Reading Archives (2016)
Five Prayers
Thich Nhat Hanh
In gratitude, I bow to all generations of ancestors in my blood family. I see my mother and father, whose blood, flesh, and vitality are circulating in my own veins and nourishing every cell in me. T...
Inner World of Moods
Patty de Llosa
“Give me a place to stand on," said the Greek mathematician Archimedes, “and I can move the world.” He was talking about his invention of using pulleys and levers to raise ...
How to Live If You're Going to Die
Blanche Hartman
I got a call that a dear friend of mine, who received precepts from me years ago when I lived at Green Gulch, was dying. I arranged with her husband to go and see her and give her the precepts again. ...
For the Traveler
John O'Donohue
Every time you leave home, Another road takes you Into a world you were never in. New strangers on other paths await. New places that have never seen you Will startle a little at your ent...
Every Piece is Meant For You
Virgil Kalyana Mittata Iordache
Ever since I was young I enjoyed solving puzzles and having the pleasure to see the bigger picture afterwards. But even after all that, I found that life could be the most challenging puzzle we have t...
Love Needs to be Constantly Cleansed
Ajahn Jayasaro
In the stories that I cherished in my youth, happy endings almost always involved some kind of love, and I began to observe that in “real life” love is not always a guarantee of happiness ...
Restoring Balance and Meaning in Ourselves
Alan Briskin
During a time of great drought, a Taoist master was asked by members of a village if he could help bring rain to their dry fields. They confessed trying many other approaches before reaching out to hi...
Why I Make Movies
Mickey Lemle
All movies are an illusion. We think we are seeing motion but in fact we are seeing twenty-four still pictures every second. Half the time the screen is actually black. Yet movies seem so real, and so...
The Glass is Already Broken
Stephen and Ondrea Levine
Once someone asked a well-known Thai meditation master, "In this world where everything changes, where nothing remains the same, where loss and grief are inherent in our very coming into existenc...
Three Millimeters of the Universe
Daniel Gottlieb
Dear Sam, One night in the hospital, a friend came to visit me. I told her I didn't think I could go on anymore. What I was feeling went beyond despair. It was a loss of hope — of everyth...
Destiny is Within Us
Hawah Kasat
I remember walking to the bus stop one day. Sweat was dripping down my chin, while I gazed upon the faded metal bus-stop sign a block away. I saw an unorganized huddle of bodies. A few sat on the wood...
Reengineeing Our Patterns
Eknath Easwaran
When I recommend to someone that they slow down, they often raise a legitimate question: “There is so much that I have to do; how can I go through it slowly and get it all done?” I usually...
Becoming Free of Our Substitute Life
Ezra Bayda
A Zen student walked in to see the master. Sitting down, he blurted out, "There's something terribly wrong with me!" The master looked at him and asked, "What's so wrong?" ...
What is Meditation?
Vimala Thakar
"This awareness of the so called outward and the inward movements of life, is meditation. The simultaneous awareness of the total movement is meditation. If I am aware of the nature of my reactio...
Trees are Sanctuaries
Herman Hesse
Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscri...
Right Away is the Opposite of Now
Jacob Needleman
Some years ago, I was walking downtown San Francisco with a great friend and a learned Tibetan scholar. I asked him about one of the most striking ways that the Tibetans express the uniqueness of the ...
Simplicity of the Heart
J. Krishnamurti
Simplicity of the heart is of far greater importance and significance than simplicity of possessions. To be&nb...
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 ...
Accessing Desire As Loving Motivation
Miki Kashtan
When Yannai, my sister Inbal’s son, was three and a half, his grandparents were visiting and were staying in the downstairs room. At about 8am the next morning Yannai started banging a pole on t...
My Work is Loving the World
Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand...