Tag: resilience

As a younger man, I prided myself on being a minimalist. I never owned more possessions that what I could fit into a duffel bag.   I did my best to avoid clothing purchases; choosing to make due with the free t-shirts that were passed out at college fairs and job recruitment events.  When I finally…

As I write this, it feels like hundreds of ants are biting my arms and legs.  I have a grass allergy, and prolonged exposure results in itching and small bumps appearing on my skin.   It’s been this way my whole life. When I was a child I loved playing outdoors with my friends.  We spent…

A student went to his Zen teacher and found him working in the garden.  The teacher greeted his student and asked, “How is Buddhism in the south?”   The student replied, “There is much discussion.”   The Zen teacher paused a moment, and then he said, “Come help me plant radishes in the garden.”   The student asked,…

One common misconception about chickens is that they lay eggs every day.  In truth, their levels of production increase and decrease based on the weather.   In the summer months when the days are long chickens tend to lay eggs every other day.   However, they lay fewer eggs in the fall when the days get shorter,…

Acceptance is a big deal in Buddhist circles.  We’re told that we must accept suffering, accept mistreatment, accept the opinions of others. We’re told to be like the ocean, which accepts all things and rejects nothing.  Much of this thinking is rooted in a slavish dependence on the absolute.   This is especially true in Zen…

As I write this one of our cats, Finn, is sprawled across my lap.   He is an all-white, American short hair with blue eyes and below average intelligence.  I’ve watched him carefully plan his leap onto the bookshelf only to jump headfirst into the wall.  And he regularly gets lost wandering through our house; meowing…

  As I write this essay, there is an AC/DC album playing in the background.  I like AC/DC for a couple of reasons.   First, they are objectively the greatest rock band of all time; putting out bangers like You Shook Me All Night Long, Thunderstruck, and the infamous T.N.T. Second, the incongruity in their early…

Three years ago, I planted asparagus in our garden.  Asparagus is a centerpiece of many homesteads because it’s nutritious, easy to grow, and it comes back every year.  But gardeners must abide by several rules if they want their asparagus patch to feed them year after year. First, the asparagus can’t be harvested for the…

I don’t have a large house by any means.  But there’s plenty of room for three cats and two humans.  In addition to our first floor, we have a basement, an upstairs, and an attic space.   If our four-legged children wanted, they could divide the house up into sections and never see each other. Instead,…

Many years ago, I attended a Dharma talk on nonattachment.  The monk explained the teaching by discussing the importance of having bare walls.   He explained that if we decide that we want to hang a picture on the wall, that requires us to buy a frame for the picture.  Then we have to get…