Reading Archives (Author)
Finding the Fire
Tad Hargrave
Okay, so once there was this cow lying in a field. And it mooed and mooed and mooed. A passer-by asked the farmer, "Why is your cow mooing so much?" "Because hes lying on a nail" came the swift resp...
Give Thee My All
Tagore
I had gone a-begging from door to door in the village path when thy golden chariot appeared in the distance like a gorgeous dream and I wondered who was the king of all kings! My hopes rose high an...
The Practice of Happiness
Tal Ben-Shahar
1. Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions -- such as fear, sadness, or anxiety -- as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, ...
The Sacred Art of Pausing
Tara Brach
In our lives we often find ourselves in situations we can’t control, circumstances in which none of our strategies work. Helpless and distraught, we frantically try to manage what is happening. ...
En-Lightening
Tash Shadman
And as I want for Words to come, Ideas to flow, Pain to go, I suffer my judgment of what is so. And as I will for Me to mend, Feeling to flee, Them to see, I suffer my judgment of what be. ...
A Whole New Dimension Of Love
Tenzin Palmo
Everything is flowing. And this flow isn’t made up only of external things. It includes relationships, too. Some relationships last for a long time, and some don’t—that’s the w...
Neighbors Are Our Practice
Tenzin Palmo
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 can only understand our mind by looking at it. But to be a wel...
Like The Sun Shining
Tenzin Palmo
Sometimes people don't understand how Buddhism can talk about compassion and love in one breath and non-attachment and all these qualities of renunciation in the other breath. But that's because we co...
Clinging Causes the Pain
Tenzin Palmo
Genuine love and kindness is desperately needed in this world. It comes from appreciating the object, and rejoicing in the object, wanting the object to be happy and well, but holding it lightly, not ...
Why Not Be Ready?
Tenzin Palmo
Our everyday life is our spiritual life. If we have awareness to be able to use our everyday life as practice, then our lives have meaning. Otherwise, the days go by—impermanence, as we know&mda...
Three Kinds of Laziness
Tenzin Palmo
The Buddha described three kinds of laziness. First there is the kind of laziness we all know: we don't want to do anything, and we'd rather stay in bed half an hour later than get up and medi...
A Heart Of Warmth Is Not Something Impossible
Tenzin Palmo
What does love mean? In the West, we mistake the meaning of love; we bandy the word around all the time, from “I love ice-cream” to “I love God”. But we mistake love for desire...
Awake or Asleep
Terri O'Fallon
The beauty of this day awakens within me. The ocean tides in my eyes wash over my cheeks with the surprise glimpse of the elegance of the blue from which the sun arises, spilling its kisses onto the s...
Wisdom Of Grieving
Terry Patten
Not only is grieving a stage of the spiritual activist’s journey, but the grieving process itself often unfolds in stages, which can be described using Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s famous five ...
Stay With The Breath
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Put aside your old ways of using your eyes and ears and nose, tongue, body, and mind to focus on issues outside there in the world, to get your knowledge about the world, to figure out how to gain wha...
Equanimity Of Doctor, Hunter, Warrior
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
There are three types of equanimity. First is the equanimity that realizes how even though you may have goodwill for all beings and compassion and empathetic joy, it’s not the case that every...
On Perfection and Priority
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Determination seems to underlie all the perfections [of the mind]. There are four aspects to determination. You use your discernment to decide what you want to accomplish, to see how it best...
Dignity of Restraint
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
A word that tends to disappear from common vocabulary is restraint: foregoing certain pleasures, not because we have to, but because they go against our principles. The opportunity to indulge in...
Reality Poses No Danger
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Things that are real pose no danger to the mind. The real dangers in the mind are our delusions, the things we make up, the things we use to cover up reality, the stories, the preconceived notions we ...
Learning Not to Be Afraid of Things That Are Real
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Recently I've been looking through a field guide on nature observation. The author, when he was a child, was trained by an old Native American. One day the child asked the old man, "Why is it...
