Reading Archives (Author)
An Unusual Gift From My Grandfather
Rachel Naomi Remen
Often, when he came to visit, my grandfather would bring me a present. These were never the sorts of things that other people brought, dolls and books and stuffed animals. My dolls and stuffed animals...
Life May Itself Be A Koan
Rachel Naomi Remen
Consider the Zen practice of the koan, the question or problem proposed by Zen masters to each other or by masters to students. The koan is a dilemma, a mystery which the rational mind cannot solve. T...
Stepping Over The Bag Of Gold
Rachel Naomi Remen
My patient, a physician who has cancer, comes to his session enormously pleased with himself. Knowing my love of stories, he says that he has found a perfect story and tells me the following parable: ...
The Gift of New Eyes
Rachel Naomi Remen
Many years ago, I had just given a talk on the messages, both positive and negative, that we convey to our patients without our awareness; sometimes with words but often with just our tone of voice, o...
The Difference Between Education and Training
Rachel Naomi Remen
For me, the process of education is intimately related to the process of healing. The root word of education -- educare -- means to lead forth a hidden wholeness in another person. A genuine education...
Only Service Heals
Rachel Naomi Remen
If helping is an experience of strength, fixing is an experience of mastery and expertise. Service, on the other hand, is an experience of mystery, surrender and awe. A fixer has the illusion of being...
Serving Is Different From Helping And Fixing
Rachel Naomi Remen
In recent years the question how can I help? has become meaningful to many people. But perhaps there is a deeper question we might consider. Perhaps the real question is not how can I help? but how ca...
Impermanence is Not Fragility
Rachel Naomi Remen
Perhaps survival was not only a question of the skillful use of state-of-the-art technology, perhaps there was something innate, some strength in those tiny pink infants, that enabled both them and me...
Power of Blessing
Rachel Naomi Remen
We bless the life around us far more than we realize. Many simple, ordinary things that we do can affect those around us in profound ways: the unexpected phone call, the brief touch, the willingness t...