Author: Tom Davidson-Marx
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. …
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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…
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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 at times. Then I read U Tejaniya’s teachings. I have…
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suffering is natural
As a species we seem to have solidified a very real revulsion for the inevitable, as well as toward the smaller slights along the way. We hide death and suffering like some grand failing; we distract…
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inner simplicity
Meditation is not easy, I get it. There are aches and pains in the body and the mind can get restless … and there is inner simplicity. But, as Hawaii-born retired Sumo grand-master Akebono would say…
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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…
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faith in small things: the little way of St. Therese Lisieux
The little way of St. Therese Lisieux is a path, she would say, of awareness and willingness, of gratitude and surrender, of confidence and humility; and above all, of love. When I remember this saying, my…
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no self help
Mindfulness meditation leaves the self-help mindset in the dust by challenging the existence of the very thing we are setting out to improve, the self. In an article on the self-help movement in New York Magazine…
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an ordinary new year wish
While everyone is wishing their co-workers, friends and family a fantastic new year, I would settle for an ordinary new year. Wishing others an entire year of monumental experiences or events, is curious to me. I…
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everyday mysticism
There is a way to live your ordinary life in pristine peace and joy just as it is right now. This is the way of everyday mysticism, yet it’s not about any “ism” at all. This…
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coming home
No matter how nice our home is, it is still “of the of world,” as my Buddhist teachers in Asia would say. We are settling in to a new house. As I get older, moving feels more…
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respect
We bring a gentle, loving awareness to this body. We treat it softly, and with respect. It knows; our body feels respected. One little peek at my phone yesterday and bam, my screen screamed out: “Trump…
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a moveable monastery
The contemplative life benefits from periodic self-reflection We meditate for many different reasons. Often, our original motivations morph as we move forward on this path. It’s juicy to reflect why we keep this up; and to be…
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letting go of wanting happiness
Folks who meditate in order to feel better often find the opposite. Eventfully they see that it’s the letting go of the wanting of happiness, that actually brings it! I can begin to answer by sharing…
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wise speech
To say what is true, in ways that promote harmony among people, mindfully and with kindness- this is wise speech. These are tough times, for sure. Many struggle to find a hand-hold while sliding down the…
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reading Suzuki Roshi 43 years later
I remember the first Dharma book I ever bought. It was Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Suzuki Roshi. I still have that dog-eared, multi-highlight layered paperback I bought in San Francisco in 1979. It’s been a…
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guns n’lotuses
The prominent Buddhist teacher, author, and activist, Joan Halifax, on the day of this shooting tweeted “I want to live in a country that loves its children more than its guns.” I would like to wish…
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mindful listening
There is something unspeakably beautiful about mindful listening to the rain. Not just hearing the rain, but really listening. I love the way Thomas Merton describes mindful listening. One morning he awoke to the rain in…
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enoughness
Our meditation practice shows us radical enoughness. We have all we need to lead a fulfilling life now. If you can breathe, you can be mindful. Your of well-being is actually independent of conditions. As your…
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why I stopped making new year’s resolutions
I decided to not make any new year’s resolutions. Well, except maybe one. I resolve to just be myself. I always felt making a set of resolutions meant needing to improve myself, be better at something,…
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non-contention
We open little by little into the warmth and tenderness of our own essential vulnerability. Despite all that’s wrong in the world, at times I surrender and trust that I can be of some benefit by…
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why I meditate
I am often asked why I meditate, what am I trying to accomplish by sitting on a cushion? Depending on who asks, I answer something like – To clearly see why I suffer, and with that…
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gratitude in Buddhism
Even though it’s not the end of the year yet, Thanksgiving has always been a time of reflection for me. I look back with chagrin at all my failures and aspirations. And I think…
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your luminous mind
According to later Buddhist thought, human beings are fundamentally good. This is not just a theory; it’s an unmistakable meditation insight. One could say that meditation is the practice of directly experiencing our essential goodness, our…
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the secret beauty of the heart
Understanding the central message of the Buddhist traditions can be a complex undertaking. I have met several people who have dedicated their entire adult lives to studying the sutras in the original languages. While their ability…
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emotions
I would like to address a couple of misconceptions I often hear regarding meditation and one’s emotional life. The first is we meditate to either to get rid of negative emotions, such as anger, or to…
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metta
The meditation practice of metta, or loving-kindness, has had a profound effect on me over the years. I would like to touch on some of these as an offer of encouragement to discover the healing depth…
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focusing the mind
With mindfulness we learn how to single-task, leading to focusing the mind, bringing clarity, ease and contentment in our lives. There is a Zen story and the power of focus told by the Vietnamese monk Thich…
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grateful mind yoga
A complaint I sometimes hear from folks who are trying to be happy by practicing meditation is that meditation is just not working. Putting effort to change your mental state does sometimes lead to frustration. Gratefulness,…
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boredom
The creator of a popular Mindfulness app was on Jimmy Fallon Live last Friday night talking about how boredom happens because we have lost the skill of paying attention, and that we are all distraction junkies.…
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refuge
We suffer because we forget what we truly are. We take refuge to remember. We forget we are love and compassion; that we are hard-wired to feel and connect. We forget we are truly and profoundly…
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the lychees, or letting go of thinking
The work of meditation is finding a home in the present moment and letting go of anything that tries to pull you away. The lychees didn’t fruit much this year. In fact, barely at all. I…
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trust
why we meditate We meditate for lots of reasons: stress relief, maybe lower our blood pressure, feel less anxious, or just to feel better, physically and maybe existentially. But I think under all these is a…
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expectation
Just what sorts of insights do you get from meditation? Mindfulness meditation also goes by the moniker Vipassana, or insight meditation. When I mentioned this in our weekly classes some years ago, someone asked me well,…
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drink deep
Meditation practice is about coming back to love and compassion, and celebrating the one who is doing it, AKA self-compassion. In one of Tara Brach’s online talks on self-compassion, she tells a story about the work…
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beginner’s mind
The prominent mindfulness meditation teacher Jack Kornfield tells this story illustrating the freshness of what has been called beginner’s mind in one of his talks about a Western woman who ordained under Ajahn Chah in Thailand…
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occupy home
I read online somewhere that before they enter kindergarten kids are exposed to thousands of commercials. I remember when our son was just four he told me most emphatically “Daddy we need to buy that toothpaste…
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these are the good old days
The other night my wife and kids threw me a 60th birthday party where, after the usual social stuff, folks started dancing to 60’s music. Great songs from the Beatle’s White Album segued into the Rolling Stones,…
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