Happy New Year! Wishing us all a new kind of 20/20 vision—an awakened vision that is broad and deep. May we begin to see and sense ourselves–every part of ourselves, even the wounded and raging parts—as part a greater whole. Recently, in my local meditation circle, we have been talking about difficult things, including racism…
“My guru told me ‘Be like Gandhi,’” Ram Dass told me once during an interview. “Gandhi said, ‘My life is my message.’” The words came haltingly, short phrases followed by long pauses. The former Dr. Richard Alpert, the once eloquent spiritual seeker and psychedelic rebel, sat in a wheelchair, hunting for words, often coming up…
It’s time to look at Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in a new light. Scrooge, as most of us know, is a miserable, isolated man, “self-contained and solitary as an oyster.” On Christmas Eve, he finds himself alone in a cold and gloomy house, dismissing the need others seem to have for warmth and human company…
The dark season is here in the Northern Hemisphere. And maybe it is dark for you in multiple ways. You may fear the future. It can be a comfort and a guide to remember that all beings, including the Buddha, faced the darkness of the unknown. After many years and lifetimes of effort, after leaving…
“Today we have gathered and see that the cycles of life continue.” The Mohawk Thanksgiving greeting to the world is an extraordinary act of consciousness. They gathered (and still gather) together to notice and honor the living world around them. They offer thanks to the People, to Mother Earth and all her plants and herbs…
At a certain point, the summer of our innocence passes. The bright hope that spiritual practice might be a way for us to bypass suffering vanishes. The bliss we might have felt at the beginning gives way to the realization that the more we practice, the more we feel not just joy but also the…
