Author: Mark J. Chmiel

Some Sayings

Ben Bag Bag said, Turn it (the Torah) and turn it over again, for everything is in it, and contemplate it, and wax grey and old over it, and stir not from it, for thou…

Moment by Moment by Moment …

1. Zen students are with their masters at least ten years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to…

The Soul’s Secret

For a moment this sense of [Sofya Levinton’s]  past blotted out everything present, blotted out the abyss. It was the very strangest of feelings, something you could never share with any other person—not even your…

Walt, for Andrew, 1.22.24

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions,But really I am neither for nor against institutions, (What indeed have I in common with them? or what with the destruction of them?)Only…

From Lea Goldberg’s Diary

The greatest and only crime: spiritual laziness. And within that spiritual laziness, one doesn’t even acknowledge it, making it seven times worse.  –Peter Cole, Hebrew Writers on Writing

Blake and Dostoevsky

“The Divine Image” To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and LoveAll pray in their distress;And to these virtues of delightReturn their thankfulness. For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and LoveIs God, our father dear,And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and LoveIs…

Remember to Remember

The following is the conclusion to Leo Tolstoy’s short story “Three Questions”— Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have…