As I write this, it is a beautiful and balmy day in New York. But this doesn’t mean everything is okay. Deadly tornadoes and massive flooding ravage the middle of the country; children separated from parents at our southern border. I could go on. And you may be facing your own trials. Life is so changeable and uncertain. I personally hate this, but life has not asked my opinion. And yet this terrible, unalterable truth about life is an opportunity to investigate what true power is. It is an opportunity to see that wealth, might, even energetic good health might…
The Search for Meaning
By Tracy Cochran
Here for You
When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. Paul McCartney wrote this famous song about his own mother Mary, who died when…
Easter 2019
A group of us are going to sit down and meditate together this coming Easter Sunday. It feels like an especially auspicious time to be still together, awaiting a miracle. This week will also include Passover, celebrating liberation from bondage. Both of these great stories offer a dramatic resolution to the strange tension that haunts…
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…Spring
At moments, I wished I picked a different film. The setting was so serene, a tiny hermitage on a raft floating in a lake in a deep valley in the Korean wilderness, a boy monk following a wise old monk through his gentle rounds. But animal cruelty was on the way. And worse to come.…
C.O.R.E.
Recently I was asked to talk about the Fifth Dalai Lama of Tibet, and about power in Buddhism, two subjects I know very little about, and yet I happily agreed. Intention comes from a Latin root that means to stretch, and there was stretching to be done here for sure. I did research, learning about the…
Courage
I never tire of remembering that “courage” comes from French and Latin words for heart. We encourage each other to get out of our lonely, individualist heads and remember our hearts, which are so much bigger than we think. This year, at a retreat on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, I had the honor of listening…
