Present Moment, Only Moment: Reminders
Let the soul be happy in the present, and refuse to worry about what will come later.–Horace, Odes You only live once. Keep yourself in the present. The past is gone, and the future is…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
For Whom Are We Living?
If we live only for ourselves, as most of us are conditioned to do, we will plunge ourselves and all those around us into misery. There is no human being who, once he develops this…
Up to Me
Buddhist nontheism teaches us that no one else is going to liberate us. We are each responsible for our own liberation. Thus, self-self-liberation first is most important because without self-self-liberation true compassion, the fuel to…
The Next Time I Go to Latin America by Amy Nuismer
From my archives– 3.14.2012 Amy and I wrote in our notebooks the other night at Hartford Coffee. Here’s one of the pieces she penned… The Next Time I Go to Latin America It Will…
How To Generate/Instigate Community
Invite 4 people over for a potluck and movie; I recommend Branagh’s Belfast. Do a regular Zoom with 2 or 3 of your best SLU friends, say every quarter, with or without certain topics, questions…
A Classic Is a Book That Has Never Finished Saying What It Has to Say
The moral compass of Les Misérables thus spreads far beyond the history, geography, politics and economics of the world in which its story is set. The novel achieves the extraordinary feat of being at the…
Paradise and Inferno
The World War I poet Ivor Gurney wrote: “There are strange Hells within the minds War made.” If a new Vietnam War poem is ever written in America, it will be a descent into that…
Bucket List/1
To love my enemies To be here now To smile at every child I meet To travel in my mind’s eye to Rafah, Gaza and remember the beauty of the people To encourage 237 more…
Dear Barista
There’s a scene in Woody Allen’s movie, Stardust Memories, where Martians come to earth, and Woody Allen’s character, Sandy Bates, seeks their wisdom about the meaning of life, and he has this exchange with them:…