I-It and I-Thou
David Brooks
(Reflections on "I-Thou" by Martin Buber) I-It relationships come in two varieties. Some are strictly utilitarian. You’re exchanging information in order to do some practical thi...
Moved by Love
Sri M
In the Himalayas, there lived an infamous bandit named Sultana, who plundered the caravans of rich pilgrims and looted resource-rich monasteries. The very mention of Sultana, it was said, made wealthy...
A Scheme to Change the World?
Hazrat Inayat Khan
The other day I lectured in Paris and after my lecture a very able man came to me and said, 'Have you got a scheme?' I said, 'What scheme?' 'Of bettering conditions.' I repl...
You Play The Piano
Alan Watts
The existence, the physical universe is basically playful. There is no necessity for it whatsoever. It isn’t going anywhere. That is to say, it doesn’t have some destination that it ought ...
Praise Song for Wide Open Space
Omid Safi
Wide open spaces fill my heart with a sense of awe. It can be a plain, a desert, a view from a mountaintop, a vista. Somehow wide open spaces remind me of God’s presence in ways that few mosques...
Why Meditate
Suzanne Toro
Meditation is the act of getting quiet and settling the mind. It’s the process of slowing and eventually stopping your thoughts, at which point you can bask in and feel the silence, trusting all...
Letting Meaning Flow Into Purpose
Brother David Steindl-Rast
The only point where one can start to talk about anything, including death, is where one finds oneself. And for me this is as a Benedictine monk. In the rule of St. Benedict, the momenta mori has alwa...
My Misgivings About Advice
Parker Palmer
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 d...
Theory and Practice
Vincent Horn
If we look at what theory is, it’s essentially an abstraction, or representation, of direct experience. It’s a way for us to take our understanding and transmit, through the medium of idea...
Shaped by a Silky Attention
Jane Hirshfield
A request for concentration isn't always answered, but people engaged in many disciplines have found ways to invite it in. Violinists practicing scales and dancers repeating the same movements ove...
Medicine for the Earth
Sandra Ingerman
In all spiritual traditions it is taught that everything that manifests in the physical world starts in the invisible realms of spirit. We must remember that a baby grows in the womb. Trees and pla...
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...