Deciding What You Want to Keep
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Look at your life in the same way you’d look through an attic, deciding what you’re going to keep, what you’re going to throw out. You’re moving from a house with a large attic...
Beyond Being Present
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
All that past and all that future weigh down this one little moment here in the present: No wonder the present buckles under the weight. But if all the present has to support is just this one moment, ...
No Mistake is Fatal
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Our minds are pretty chaotic systems, which is why following the middle way is so difficult. It's so easy for a chaotic system to get knocked out of equilibrium, to veer off to the left, to veer off t...
A Meditator's Bag of Tricks
Thanissaro Bhikku
Meditation is not just a question of technique. In training the mind, you have to remember there's a whole committee in there. In the past the committee has had its balance of power, its likes and dis...
The Grain of the Wood
Thanissaro Bhikku
There are two sides to the path of practice: the side of developing and the side of letting go. And it's important that you see the practice in both perspectives, that your practice contains both side...
The Committee of the Mind
Thanissaro Bhikku
There are many different ideas of “you” in your mind, each with its own agenda. Each of these “you's” is a member of the committee of the mind. This is why the mind is less...
Stop Shooting Arrows
Thanissaro Bhikku
The Buddha compares pain with being shot by arrows. Physical pain is like being shot with one arrow, but then on top of that you shoot yourself with another arrow, the anguish you build up around the ...
Being Judicious, not Judgmental
Thanissaro Bhikku
One of the most difficult but necessary skills we need to develop as meditators is learning how to be judicious without being judgmental. An as a preliminary step to developing that skill, it's good t...
A Prayer
The Book Of Psalms
Blessed are the man and woman Who have grown Beyond their greed And have put an end to their hatred And no longer Nourish illusions. But they deligh...
The Dalai Lama: Why I Laugh
The Dalai Lama
I have been confronted with many difficulties throughout the course of my life, and my country is going through a critical period. But I laugh often, and my laughter is contagious. When people ask me ...
Lessening the Power of Negative Emotions
The Dalai Lama
I profoundly believe that real spiritual change comes about not by merely praying or wishing that all negative aspects of our minds disappear and all positive aspects blossom. It is only by our concer...
Violence and Nonviolence
The Dalai Lama and Victor Chan
"What is violence? What is nonviolence?" the Dalai Lama had once asked me in one of our interviews in Dharamsala. "Very difficult to make clear. It is related to motivation. If we have ...
A Map To Here
The Gnostic Writer
Many people tend to see spiritual awakening as a challenge, goal or spiritual destination  -- something to be achieved or accomplished. One advantage of seeing awakening this way is how it creat...
The Call To Adventure
The Mother
We are in a very special situation, extremely special, without precedent. We are now witnessing the birth of a new world; it is very young, very weak -- not in its essence but in its outer manifestati...
The Matrix
The Wachowskis
"Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there's somet...
Smile a Lot
Thich Nhat Hanh
Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We must also be in touch with the wonders of life...
Clouds In Each Paper
Thich Nhat Hanh
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow: and without trees, we canno...
Still Arriving
Thich Nhat Hanh
Don't say that I will depart tomorrow--even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning t...
Five Prayers
Thich Nhat Hanh
In gratitude, I bow to all generations of ancestors in my blood family. I see my mother and father, whose blood, flesh, and vitality are circulating in my own veins and nourishing every cell in me. T...
Call Me by My True Names
Thich Nhat Hanh
Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive. Look deeply: I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, le...
When Light Shines, Darkness Becomes The Light
Thich Nhat Hanh
From time to time you may become restless, and the restlessness will not go away. At such times, just sit quietly, follow your breathing, smile a half-smile, and shine your awareness on the restlessne...
See The Universe In A Sunflower
Thich Nhat Hanh
I live in Plum Village, in the Dordogne region of southwest France, an area known for its sunflowers. But people who come to Plum Village in April do not see any sunflowers. They hear people saying th...
