Our sangha will meet this coming Easter Sunday, at the usual time. One of you has asked if we can have an Easter egg hunt, which sadly does not seem feasible. Still, it seems an auspicious time to be like a child, especially since this week will also includ Passover, celebrating liberation from bondage. Practicing…
As I write this many of us are recovering from a powerful March nor’easter or northeaster, a powerful storm with high winds that caused flooding and much damage throughout Northeast, including here in the Hudson Valley. There was no power or cable for three days in my town, and many are still without. Now I…
One day, you may find yourself on a journey. You never wished or planned for this. You may not define yourself as an adventurer or a seeker—and certainly not as a hero. And yet you find yourself on a quest. In the uppermost layer of your mind, in the shallow region that compares ourselves with…
It’s the strangest thing. When we meditate, we close our eyes and become still. Something inside us longs to get away from our usual lives, to sink down below the noise and pull of the distractions outside and inside, difficult people and thorny situations and frightening prospects and our reactions to it all. So we…
The Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn taught people to take good care of their anger, not to push it away but to hold it with kindness, as we would a wounded child. This is a pretty good description of the practice of mindfulness: we offer ourselves the gift of nonjudgmental awareness. This is awareness is…
Why not begin 2018 with forgiveness? And why not start with you? Forgiveness, like gratitude, is a practice that can be cultivated one moment at a time. Forgiveness is the opposite of indulgence, grounding us, reconnecting us to humility and humanity. In forgiving ourselves, we remember that we are human, subject to causes and conditions.…
