Category: Meditation For Success
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I am not free
There are a few things I need to fill you in on. First, I am not free from fear. I am terrified. Second, I am not free from anger. I am furious. And third, I am not free from greed. No, I am furious and terrified that I will never see a penny from Social…
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the whole of the world is blooming
There is a grapefruit tree in my front yard that isn’t the picture of a grapefruit tree, at least not anymore. It has been old and sick-looking for all of the 27 years we have been here, and perhaps for many decades before. Its shrunken trunk is pitted and scarred. The bark, mostly gone. The…
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Some thoughts on the Israel-Hamas War
I usually only write on Buddhist topics for this blog, trying my best to avoid political statements of one kind or another. But I’ve been thinking about the Israel-Hamas war for seven months now and watching the campus protests that have sprung up in its wake. I’ve struggled back and forth between sharing…
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Buddhism and Authenticity
We want our Buddhist practice to be “authentic” in two different senses of the word: First, we want it to be authentically Buddhist—a genuine part of the current of thought originating with the life and teachings of the historical Buddha and remaining, in important senses, faithful to it. Second, we want our practice to be…
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still here
I had already waited three months for the approval that was supposed to take 30 days. My Social Security application was in some kind of paper purgatory. It was understandable. Thousands of employees had been fired. Offices, closed. The phone system was jammed and the computer system was down. As DOGE tore deeper into the…
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here for you
For a few months I’ve been hearing this phrase—here for you—in unlikely places. The words have stayed with me like a thrum beneath the sickening roar of our civic dismantling. Someone is here for me. Someone is here for me in my forsakenness; someone stands ready to help. It started in the still, small quiet…
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Toward a Naturalistic, Pragmatic, Eudaimonic, and Cosmopolitan Buddhism
The Buddha lived prior to the discoveries of modern physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. There are lots of things we know now—cell biology, genetics, evolutionary theory, relativity, quantum mechanics, astrophysics—that the Buddha had no way of knowing. On the other hand, during the Buddha’s lifetime there was active speculation and debate about the…
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Zhaozhou’s “Wash Your Bowl!”
Last week I had to share my understanding of Book of Serenity Case 39 and defend it in dharma combat as part of a shuso hossen ceremony. I am particularly fond of Case 39, and thought I would share some thoughts about it here: Case: A monk asked Zhaozhou, “I have just entered the monastery:…
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how to be decent
Among all the things people have said about Pope Francis after his death, this one summed it up for me: “He was a very decent man in an age of indecency.” To be sure, decency is a rare thing these days. It relies on commonness. Pope Francis was a common man among common men…
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evil on its face
The silence grows louder every day. Fired federal workers who are worried about losing their homes ask not to be quoted by name. University presidents fearing that millions of dollars in federal funding could disappear are holding their fire. Chief executives alarmed by tariffs that could hurt their businesses are on mute. — The…