Letting Meaning Flow Into Purpose
The only point where one can start to talk about anything, including death, is where one finds oneself. And for me this is as a...
My Misgivings About Advice
My misgivings about advice began with my first experience of clinical depression thirty-five years ago. The people who tried to...
Theory and Practice
If we look at what theory is, it’s essentially an abstraction, or representation, of direct experience. It’s a way for us to...
Shaped by a Silky Attention
A request for concentration isn't always answered, but people engaged in many disciplines have found ways to invite it in. Violinists...
Medicine for the Earth
In all spiritual traditions it is taught that everything that manifests in the physical world starts in the invisible realms of spirit....
Five Prayers
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...
Inner World of Moods
“Give me a place to stand on," said the Greek mathematician Archimedes, “and I can move the world.” He was...
How to Live If You're Going to Die
I got a call that a dear friend of mine, who received precepts from me years ago when I lived at Green Gulch, was dying. I arranged with...
For the Traveler
Every time you leave home, Another road takes you Into a world you were never in. New strangers on other paths await. New...
Every Piece is Meant For You
Ever since I was young I enjoyed solving puzzles and having the pleasure to see the bigger picture afterwards. But even after all that, I...
Love Needs to be Constantly Cleansed
In the stories that I cherished in my youth, happy endings almost always involved some kind of love, and I began to observe that in...
Restoring Balance and Meaning in Ourselves
During a time of great drought, a Taoist master was asked by members of a village if he could help bring rain to their dry fields. They...