Author: Mark J. Chmiel

Precepts and Parables

Of all the gospels, the Sermon on the Mount was the portion that impressed me most, and I studied it more often than any other part. Nowhere else does Christ speak with such solemnity; nowhere…

Reveling in Resentment

The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him,…

Russians Reciting Poetry as Prayer

Countless former prisoners described how memorized verse consoled them. It preserved their past life and their continuity with it. And it was something the authorities could not take away.  Once stories about prisoners reciting poetry…

Liam Nesson in “Taken,” For Instance

If you think of something you wouldn’t want to happen to you, or to someone you love, then you’ll have thought of something worth staging or filming.–Keith Johnstone, Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre In Defense…

Chris Wallach and I Inter-Are

 Care is something one learns by observing the way careful/caring people live. It is not a quality that can be learned from a text on moral psychology or Buddhist ethics but only by living and…

Some of Jack’s Dharma

Practice recognition of complete emptiness of all things at all times, under every condition, everywhere, and you will learn by yourself what Buddha preached. Free from Desire: What I really only want, what Ma’s given…