Browse Topics

Acorns

I was about to run out of meter time when an elderly gentleman approached, moving about as fast as a snail with a broken leg. He carried two large bags full of food and sundry housekeeping paraphernalia. Red-faced and puffing. I offered him a hand.

Connection

Disconnection doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right somehow. It feels like a jacket that’s just a bit snug at the armpits and waist. Everything’s fine except. . . . Except trust feels better than distrust. Connection feels better than disconnection.

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.

Selected Stories

A Zen monk and a Catholic priest were walking along a road. They came to a baby crying by the side of the road. The monk did nothing. The priest picked up the baby and held it in his arms. The baby stopped crying, and soon the mother came and took it from the priest.

The Moon

Seeing the moon from the desert, from the Ile de la Cite in Paris, from a starry camping night

Wondering Jew

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.

Teachers

It was the intensity of the stare that made Sherab aware of the man. With a start he looked up from the orange basin of half-washed cups and saucers on the floor. The man’s pale, long-jawed face under its raft of red hair, a furious question in the blue eyes, sent a shock through him.