Browse Topics
Prayer
Celebrating The Charnel Ground
Notes On Death And Meditation
In Tibetan Buddhist liturgy, a reminder of death is chanted before each session of religious practice: “The whole world and its inhabitants are impermanent; in particular, the life of beings is like a bubble; death comes without warning; this body will be a corpse.”
March 1989Celibacy And Religious Passion
An Interview With Teresa Bielecki
The harder sacrifice in celibacy is giving up the one special person, who is all for you, and you for him or her. That emotional sacrifice is much more difficult.
December 1988Noble Heart
Christians And Buddhists On Compassion
We need to learn how to be decent human beings. That is the basis for what we call “religion.” A decent human society brings about spirituality. It brings about blessings and what could be called the gift of God. This is an extremely simple-minded approach. I’m sorry if I disappoint you, but it is as simple as that.
December 1987When Prayer Is Impossible
I show my mercy toward my screaming baby son by cuddling him; Mary shows hers by cuddling him at times, and poking him with that damned needle at other times. My mercy is made only of light; Mary’s is made of light and darkness and so it is larger and encloses mine.
August 1987Sunbeams
November 1986The family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind. Our younger brother is mischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world.
A Paul Griffith Reader
I may well be wrong in my impression that people exist who have not had to earn their spiritual lives by means of suffering. It is difficult if not impossible to know enough about a person to be able to make such a judgement on such a matter with any certainty.
July 1986Connection
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.
January 1985Sunbeams
September 1984Though no two centuries are very much like each other, some hours perhaps are; moments are; critical moments nearly always are. Emotions are the same. We are the same. The man, not the day, is the lasting phenomenon.
