so crisp. the dot stands but when dissected as start it blurs indistinct points of beginnings middles, ends trace linear your nose...disappears even in-between lies to lovers needing her measurably t/here.
I drive a lot in LA, which means my podcast listening habits have become more spontaneous than they were in NYC, where subway commuting meant planning ahead and downloading. This morning while driving my daughter to day care, I heard David Sedaris...
My post this week will take a brief look at a traditional Buddhist presentation of the three kinds of compassion. These teachings provide a model of how the trainings in compassion can evolve, take on more and more genuine forms, and work in...
Lately I’ve been considering what next steps to take in my life. I've been asking those big, annoying questions that I only half believe are valid, but that half is really loud and convincing. “What should I do (with my life)?” I never...
Financially speaking, I'm quite poor by many standards. I'm not ungrateful for many extraordinary experiences I've had and some of the unearned privileges I've benefited from (for example, attending top notch public school, being male, White,...
I am married to a writer. A screenwriter, to be precise. A man who is almost always thinking about the driving force beneath stories, crafting scenes and acts, beginnings and endings in his mind.
So when I started writing for the IDP blog about how...
I'm looking forward to the new class series that begins at the Interdependence Project, as well as an online course, tonight. I really enjoy talking about the tantric path in particular, primarily because it contains practices and...
"Preserving the biodiversity and the ecosystems of our region should be like the effortless practice of dharma for us. Our basic motivation to protect the environment should come from the pure desire to benefit all sentient beings on earth since...
Membership month at IDP is winding down -- although, really, you can join at any time during the year -- so I wanted to take advantage of the space that I get on the blog every week to share why I'm a member and encourage you to join up.
I'm obsessively checking my Twitter feed for updates on Boston and Watertown. To me, here in New York, events of this week feel both close to home and far away. This poem by Mary Oliver keeps coming into my head.
Beyond the Snow Belt
"Generating concern for others has vast power to transform your mind. If you practice compassion for the sake of all living beings--including animals--then that same limitless merit will accrue to you."--His Holiness the Dalai Lama (How to Practice...
"Peace is an internal process that begins with our own heart and hands in the way we touch other and interact with the community around us." -- Urban Zen website
On a day of insanity and horror, one of the most heartwarming things for me was reading this passage in comedian Patton Oswalt's Facebook post about the Boston Marathon tragedy, which went viral on the social network:
(Click here for the first post in this series.)
As the ferry pulled out of the harbor, the black sedan icon on my GPS left the roadmap and drifted out into the solid blue of the bay. I watched with a grin, delighted by the cluelessness of the...
"Sometimes I think I'm a real Buddhist follower or a real Buddhist student, because I was born in a Buddhist family and raised in a Buddhist environment, in a monastery. ... But if you really think carefully about it and discover, 'Oh, maybe...
One of my favorite embodied memories is of holding my son in the days after his birth, his legs still drawn up, his bottom cupped in one of my hands and my other hand resting on his back as his head snuggled at the space where my neck and shoulder...
When things are going well it’s easy for me to extend loving-kindness to friends and “enemies” alike. Simply defined, loving-kindness is a sincere wish for another person or group of people to be happy..recognizing that all beings share the same...
Hola from Costa Rica. I will be sitting with you all for Daily Sit at our regular scheduled time 9:00 am EST for the next two Saturdays from The Sanctuary at Two Rivers in Costa Rica. April 13 and April 20 I will be here practicing, teaching and...
Two weeks ago I wrote a post about Dharma Art, the practice of making art from a clear and vibrant mind, that may or may not reflect Buddhist concepts or experience.
