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Peak Experience

The problem has to do with our senses, and with the curiously impoverished view of reality that we hold. . . . Wine, mescalin, pot — all these chemical ways of solving the problem tend to let us down half the time

More Words . . .

Meditation is the root, the plant, the flower and the fruit. It is words that divide the fruit, the flower, the plant, and the root. In this separation action does not bring about goodness: virtue is the total perception.

The Sacred Path Of The Warrior

Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word “warrior” is taken from the Tibetan pawo, which literally means “one who is brave.” Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness.

Where Is The Enemy?

Thich Nhat Hanh On Nonviolence

In order to rally people behind them, the governments need an enemy and are very ready to approve that. They want us to be afraid in order for us to rally behind them. They want us to hate in order for us to rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they would invent one in order to mobilize us.

Gratitude

On September 19, 1981, at the northernmost reach of Laughing Snake Mesa, a single Navajo or perhaps Hopi Indian stood with a straight back and recited the true words that had come to him from his tradition.

Scott and Helen Nearing: A Tribute

Self-reliance has been linked with democracy in the American mind since Thomas Jefferson extolled the small farmer as the cornerstone of a free society. Thoreau sang of similar values. In our day, Scott and Helen Nearing have epitomized the best of that tradition.

Breeds

We live in perilous times. All human beings have always lived in perilous times, but the perils of our times are our own and we know them well. For several years now, a sizable group of Americans have seen Indians — or the Indian way — as an approach to the diffusion of some peril.

Low As The Sand, High As The Sky: What Is A Jew?

These people have been compared to sand and stars. When they fall, they fall as low as the sand, and when they rise, they rise as high as the sky.

The Talmud

Cults And Mystics

Cults and mystics, mystics and cults — the two of them entered my head the other day like a happy couple holding hands along a dappled springtime path, necks bending slightly now and then as if to pass some secret word, some shared hope, some grinning recollection. Cults and mystics, mystics and cults.

The Perils Of Publishing

Finally after a go ’round, she blurted out: “Doug, I’ve been working at the Library of Congress for twelve years, and I’ve never had an experience like this before.” I just wasn’t sure what she was talking about.