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The Great Army

When I was a child I used to beg the Old Buddhist to tell this story over and over again, especially the descriptions of the soldiers.

Present For Her

I’m in a shopping-mall restroom in California, where the roll of toilet paper is almost as big as a tire. Three more giant rolls are stacked on a sterile white shelf.

At War With Ourselves

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty available now.

Zen Masters

I left college to seek enlightenment. I went to live at the Golden Gate Zen Center, a Buddhist community midway between the Haight and the financial district.

Zen Mud

I’d planned to arrive in Japan with practically no social resources. I had some money, and my pack was heavy, but I hadn’t bothered to learn Japanese. I wanted to see what would happen. I arrived shaggy, hot, dizzy, and alone.

Sunbeams

“Which foolish man was it who said love was simple?” she murmured. “Ah, yes, it was Rodolphe. But which Rodolphe?”

Leon Garfield

Every Grain Of Sand

The real teaching of the mandala has turned out to be not in its execution but in its . . . execution, its demise, and in how its creators responded to its death.

Sunbeams

“You seem to be reacting to your boyfriend as if he were your father,” your shrink may say stonily (unless she is a strict Freudian, in which case she’ll shut up and wait until you think of it yourself, a process that usually takes ten years. This is why strict Freudians have such lovely summer houses.).

Cynthia Heimel

Last Year’s Poverty Was Not Enough

The day hadn’t begun well, but it was just another day in a long line of mean, anxious hours. Time mashed in on her like a couple of hands folded hard in prayer.

The Door, The Road, And The Zen Teacher

I’m ordinarily unaware that a feeling hangs like a mist around what I see and makes it look the way it does. I’m rarely aware of this because it’s always happening; I’m always looking through filters of feeling just as I’m always looking through the air. Only on rare occasions, when by chance I experience the same object in two very different ways, do I become aware of what my mind is doing.