translation of shunyata, but it has the drawback of sounding negative, even despairing....