Dark, Mysterious, Radiant
Bithika Mukerji, Life and Teachings of Sri Ma Anandamayi: A Bird on the WingSri Satguru Publications, 1997 This is a work similar in aim to The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, but about 1/5th the length. …
Category: Wisdom Traditions
Remembrance of Teachers Past
Elie Wiesel, Somewhere a Master: Further Hasidic Portraits and Legends This is Elie Wiesel’s third of four installments thus far on his favorite Hasidic teachers, the ones whose tales enchanted him in his childhood, the…
Keeping Our Mouths Shut, Our Minds at Peace
Some decades back New Directions published a series of slim Wisdom books that can still serve as an engaging introduction to several religious traditions. Earlier this year, I enjoyed Stephen Clissold’s The Wisdom of St…
Being Present (Somehow)
1. Do not avoid contact with suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who…
Pursue Knowledge Even to China
The Content of Character: Ethical Sayings of the Prophet MuhammadCollected by Shaykh Al-Amin Mazrui Sarah Ali gave me this book as an expression of gratitude for writing her a letter of recommendation. We will discuss…
Gatha for Takuya, Mayuko, Takeshi, Nana, Minami and Me
Breathing in, we don’t know the future.Breathing out, we almost smile.
Merton’s Journal
Calcutta is shocking because it is all of a sudden a totally different kind of madness, the reverse of that other madness, the mad rationality of affluence and overpopulation. America seems to make sense,…
A Basic Seventeen
November 1999 “And so, first of all, let us remember him, gentlemen, all our lives. And even though we may be involved with the most important affairs, achieve distinction or fall into some great misfortune…
Start Small
In The Art of Living class, we just finished considering Chan Khong’s classic work of engaged Buddhism, Learning True Love. I shared with my friends at the beginning of the course, “The Rules” of the…
Recent Reading
Sunday 11 April 2021 Dear Sarah, Thanks for your question about what I’ve been reading. Sometimes I make a plan, then other times I act entirely on instinct. So what follows are examples of each….