So Long Ago and So Modern

St. Francis anticipated all that is most liberal and sympathetic in the modern mood; the love of nature; the love of animals; the sense of social compassion; the sense of the spiritual dangers of prosperity…

Bearing Fruit

Rus­sian lit­er­a­ture might almost be described as the lit­er­a­ture of conversion. (We noted some famous instances in Chapter 3.) Time and again, suffering leads to awareness of Truth or apprehension of God. Tolstoy’s autobiographical Confession recounts…

The Teachings

However little education a man may have, he cannot but know that Christ did not sanction murder, but taught kindness, meekness, forgiveness of injuries, love of one’s enemies—and therefore he cannot help seeing that on…

Start Where We Are

Why exactly is sudden transformation according to a model impossible? The same question can be asked about individuals: why c­an’t someone just become what she admires? Disgusted with her life, Tolstoy’s Kitty, as we have…

Moving toward Perfection

When Turgenev pleaded with him to return to the literary art that had first won him fame, he did not understand that for Tolstoy the measure of true greatness was not what we were but…

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…

Be a Light

Then coming to this pass [Ryōkan] found only one way to go: he made up his mind, to go his own way, that is to say, to pursue the way of truth—the only way a…