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Notes From A Desert Sanctuary

I’ve just driven 550 miles from LA to a monastery located in the desert a couple of hours northwest of Las Vegas. The moment I spot the Celtic cross atop the adobe chapel and pull in, I see that one of my lessons for the next week is going to concern the gap between expectations and reality. I’ve been picturing a flowering-cactus-festooned oasis; instead, the property is next to a state highway and is home to more double-wide trailers than cactuses.

Manhattan Buddha

October 2001

I realized that this is what so often happens when we come face to face with some unimaginable horror: we run for help, but no one believes us. No one believes how many species are disappearing, how many prisoners are being tortured, how many women are being broken by self-important men.

The Rivers We Call Ourselves

At every step, the brook changes; it becomes deep or shallow, wide or narrow, silent and frozen or splashing over logs and stones. I see now that we are like that water, carving our experience into life’s terrain.

The New Neighbors

I have spent a Sabbath blackening my reality and my companion’s mind with hostile words about my neighbor; my neighbor, by contrast, has spent a better day: entertaining his children and improving, according to his best guidance, a plot of ground.

My Politics

My personal life is particularly political. In fact, now that I ponder the subject, I see that I was one of the first personal-as-political activists.

September 2001

One way to love myself is to stand still when sadness comes sweeping in like a storm. This means not judging the storm, and not condemning myself for getting drenched; three-quarters of the world is covered in water.

Sunbeams

We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.

Lydia Maria Child

Sunbeams

May we remember, as we log on, that half the world’s people have never used a telephone, and recall, as we chatter, that most of those around us have no chance to speak or move as they choose. May we recall that more than half a million beings live without food, and that as many children live amidst poverty and war.

Pico Iyer

July 2001

The Titantic is split in two; it sinks. That’s the story of the Titanic. That’s my story, too, hitting the same iceberg again and again, and never quite believing it.