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...
Why I Make Movies
All movies are an illusion. We think we are seeing motion but in fact we are seeing twenty-four still pictures every second. Half the...
The Glass is Already Broken
Once someone asked a well-known Thai meditation master, "In this world where everything changes, where nothing remains the same,...
Three Millimeters of the Universe
Dear Sam, One night in the hospital, a friend came to visit me. I told her I didn't think I could go on anymore. What I was...
Destiny is Within Us
I remember walking to the bus stop one day. Sweat was dripping down my chin, while I gazed upon the faded metal bus-stop sign a block...
Reengineeing Our Patterns
When I recommend to someone that they slow down, they often raise a legitimate question: “There is so much that I have to do; how...
Becoming Free of Our Substitute Life
A Zen student walked in to see the master. Sitting down, he blurted out, "There's something terribly wrong with me!" The...
What is Meditation?
"This awareness of the so called outward and the inward movements of life, is meditation. The simultaneous awareness of the total...