Sweeping My Heart
For me, a dark-skinned person of African descent, cleaning the temple as Zen practice felt inappropriate and uncomfortable when I was at...
The Self Is Not A Thing, But A Process
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...
Pay Attention To A Sense Of Space
Whenever there is any grasping or aversion towards something, indeed whenever any hindrances are present, the mind is, to some degree or...
Turning Survival Inside Out
You know how people will lament when they say, “Time to get back to reality,” or “…yeah, but that’s not...
Three Levels Of Happiness
The Buddha talked about three different levels of happiness. The first is happiness that can come from pleasant sense experiences:...
Opening To Greater Life
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...
The Exquisite Risk
At any moment, if quiet enough and open enough, we can drop into the fabric of existence in which everything, even pain, has its vivid...
Agent Of Illumination
Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with...
The Salt Doll
A salt doll journeyed for thousands of miles over land, until it finally came to the sea. It was fascinated by this strange moving...
Groundlessness
Hope is what propels us into action. We’ve been taught to dream of a better world as the necessary first step in creating one. We...
Two Types Of Heartbreaks
A disciple asks the rebbe: “Why does Torah tell us to ‘place these words upon your hearts’? Why does it not tell us...
When Science Is The Arbiter Of Metaphysics
Although I had been raised in a devout Christian family, where prayer and Scripture readings were a nightly ritual, I, like most...