“You Are That Person”

A student asked Soen Nakagawa During a meditation retreat: “I am very discouraged. What should I do?” Soen replied, “Encourage others.” At the beginning of this year, I read Kazuaki Tanahashi’s autobiography, Painting Peace: Art…

“Show Me Your American Buddha”

Thich Nhat Hanh’s Being Peace was published  31 years years ago, and it remains fresh, challenging, and practical.  While there are thousands of books on Buddhism,  this short  text of 115 pages, graced with the…

Ninety Years Alive on Earth

On Thich Nhat Hanh, At Home in the World: Stories and Essential Teachings from a Monk’s Life.  Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2016. Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh is a survivor.  Narrowly missing death in…

The Good News of MLK, 4.4.2017

Fifty years ago today at NYC’s Riverside Church, Martin Luther King delivered a powerful, prophetic indictment of U.S. war-making in Vietnam: “They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve…