When I was young, I didn’t write in a journal. I drew pictures. I drew every day, whenever I had chance. Drawing was my way of entering my inner life—my real life–not the life of the culture at large, the world of words and inherited stories. Drawing put me in touch with the world closerContinue reading “What Draws You?”
Tag Archives: Spiritual Practice
Angry Ghosts
One night when my mother was a little girl growing up in the panhandle of western Nebraska, she was driving with her father when she saw, far off in the plains, a cross burning in the middle of a circle of Klu Klux Klansmen. The sight filled her with terror. Her parents came from DenmarkContinue reading “Angry Ghosts”
The Gift of Truth
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 isContinue reading “The Gift of Truth”
Finding the Path
Among the tasks or “yogi jobs” a participant can volunteer for during silent retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, a Buddhist meditation center in rural Massachusetts, the most resonant in every sense is that of bell ringer. Before dawn and before every meditation session during the day, the bell ringers walk around the grounds andContinue reading “Finding the Path”
A Beautiful Mind: A Conversation with Gina Sharpe
I arrived at meditation teacher Gina Sharpe’s house prepared to talk about what it means to live a beautiful life for the “Beauty” issue of Parabola. The bare facts of Sharpe’s life were promising. Born in Jamaica, Sharpe moved to New York when she was eleven. She excelled in school and in the world ofContinue reading “A Beautiful Mind: A Conversation with Gina Sharpe”
Tracy Cochran 