from your old life to a new life by a being far larger than yourself, you start to panic. You start crawling up the sides of your box. You wish you never asked for more. You contemplate breaking out of the plan you made for yourself and for a better life. You consider going back to the mindless job you hate, returning to that lover who pays the bills and steps on your heart, taking that drink or pill instead of continuing to make amends and stay sober. Miracles are terrifying. By their very nature, miracles are solutions to a problem that you and the world cannot provide. And miracles, like love itself, can never be forced upon us. Miracles require our participation to germinate and g... posted on Jul 25 2018 (13,405 reads)

toward them. Letters to a Young Poet — which also gave us Rilke on what it really means to love, the life-expanding value of uncertainty, and why we read — remains one of the most beautiful, profound, and timeless works ever composed. Complement this particular portion with Rachel Carson on writing and the loneliness of creative work and Virginia Woolf on the relationship between loneliness and creativity, then revisit Rilke on the nature of creativity. ... posted on Jul 8 2018 (11,796 reads)

traveler running faster. Warrior is born. Battle to be won. Past trauma, future hurt. I’m a child of the dirt and I'm ready to give birth. Planting a dream. Panting, I breathe. Running towards the future with a handful of seeds. Stronger than greed. I am stronger than hate. I stand under the shade of trees planted so long ago. A product of ancestral love, I’m here because my elders danced in the sun. They would give it all up for us and from day one it was practiced like religion to prepare for the ones to come. We are here to give all our love to the ones unborn. ... posted on Sep 23 2018 (15,609 reads)

being. And you’re not in a position to challenge them either—when you’re already vulnerable. Yeah, I felt very small a lot of the time. And I just expected that was normal, that they are the heroes. I remember one of the first pediatricians we met was trying to explain chromosomes to me. We had been living in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for two weeks and Evie had undergone so many tests, and he was trying to explain the long and short arms of the chromosome, the nature of splitting and how it all works. I was sleep deprived, recovering from a caesarean and emotionally exhausted, and I thought he was telling me that Evie had short arms. I was really confused b... posted on Aug 27 2018 (9,106 reads)

samadhi, an experience in which objects lose their separateness and are perceived ecstatically as being elements in a vast and borderless oneness. The astronaut was a hard-nosed scientist who had been trained as an aeronautical engineer and a test pilot. His experience on the way home to Earth, however, was a game changer. It inspired him to set up in 1973 the Institute of Noetic Sciences, a nonprofit charged with investigating a whole range of psychic and spiritual phenomena, and the nature of human consciousness. I couldn't help but think about Mitchell as I walked through "Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration," a new exhibition at the American Mu... posted on Sep 16 2018 (14,120 reads)

churn of the internet. What does it tell us about the condition of our hearts when we are reactive and not engaging in slow contemplation? The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tze reminds us that “knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” Tending to our internal landscapes and cultivating wisdom and character is paramount to maintaining integrity as an activist. Whether through practices steeped in spirituality, religion, movement, ancient texts, nature or any kind of higher power, some sort of internal practice is necessary for sustaining ourselves. For example, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza goes against popular opinion and es... posted on Oct 24 2018 (8,439 reads)

wise abbot decided to teach his students about the nature of light and darkness.  He brought them to a desolate cave and sealed the door.  It was completely dark.  “Find a way to dispel the darkness,” he told them. One monk found a large stick. “I will beat the darkness,” he said.  That will fix it.” The second monk found a broom and said, “I will sweep the darkness away.” The third monk pulled out a shovel, saying “I will dig a deep hole and the darkness will escape.” Nothing worked.  The darkness persisted. Then a fourth monk found a candle. He lit the candle and revealed other candles stash... posted on Oct 27 2018 (8,592 reads)

summer, I invited our congregation to participate in a kindness challenge. I said, “Approach strangers and ask, ‘Is there anything I can do or say to help you have a better day?’ Since I encouraged the congregation to engage in this practice, I thought I should give it a try as well. Not that I wanted to. At all. I had many concerns. I’m reclusive by nature. I was afraid people would think I was weird. Or even worse, people would ask me to give something beyond my capacity to give – and then I would feel like a disappointment when I couldn’t deliver. I often tell people to serve beyond their comfort zone t... posted on Oct 6 2018 (11,894 reads)

as well as story-sharing to more accurately reflect the stories and themes we witness everyday. Today, there are thousands of Dinner Partiers active at 234 current tables in over 90 cities and towns worldwide, powered by a staff of seven: three full-time and four part-time. How does TDP fill a need for millennials who are grieving? How do you connect with people who could benefit from TDP? The common thread in our community isn’t type of loss, how a person died, or the nature of their relationship — it’s the fact that most people are among the first in our peer community to go through this. It’s not unusual for a 25-year-old to go to a grief sup... posted on Oct 10 2018 (9,945 reads)

and another three were dead of an “unidentified sickness”. These outbreaks took place within a year in a population of 3000. He knew that treatment in fourth camp was sometimes sporadic and continued isolation of the infected monks was not maintained with regularity. -------- With highly effective treatment so close by it seemed unacceptable to me that so many cases of tuberculosis should go undiagnosed and not treated properly. He stated that the Tibetans were non-compliant by nature and difficult to keep track of since they regularly travel through India and between different Tibetan colonies all over the country.The reality, however, was that although the government had p... posted on Mar 14 2019 (5,690 reads)

