simple, clear and delicious
Our simple practice of sustaining mindful attention on the most ordinary happenings in our everyday life, can bring this feeling of really being alive. We meditate for many different reasons. Often, our original motivations morph as we move forward on this path.
have your self a foolish little Christmas
Ram Dass encouraged us to embrace our foolish selves rather than try to fix them. I heard the news as I was driving home from work this past Tuesday morning. Ram Dass was dead. Maybe I will remember this drive home like
a peaceful, uneasy feeling
I feel that I should be above it all, but mostly I’m not. I struggle with my emotions. Meditation helps a lot, but sometimes I am just plain sad or overcome by all that is untenable in the world, borrowing a line
I wish I could have given him the moon
Good poems, for me, are often potent teachings on how to live this precious life we are given. Over the years I have been moved to tears reading poems. There is one poet in particular I keep coming back to, the Japanese
just as you are
You can’t push the river, the Zen masters of old would say. And wow, how I have tried—reading, studying the Dharma, going on retreats, even fasting from time to time. And it’s still little ol’ me, unenlightened and pooped out from so
suffering is natural
One of my teachers, Michele McDonald-Smith, once recounted that a 92 year old relative of hers, on being informed by her doctor of a terminal cancer diagnosis, became upset and implored “Why me?” As a species we seem to have solidified a
just try your best
Meditation is not easy, I get it. There are aches and pains in the body, the mind gets restless, and the breath fades in and out of awareness. Sometimes, mostly out. But, as Hawaii-born retired Sumo grand-master Akebono would say to reporters
savor the resistance
Do we feel we are missing out on some better, or more spiritual, experience by being stuck with a mountain of laundry, a sink overflowing with dishes, or a yard full of leaves to rake? Karen Maezen Miller, in a piece in
faith in small things
“Don’t think that love must be extraordinary to be genuine. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” –Mother Teresa There is a Tibetan saying popular in