Reading Archives (Author)
Be Nobody
Lama Marut
Consider this: We all know that it is in those moments when we completely lose ourselves — engrossed in a good book or movie, engaged in an all-consuming task or hobby, or immersed in our child&...
So I Believed
Lance Armstrong
"The night before brain surgery, I thought about death. I searched out my larger values, and I asked myself, if I was going to die, did I want to do it fighting and clawing or in peaceful surrender?...
Exploring the Human Heart
Lance Armstrong
I thought I knew what fear was, until I heard the words 'You have cancer'. Real fear came with an unmistakable sensation: it was as though all my blood started flowing in the wrong direction. My pre...
From Wonder into Wonder, Existence Opens
Lao Tzu
What we look for beyond seeing And call the unseen, Listen for beyond hearing And call the unheard, Grasp for beyond reaching And call the witheld, Merge beyond understanding In a oneness Whic...
No Illusions, No Resistances
Lao Tzu
10. Can you coax your mind from its wandering and keep it to the original Oneness? Can you let your body become supple as a new born child’s? Can you cleanse your inner vision until you se...
Entertainment Vs. Art
Lariv Athem
In the increasingly information-heavy times in which we live, distractions abound. The word distraction literally points back to a certain losing (dis) of control (traction). We start off with an inte...
Inclining Toward Freedom, Even Through Imperfections
Larry Yang
If we focus only on awakening, we miss most of the spiritual practice. I’m much more interested in how we practice with not awakening, with not being enlightened, because, frankly, those states ...
New Forms Of Religion
Laurence Freeman
However much the great ship of religion may be sinking, we remain spiritual in our needs and aspirations. If we see that religion has a fleet rather than a single battleship, we can see how certain ty...
Who Was That Masked Man Anyway?
Lawrence Kushner
Humility is founded on creatureliness -- I have been created to do something that only I can do, just as you have been created to accomplish something that only you can do. It is founded on the notion...
We're Voting With Our Attention
Leah Pearlman
At the base of the brainstem there is a bundle of neurons called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS acts as a kind of bouncer for the brain. Our senses take in waaaaay too information for ...
Can You Love The One Who...
Leah Pearlman
There’s one in you who’s sweet. There’s one in you who’s mean. Can you love them both? Can you let them both be seen? Can you love the one who tries? A...
Technique is Unimportant
Leigh Hyams
Technique is unimportant. It takes care of itself without any help from you. Just concentrate fearlessly on whatever you and the canvas are saying to each other. Technique comes into existence from y...
How Randomness Rules Our Lives
Leonard Mlodinow
I remember, as a teenager, watching the yellow flame of the Sabbath candles dancing randomly above the white paraffin cylinders that fueled them. I was too young to think candlelight romantic, but sti...
Live Without Regrets
Les Kaye
Modern society divides life into various phases. We have childhood, youth, middle age, and old age. Our tendency is to celebrate youth and regret old age. We regret the so-called passing of youth b...
Leave No Trace
Les Kaye
"Zen master Dogen said that when birds fly in the sky, they leave no trace. And when fish swim in the water, they leave no trace. With this metaphor, Dogen encourages us to understand how to express s...
Catching Bubbles
Les Kaye
Imagine a child trying to catch a soap bubble. After playing with bubbles for a short time, the child learns their nature. He understands that they are insubstantial and gives up trying to catch t...
The Myth of Progress
Les Kaye
If we find ourselves discouraged by lack of spiritual progress, after several weeks, months, even years, we do not need to be concerned that our practice is somehow not working. Actually, when we beco...
Being Successful and Peaceful
Les Kaye
The incentive to be successful is one of the most powerful gifts of humanity, energizing our creativity and inspiring us to engage our activity for the benefit of others. Yet there is a paradox with...
Pablo Neruda's Greatest Lesson from Childhood
Lewis Hyde
Playing in the lot behind the house one day when he was still a little boy, Neruda discovered a hole in a fence board. "I looked through the hole and saw a landscape like that behind our house, u...
Thinking Beyond the "Box" of Our Judgments
Linda Ellinor and Glenna Gerard
It is difficult, if not impossible, to be genuinely curious about someone’s opinion and try to reach some deeper understanding of what the person is thinking when you’ve already judged it stupid o...
What Eugene Taught Me
Linda Lantieri
When I first met Eugene, he had been a peer mediator for several years in his South Bronx high school. Once, when he was asked by his teacher to think about a goal he had for himself in the futu...
Monet Refuses The Operation
Lisel Mueller
Doctor, you say there are no haloes around the streetlights in Paris and what I see is an aberration caused by old age, an affliction. I tell you it has taken me ...
Give Your Story As An Offering
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Wait till you feel your own story like a dream, like a possibility, and then give it to the earth as an offering. Give your own story to the earth as an offering, full of meaning, full of possibilitie...
The Extraordinary In The Ordinary
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
Our acceptance of the ordinary is part of our spiritual maturity and capacity to be of service. It also helps us to avoid the trap of inflation, which can easily catch us when we glimpse a world beyon...
Meaning And The Song Of The Soul
Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee
Meaning is what calls from the depths of the soul. It is the song that sings us into life. Whether we have a meaningful life depends upon whether we can hear this song, this primal music of the sac...
In The Living Present
LongFellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal...
Humility
Lorenz Sell
The dictionary definition of humility is “a modest or low view of one’s own importance.” This always gave me a sense that humility was somehow related to the estimation of my c...
Sacred Mess Of Nature
Lucy Grace
A seed eventually blooms into the most beautiful flower. But first it must break down, crack open, travel through mud without any guarantees and give over to instinct and the will of existence. It doe...
Pandemic
Lynn Ungar
What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath -- the most sacred of times? Cease from travel. Cease from buying and selling. Give up, just for now, on trying to make the world dif...
Taking a Stand
Lynne Twist
Over two thousand years ago, the mathematician Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand and I’ll move the world.” Taking a stand is a way of living and being that draws on a place ...
Harder I Work, The More I Love
Lynne Twist
Burnout is being disconnected from Source. I don’t think it’s as related as we'd like to think, to working too long or too hard or eating pizza and Coke instead of veggies and water. A...
Sufficiency is Not Abundance
Lynne Twist
We can learn to invest the resources that flow through our lives in a new future for all of us. We can direct those resources, whether they are like a rushing torrent coming through our lives or a sma...
Money is a Lot Like Water
Lynne Twist
We’ve allowed this culture of money to shut down our heart, close off access to our soul, and drive us such that we behave in ways that undermine and erode the very center and core of our most h...
The Soul of Money
Lynne Twist
There comes a point where having more than we need becomes a burden. We are overcompensated, overstuffed, swimming in the excess, looking for satisfaction in more or different. We live in a world wher...
The Surprising Truth of Sufficiency
Lynne Twist
We each have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mind-set of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don’t m...