This Is Because That Is…
I am spending my mornings reading the riveting new book by Gary Saul Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter. A short while back, I posted a…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
Two Sayings
The whole of Buddhist morality can be summed up in two sayings, the first of which is: ‘Treat every being without exception as though it had been your mother in a previous life!’ … The…
The Art of Living Long Ago
Not to be entangled in worldly affairs, not to make a show of material things, not be forward with individuals nor aggressive in a crowd, desiring peace for all the world so as to preserve…
Books Inspected This Afternoon
Arthur Waley, Confucius: Analects Kenneth Rexroth, Classics Revisited Ezra Pound, New Selected Poems and Translations Ai Weiwei and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks David Hinton, The Selected Poems of Tu Fu Ezra Pound, Confucius:…
On Twitter, Be Grateful to Everyone
If I can learn from all those in the world who criticize me and thereby improve myself, they will all be polishing and correcting me. In that case, everywhere is the opportunity for me to…
DIY/4
In short, the Taoists eliminated the usual basis for religion. The ultimate justification for spirituality was not in the promise of an afterlife, not in the gods, not in ritual, and not in clerical authority,…
Senseless Kindness
Yes, as well as this terrible Good with a capital ‘G’, there is every day human kindness. The kindness of an old woman carrying a piece of bread to a prisoner, the kindness of a…
By Little and Little
One makes a better world by what Dostoevsky liked to call “microscopic actions.” When you walk down the street, Zossima tells the other monks, don’t scowl. A kindly look can shift a person’s mood and…
The Radiant Ones
My friend of forty years Pat Geier introduced me to the British Buddhist teacher Christina Feldman. After listening to and discussing some of her retreat talks at Dharma Seed, we are beginning to discuss her…
An Aunt’s Gift to Her Nephew
ADVICE: “ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU ARE AFRAID TO DO.”–Mary Moody Emerson, to Ralph Waldo Emerson Cited in Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Emerson: The Mind on Fire, 25