Reading Archives (2013)
What to Remember When Waking
In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake, coming back to this life from the other more secret, moveable and frighteningly...
Honoring the Gill Inside You
A simple fish nosing its way along the bottom is in itself a profound teacher, and like the deepest teachers, it doesn't even know it...
Beauty Harmonizes Law and Liberty
A great poem, when analyzed, is a set of detached sounds. The reader who finds out the meaning, which is the inner medium that connects...
Pablo Neruda's Greatest Lesson from Childhood
Playing in the lot behind the house one day when he was still a little boy, Neruda discovered a hole in a fence board. "I looked...
Indulge an Attachment
One of my meditation teachers was a man who had devoted many years to spiritual practice. He had studied many spiritual texts,...
Art And The Practice Of Being Yourself
There isn’t only one kind of artist in the world, one way of becoming an artist. There is, above all, a need to articulate your own...
Is It Really Worth It?
It’s been difficult to accept that I’m often a battleground for several sides of myself, which seem to act in opposition to...
Why Do We Shout In Anger?
A saint who was once visiting a river to take a bath found a group of family members on the banks, shouting in anger at each other. He...
Reaching Underneath Our Protective Shell
There's a slogan in the Mahayana teachings that says, "Drive all blames onto oneself." The essence of this slogan is,...
Do we Use Thought, or Does Thought Use us?
Have you ever looked meditatively into the cause-and-effect of thought, into the birth and death of thought, the cycle that creates fear...
A Guide To Life's Turning Points
Progress is made in steps, not in leaps. Move only as far as the opening allows. Remain neutral and tolerant of adversity. When in doubt,...
To Have Without Holding
Learning to love differently is hard, love with the hands wide open, love with the doors banging on their hinges, the cupboard...