The Trick is to Keep Seeing
(The Tibetan word shenpa) is usually translated “attachment,” but a more descriptive translation might be...
Every Seed Carries a Secret
Every seed carries a secret. We will never come to fully know this secret, because it belongs to the mystery of creation. Yet we can...
I Awaken Before Dawn
I awaken before dawn, go into the kitchen and fix a cup of tea. I light the candle and sit in its glow on the meditation cushion....
Time is a Season
Most traditional human cultures have seen the hours of the days in the same way as they have encountered the seasons of the year: not as...
Organic Gift
Years ago, I heard Dorothy Day speak. Founder of the Catholic Worker movement, her long-term commitment to living among the poor on New...
Be with the Magic
When animals look out of their eyes they don’t see what we see. Some of them see ultraviolet light, some of them can see very...
Death is Life's Door
(Note from the Editors: 'Sitting' here refers to seated meditation) Sitting enabled me to see, and compelled me to...
Lessening the Power of Negative Emotions
I profoundly believe that real spiritual change comes about not by merely praying or wishing that all negative aspects of our minds...
We Are What We Choose to Be
On rare and precious moments, someone will tell me about when he used to play the saxophone or when she used to dream about opening a...
Humility Really Cannot be Considered a Virtue
Ego and pride are closely related, almost synonymous effects born of the same cause, ignorance of the relationship of the individualized...
Compassion: an Objective Form of Empathy
As the Dalai Lama explains, if you are walking along a trail and come along a person who is being crushed by a boulder, an empathetic...
Awareness is Profound Interest
The man who wants to improve himself can never be aware, because improvement implies condemnation and the achievement of a result;...