Hello, everyone! We have another precious day to enjoy upon this earth, each of us! Let’s not miss it! As you’ve probably noticed, I’m really into Marcus Aurelius and The Meditations right now. Here’s a passage from the book that I find to be beautiful, helpful, and true: “If you apply yourself to the task before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you might be bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activiti ..read more

Happy day to you, friends! And you are no doubt aware, in war and in other places there is a distinction made between ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’. The strategy is the overall, long-term plan to accomplish a goal. The tactics are the immediate, short-term efforts one makes to further the strategy. This applies to spiritual practice as much as anywhere else. What is the best tactic? In my experience, the best tactic is to go all out for peace, joy, connection, belonging, and true clarity; to live as deeply and fully as possible in this moment, in the following moment, and the moment after that; to ..read more

Top of the day to you, dharma-friends! I suggested a couple days ago that as a sangha we take a good look at our relationship with distraction. I plan to make a space during our usual Thursday evening meditation and discussion group to talk about this important issue…. What do we mean exactly by ‘distraction’? Where, how, and why do we distract ourselves? What needs are we trying to meet when we indulge in distraction? How else might we meet those needs? Stuff like that. In the meantime, I’d like to offer something that’s been on my mind these past couple days. In a conversation I had with so ..read more

Good morning, everyone! Today I have a portion of a letter for you that Zen Master Bassui wrote to a dying man. Bassui lived in the 14th century in Japan. Here is what he chose to say to someone in their final days: “Your Mind-essence is not subject to birth or death. It is neither being nor nothingness, neither emptiness nor form-and-color. Nor is it something that feels pain or joy. However much you try to know with your rational mind that which is now sick, you cannot. Yet if you think of nothing, wish for nothing, want to understand nothing, cling to nothing, and only ask yourself, “What ..read more

Happy day to you, everyone! This evening I’m scheduled to facilitate a local meditation and discussion group in West Asheville, which I’m very much looking forward to. The topic for the evening is “Our Relationship with Distraction”. Our conditioned tendency to distract ourselves, of course, is something nearly everyone deals with and must practice with in order to maintain a conscious and heart-centered life. With this in mind, I thought I’d put this topic out to the larger sangha for consideration. I plan to offer this same topic on Thursday evening during our usual virtual group (7-8:30 ea ..read more

Happy day to you, everyone! Today I have something for you from Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor from the 2nd century AD. This is from The Meditations, which was a sort of collection of ‘notes to self’ that Marcus wrote for his own benefit while on campaign: “Never value anything as profitable that compels you to break your promise, to lose yourself respect, to hate any person, to be suspicious, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything that needs walls and curtains: for he who has preferred to everything else his own intelligence and spirit and the worship of its excellence, acts ..read more

Good day, Dharma-friends! Our animal capacity for pleasure is an interesting thing, don’t you think? The other evening, at the local meditation group I’ve begun facilitating in West Asheville, we talked about pleasure and spiritual practice, particularly in relationship to the Buddha’s Second Noble Truth, which says that suffering is caused by desire, attachment, clinging, and so on. What is it that we desire, that we attach to, that we cling to, in an effort to save ourselves (ineffectually) from the loss of our authentic nature as we disappear into conditioned mind? Pleasure. There are a gr ..read more

Hello, all! I hope you are well today and having a good practice day so far. It’s glorious here in Western North Carolina, and it’s a wonderful pleasure to me to be alive on this day. I hope you feel the same! My friend Kathleen homeschooled her kids until they were seventeen. There’s an area of her house that they called ‘the school room’ where the learning happened. During all those years a tapestry hung in that room with a writing from Dorothy Law Holte called *Children Learn What They Live”. I’ll include a photo of the tapestry, and here’s the text in case it’s unclear: Children Learn Wha ..read more

Hello, everyone! Check out this great passage from Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor (and forgive if you will the male pronouns): “Do not waste the balance of life left to you in thoughts about other persons, when you are not referring to some advantage of your fellows—for why do you rob yourself of something else which you might do? Why would you imagine to yourself what so and so is doing, and why; what he is saying or thinking or planning, and every thought of the kind which leads you astray from close watch over your governing self? Rather you must, in the train of your t ..read more

Hello, everyone, and happy Saturday to you! Here’s something a bit different from things I’ve been posting of late. I have a quote for you from Hui-Neng, the Sixth Zen Patriarch, who lived in the seventh century. Check this out…. “When, outwardly, a person is attached to form, their inner mind is disturbed. But when outwardly they are not attached to form, their mind is not disturbed. Our original nature is pure and quiet as it is in itself; only when we recognize an objective world, and think of it as something, are we disturbed. Those who recognize an objective world, and yet find their min ..read more