of our culture not only does not reward, it tends to ridicule. A lot of what we call men’s sport is really a subtle quest for meditation, and for honoring this need we have for space. And even a lot of conflict between men and women, husbands and wives, is over silence. I think as a gender, women tend to be more extroverted—that is, to talk their issues out in circles of other women, for example, and then also at home, with their husbands. Whereas many men are more introverted by nature, and we have to process it silently. So there’s often this conflict between talking out issues, and kind of processing them. Tsomo: Processing them verbally versus inside? Matt: Yes... posted on Oct 20 2018 (10,674 reads)

which are true and which are false. Between word and word plenty of difference Churn out the essence-word True words are not easy to recognize. They call for a kind of listening, which we are not accustomed to doing: My speech is of the East, no one understands me. Kabir says, rare listeners hear the song right. When we develop the faculty of listening, we will be able to understand much more than the meaning of the words spoken. We will also know the nature of the speaker. On this riverbank, saints or thieves? You'll know as soon as they talk. The character deep within comes out by the road of the mouth. Into a lion... posted on Nov 19 2018 (14,615 reads)

had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory--this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it? I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, a third, which gives me r... posted on Nov 9 2018 (46,902 reads)

the doorway. Outside, chickens cluck and scratch. Inside, on the floor with the children, Wubetu quietly examines a laminated poster. He begins pointing to letters, urging children to show him their best efforts — a recitation of the alphabet — first in their native Amharic and then in English. He will repeat a version of this scene over a week throughout stops in his native Ethiopia. Children flock to him wherever he goes, drawn to this 23-year-old man wearing a black, signature fedora, his pockets full of candy, his smile radiating acceptance of anyone who cares to share a few moments with him, better yet a dance. “Never pass up an opportunity to change a strang... posted on Nov 13 2018 (19,904 reads)

we brand as ‘the enemy.’ I’ve been reading Lao Tse, who has a lot of wisdom applicable today. He says that the greatest misfortune is to underestimate your enemy and treat your enemy as evil, not really seeing the human being. If you do that, you lose the three treasures, which are (1) simplicity—being in accord with the ground of being, being in alignment, being mindful in that sense; (2) patience—with both friends and enemies, which is again in accord with nature; and (3) compassion—starting with self-compassion, you can help reconcile all beings. Hübl: I agree with you about staying engaged. It brings up another competence, which is the c... posted on Nov 16 2018 (9,103 reads)

fictional narrator gasps as he sinks into his grandmother’s garden, “to be dissolved into something complete and great.” A generation later, in a real-life counterpart, Virginia Woolf arrived at the greatest epiphany of her life — and to this day perhaps the finest definition of what it takes to be an artist — while contemplating the completeness and greatness abloom in the garden. Nearly a century later, botanist and nature writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, who has written beautifully about the art of attentiveness to life at all scales, examines the revelations of the garden in Braiding Sweetgrass: Indig... posted on Nov 18 2018 (8,110 reads)

grace and poise becoming of a New Yorker, not with the ‘thickness’ of my own tongue. I sat in the front of every class, desperate to please my teachers, raising my hand at the slightest suggestion of a question. You see, I was convinced in ways that needed little or no articulation that if I got myself educated, I could rise above the debris of my own bells-and-whistles culture and take my place in the constellation of the worthy… and that if I understood the irrefutable nature of things, I could find unmovable ground upon which I could build a real future for myself. I remember responding to our pastor’s salvation call three times on a single Sunday. It was ... posted on Dec 27 2018 (6,607 reads)

When we were done, he told me that some measure of peace had returned. It was a peace that had come from within him, not from anything I’d said. I’d simply helped clear some rubble that blocked his access to his own soul. My misgivings about advice began with my first experience of clinical depression thirty-five years ago. The people who tried to support me had good intentions. But, for the most part, what they did left me feeling more depressed. Some went for the nature cure: “Why don’t you get outside and enjoy the sunshine and fresh air? Everything is blooming and it’s such a beautiful day!” When you’re depressed, you know intel... posted on Jan 1 2019 (15,717 reads)

were working 24/7 and we wanted to work 24/7, and what we were producing was so exciting that we couldn’t stop. That’s one example of being connected to Source in a way that your body will go with you. At the same time, I do think it’s important to take care of one’s capacity to serve. That’s the other thing I feel responsible to take care of: to nourish my own capacity to serve, and that comes from Source. That comes from meditation. That comes from being in nature. That comes from being in touch with the love I have for my husband and my children and my family. My love for God. My love for the spirit world. My love for the shamans. When I’m in touc... posted on Dec 7 2018 (10,867 reads)

of each Chinese character, as a sort of Rosetta Stone to decipher the poetic grammar of the ancient text against the scholarly English translations. In her twenties, Le Guin completed several chapters, then went on adding slowly each decade. Nearly half a century later, as she was inching toward seventy, she gave this private passion public form in Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching (public library) — a book Le Guin describes as “a rendition, not a translation.” Similar in nature to Proust’s far-more-than-translation of Ruskin, it is indeed the type of work which the great Polish poet and Nobel laureate WisÅ‚awa Szymborska meant when she spoke of... posted on Mar 10 2019 (7,164 reads)