You've Been Nirvanized Since The Nonbeginning
Thich Nhat Hanh
Who can say that your mother has passed away? You cannot describe her as being or nonbeing, alive or dead, because these notions belong to the historical dimension. When you touch your mother in the u...
Interbeing
Thich Nhat Hanh
Emptiness does not mean nothingness. Saying that we are empty does not mean that we do not exist. No matter if something is full or empty, that thing clearly needs to be there in the first place. When...
On Meditation
Thich Nhat Hanh
"During meditation, various feelings and thoughts may arise. If you don't practice mindfulness of breath, these thoughts will soon lure you away from mindfulness. But the breath isn't simply a m...
Fearlessness
Thich Nhat Hanh
Most of us experience a life full of wonderful moments and difficult moments. But for many of us, even when we are most joyful, there is fear behind our joy. We fear that this moment will end, that we...
Renaissance
Thich Nhat Hanh
This morning, at sunrise, a new bud appeared on the tree. It was born around midnight. The bark, the skin of the tree, split open under the incessant movement of its sap to make room for a...
The Blooming of the Offering Within You
Thich Nhat Hanh
A poem is a flower you offer to people. A compassionate look, a smile, an act filled with loving-kindness is also a flower that blooms on the tree of mindfulness and concentration. Even thought you do...
Clear and Present Compassion
Thich Nhat Hanh
Understanding and compassion are very powerful sources of energy. They are the opposite of stupidity and passivity. If you think that compassion is passive, weak, or cowardly, then you don't know wha...
Do You Have Time To Love?
Thich Nhat Hanh
To love is, above all, to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some training is necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love? Being there is very much an art, the art o...
Bridging Practice and Non-Practice
Thich Nhat Hanh
We have many compartments in our lives. When we practice sitting meditation and when we do not practice sitting, these two periods of time are so different from each other. While sitting, we practice ...
Dandelion Has My Smile
Thich Nhat Hanh
If in our daily lives we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. If we really know how to live, what better way to start the day than with a smile? ...
Nature and Nonviolence
Thich Nhat Hanh
You don’t discriminate between the seed and the plant. You see that they ‘inter-are’ with each other, that they are the same thing. Looking deeply at the young cornstalk, you can s...
Ancient Law of Hospitality
Thomas Berry
Perhaps our greatest resource for peace is in an awareness that we enrich ourselves when we share our possessions with others. We discover peace when we learn to esteem those goods whereby we benefit ...
Opening To Greater Life
Thomas Berry
Tell the [future generations] that something new is happening, a new vision, a new energy, a new sacred story is coming into being in the transition from one era to another. Tell them in the darkne...
A Question of Story
Thomas Berry
For peoples, generally, their story of the Universe and the human role within the universe is their primary source of intelligibility and value. Only through this story of how the Universe came to be ...
The Cosmology of Peace
Thomas Berry
The issue of interhuman tension is secondary to earth-human tensions. If humans will not become functional members of the earth community, how can humans establish functional relationships among...
Can Love Make Progress?
Thomas Jay Oord
The idea that humans can make progress strikes some as naïve. With every war and its chaotic aftermath, looming ecological disasters, and the deviance reportedly inherent in human nature, it seem...
The Hardest and Most Courageous Act
Thomas Merton
We do not live merely to "do something" –- no matter what. Activity is just one of the normal expressions of life, and the life it expresses is all the more perfect when it sustains itself with an o...
The Self Is Not A Thing, But A Process
Thomas Metzinger
The body and the mind are constantly changing. Nothing in us is ever really the same from one moment to the next. Yet the self represents a very strong phenomenal experience of sameness, and it’...
Many Schooled But Few Educated
Thomas Moore
If busyness is an emotional complex, then it's likely that when we are busiest, we are doing least. We can be extremely active without being busy, and busy without accomplishing anything. We may be...
