from Rumi (1)

“Those who don’t feel this life pulling them like a river.
Those who don’t drink dawn like a cup of spring water,
or take in the sunset like supper,
Those who don’t want to change,
let them sleep.”

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to care and not to care

From the poem Ash Wednesday, by T.S. Eliot–” teach us to care and not to care, teach us to sit still.”
Teach us to care about what’s important and not to care about what’s a waste of time.
From the Thai forest meditation teacher Achaan Dhammadaro:
“If people hate you, that’s when you are off the hook. You [...]

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your original face

Hui-neng (638-713), asked “Without making good or bad in that moment, what is your original face before your parents were born?”
He is asking us what is our original face before any ideas, images, feelings that you have been carrying like so much baggage.
When we look into this question, which means to actually ask yourself “What [...]

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dropping into the depths

As we get into our yoga and meditation practice, we naturally start dropping into deeper and deeper places within.  We see how this dropping down requires some initial effort. We become aware of the tremendous hold the “surface” has on us, how it holds us in its web of chatter, worry, anxiety and incessant wants.  
One [...]

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the conflict free mode

We have seen how widespread dissatisfaction and conflict are in our lives. We have also considered the possibility that dissatisfaction and conflict (dukkha in the language of early Buddhism) arise as a consequence of our reactive tendency to cling, grasp or push away at what is presented moment by moment through our senses.  
The Third Noble [...]

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you suffer because you forget who you are

“Within each of us is the soul of the whole.
When it breaks through our intellect it is genius.
When it breathes through our will it is virtue.
When it flows through our affection it is love.”
 
Emerson 
Our essence is this boundless heart-mind. When it flows through us unimpeded by our stuff (what is Buddhism are called the “adventitious [...]

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Grateful Dead love song

As we work with extending thoughts of loving-kindness to the difficult people in our  lives, it becomes evident that we sometimes wish to pull back, to not go there, not to expose ourselves, perhaps fearing the imagined consequences of leaving ourselves open and vulnerable.  
Oddly, we may find that it is precisely in vulnerability that we may find a [...]

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the church of what’s happening now

Our son Kupai started Kindergarten last week. When I woke him up for school the other day I asked him how he had slept. He said that it was really frustrating that after we read him his story and kiss him goodnight he thinks about the events of the day. He explained that he thinks [...]

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the sweet in the bitter

One of the turning points in our spiritual practice happens quite unexpectedly, as they always do, when an uncanny feeling of wholeness creeps up on you in the most surprising contexts. All recurring feelings of remorse and failures seem somehow resolved. Nothing dramatic, really. This is a quiet joy where once there was quiet desperation. [...]

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to sit or not to sit

This issue: to sit or not to sit?  
Merely stating this issue brings up a legion of other issues, many of which go unchallenged and unrecognized in the awareness of a potential meditator. To tackle one issue inevitably begs other, lateral questions.  
As an instructor, I am somewhat aware of the dynamics involved in teaching. If an [...]

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