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Literal-Mindedness And Its Cure

For about fifteen minutes every day I worry about AIDS or herpes or Pentagon cost overruns. It’s not that they have any great effect on me, it’s just that I am a broad-based, categorical worrier.

Now And Then

I can’t figure out why Adam and Eve stood for it. If they had enough gumption to question the menu, you’d think they would have said, “Now, just a minute, God. Cool down. Let’s not overreact.”

Mataji

I first met Mataji at the river. I had travelled a long way by bus, boat, and truck. The Middle Eastern countries were hard to travel through. I was pelted with rocks once. Women just don’t travel alone in Muslim areas.

Same As Anyone

The birds start singing when it’s still dark, the stillness before dawn, when life is poised and light begins a tentative approach. I ponder my investments, none of them financial.

Visit With The Master

One comes for a day or two, and then advertises that one has “studied under Milton Erickson.” This means you can charge $1,000 a day for seminars. Few pay attention to the fact that the master himself only charges $25 a day for visitors. I think I love him for that reason if for no other.

The Price Of Peace

What I would like to share with you is something very simple but also very difficult: simple things often are. It is an invitation to pay the price for peace. We all know that peace is an exceedingly high good. But for an exceedingly high good we should expect to have to pay an exceedingly high price.

The Warrior And The Militarist

A Discussion

To talk, as some do, about “making a world without war” when we’d be lucky to have a world without nuclear weapons, is talking hearsay and utopian theory. We can’t just talk peace, we have to be peace, or it’s another kind of bravado. I’d like a world without war; but we’d all settle for a world without wars that kill everything. — Gary Snyder

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Inside The Modern Hospital

Every little odd ache, cramp, tension; each sore throat, swollen gland, headache; a sudden pain when you reach for something on a shelf, a morning lethargy, an unexpected reluctance: all these whisper cancer.

Learning To Walk

For half a year now, summer to winter, I have been walking-in-place. I do not use any form of motorized transportation. I walk or bicycle everywhere.

Approaching “I Love You”

I love you. It really means something, but what it means cannot be said. It is, for those of us who practice Zen, a koan, an insoluble riddle. Perhaps a particularly tricky koan.