Tale Of The Ringless Ring
Thomas Moore
Nasrudin was a spiritual leader and teacher in a small village. He was honored and respected as a mullah, although he was rather unusual and unpredictable. One day a man of great virtue in the vil...
Freely vs Free
Thuy Nguyen
Today, after receiving acupuncture during my donation based shift, a patient asked me why I was “giving away” such amazing treatments for free. Don’t you value your skills? She asked...
Space To Heal
Thuy Nguyen
Healing requires space. As we plow through day to day life, we dream about finding a time when there will be space to heal, rejuvenate and refuel. Some of us are holding off until the weekend, wh...
Seeking To Understand
Timber Hawkeye
My friend Julie and her husband argue about the “right” way to do laundry: he loads the washing machine with dirty clothes, adds a cup of detergent on top, turns on the machine, and walks ...
Fueled By Love
Timber Hawkeye
When a parent sees their child is about to be attacked by someone, it doesn't matter how peaceful and calm they normally are, most parents would still resort to violence (or much wo...
Gratitude
Tiruvalluvar
A good turn done is a heaven-born gift you cherish Ask 'Will (they) repay it?' and it'll perish A helpful act howsoever slight When timely, acquires true height To help without think...
The Boss And The Attendants
TKV Desikachar
The great masters, in ancient times, not only had visions of the Higher Force, they were also very practical. Their teachings are simple: They encourage the development of a great mind, but warn us th...
Die Empty
Todd Henry
I remember a meeting in which a friend asked a strange and unexpected question: “What do you think is the most valuable land in the world?” Several people threw out guesses, such as Man...
No Rush, No Dawdle: The Secret Of Proper Timing
Tom Maxwell
The present is truly the only place we exist. What we call the past is a construct of memory, the recollection of which constitutes a present experience. According to author Alan Watts, the futur...
One-Minute Excellence
Tom Peters
One-minute excellence. I can sense the curling of your lips. While such a catchphrase makes me shudder, too, it contains a gem waiting to be discovered. How do you go on an effective diet? How do you...
It Is Your Responsibility
Toni Morrison
Once upon a time there was an old woman. Blind. Wise. One day the woman is visited by some young people who seem to be bent on disproving her clairvoyance and showing her up for the fraud they belie...
Be Your Own Story
Toni Morrison
Go out and save the world. That is to suggest to you that with energy and right thinking you can certainly improve, certainly you might even rescue it. Now that's a heavy burden to be placed on one ge...
Who is 'me'?
Toni Packer
A somber day, isn't it? Dark, cloudy, cool, moist and windy. Amazing, this whole affair of "the weather!" We call it "weather," but what is it really? Wind. Rain. Clouds slowly parting. Not the words...
Automatic Reactions
Toni Packer
There are two aspects of quiet sitting, or meditative inquiry, if you will, which are not mutually exclusive. Description and language divide what is indivisible. So maybe we can keep in mind that wh...
Freely Functioning in Wisdom
Toni Packer
Awareness is there, uncreated, freely functioning in wisdom and love, when self-centered conditioning is clearly revealed in all its grossness and subtleness and defused in the light of understandin...
Growth Only Comes When You Transform
Tony Robbins
Ultimately, the only way to be fulfilled is to constantly grow and to contribute in a meaningful way to other people, to the world. And in order to grow, all of us have to be willing to let go of our ...
You Are Not Alone
Tracy Cochran
The dark season is here in the Northern Hemisphere. And maybe it is dark for you inside as well as outside. You may feel lonely or in pain. You may fear the future. It can be a great comfort to rememb...
Touching the Earth
Tracy Cochran
In the great myth of the Buddha’s journey, there came a point when he is completely overwhelmed. As he sits meditating under the Bodhi tree, the devil Mara sends temptations to distract him from...
I Have No Need For An Enemy
Troy Chapman
In passing my sentence, the judge said, “There’s no hope that you can ever be rehabilitated.” My sentence of 60-90 years was a tragic and too predictable end of the road I’d be...