Working Through…

The next step in the process is for you to see that your even thinking about what you are doing is crucially important.  You are probably striving to build yourself an identity in your work,…

Today’s One-Liner (#161)

Get away from any man who always argues every time he talks. –ABBOT PASTOR, cited in Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the  Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century

Words Matter: A Summer Writing and Speaking Class

We all can render a great service by listening to opposing opinions without agitation, discourtesy, or violence, and by offering our opinions not as nonnegotiable demands but as calm, courteous statements. —Sri Eknath Easwaran,  The Bhagavad…

Advice from the Sages

I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with…

Abandon Any Hope of Fruition

Anyone who wants to know the art of living, who wants to experience this Dhamma, has to understand it clearly. But as long as you are expecting, then it will not happen.  –Mirka Knaster, Living…

The One Thing That Is Important

Christopher Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980. I’ve been imagining coming up with a class in which we’d explore Chris Isherwood, Ram Dass, and especially  The Gospel of Sri…

“Nhat Hanh Is My Brother”

Dear Friends, I invite you to a second “Merton Hour” to consider Thomas Merton’s short intervention on behalf of Thich Nhat Hanh in 1966. We will read together “Nhat Hanh Is My Brother,” discuss in…