“Observe What’s Vivid”
1.“There is a story in the Jewish tradition about a student going to see a great rabbi, not principally to study Torah or Talmud, but to watch how the rabbi ties his shoes.”–Eboo Patel 2. “I…
Tag: Nhat Hanh
Open to Receive Others’ Viewpoints
Do not think that the knowledge that you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn and practice nonattachment from views in order to be open to receive…
Our Good News Is… : A Summer Writing Course
“We often ask, ‘What’s wrong?’ Doing so, we invite painful seeds of sorrow to come up and manifest. We would be much happier if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy, joyful seeds…
“Up to Me” (National Poetry Month, 4.22.22)
Dear Vanessa, It took me a few weeks to work in the 2016 Nobel Laureate of Literature in these NPM missives to you. Is he a poet? He’d say “song-writer.” This is one of my…
I’m Assuming That Elie Wiesel and Noam Chomsky Met at Least Once
Recently, the Persian scholar and poetry translator Matt Miller sent me condolences upon the death of one of my teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh. I mentioned to him that the several of the teachers I first…
True Happiness Is a Verb
Monday 28 December 2020 Dear C, Having written you yesterday about Annie Liebovits and Susan Sontag, I want to mention today that I took the phrase “Wisdom Project” from Sontag in her collection, At the…
Sangha/1
With the Sangha I meditate to decelerate my rampaging mindI meditate to focus on clear image of you smiling in TahoeI meditate on words of Hanshan and Wang Yang-ming I meditate to be able to…
The Irresistible Power of Natural Powers
Having recently perused Jim Forest’s biography and memoir of Dan Berrigan (Playing in the Lions’ Den), I returned to Berrigan’s collection of poems, And the Risen Bread. If I can find five poems in such…
The Mere Gook and Haji Rule
Under reviewDeborah Nelson, The War Behind Me: Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth about U.S. War Crimes—Inside the Army’s Secret Archive of Investigations (New York: Basic Books, 2008) and Chris Hedges and Laila al-Arian, Collateral Damage:…