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Are You Really Stuck?
Are you actually stuck, or are you unwilling to pay the price of getting yourself unstuck? (In the literal sense of “finding a place to live,” but also in the metaphorical sense.) Come for a walk with me through the snow on the second day of spring, and I shall consider what to do with…
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Taming the Ego
Religion is not Spirituality. Might be considered a companion piece to Science is not Technology. People talk about their “lizard brains” and “monkey minds” as though those are the same things, namely these unasked for voices that draw us into behaviours that make us feel that we “weren’t ourselves”. In a very real way, though,…
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Spiritual Crosstraining
Last week I had the great opportunity to go to Gampo Abbey to attend a teaching by Pema Chodron on the subject of “Living by Vow”. Pema (as we affectionately know her) is an American Buddhist nun in one of the Tibetan lineages. As such, she is carrying forward a long tradition, with forms most ornate.…
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Peaceful Practice
This was originally posted on The Peaceful Professional, another blog of mine which has apparently suffered catastrophic failure due to neglect. That is to say, I can’t find it any more, having made some errors in setting it up that I haven’t been able to repair. It is dead (for now), but the writing lives…
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Not in New York
I went on a meditation semi-retreat this weekend. (That is, we went and studied/meditated all day, and then went home in between.) Like all my experiences of retreat, it was a lot like getting sandblasted. Gently. At the end of the first day, I went home and I cried. I felt so lonely, and I…
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On Genius, Enlightenment and The Voices
There is a Buddhist fable about a traveller who arrives at an enlightened sage. “Please, master,” he says. “Please. I want to know how to become enlightened.” “Are you sure?” asks the sage. “Oh, yes. Absolutely.” “Are you willing to go through whatever it takes?” “Anything. I’ll do anything.” The sage looked him in the…
