Train Wholeheartedly

One who practices the teachings of these great scriptures will become aware of the unity of life, and this awareness will give constant strength and inspiration to those who seek to turn anger into compassion,…

Gurus, Guides, Teachers

Hindus make a distinction between what are called upagurus and what are called satgurus. A satguru is what we’ve been talking about here as the guru; it’s the one who is the doorway. … Along…

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…

Be Grateful to Everything

In order to grow, you need sorrow; in order to become loving, you very often need distress, and turmoil is often required to release  your deeper resources. Unless you have suffered yourself, it is not…

“Concentration Is Consecration”

Yulia and I are meeting weekly to discuss Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. I found the following insightfulg passages from Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood’s translation. 1.2  Yoga is the control of thought-waves in the mind.  1.13 …

Quit Complaining!

Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-shanTranslated and with an Introduction by Burton Watson I first learned of Han-shan 30 years ago when reading Jack Kerouac’s novel, The Dharma Bums, which starred Japhy…

An Anti-Defamation League unto Himself

I’ve read half of Philip Roth’s books, a few more than once.  Recently I returned to the novel Operation Shylock and was struck by this testimonial outburst of one of the characters— “‘Grant me that…

A Yogi

Breakdown Precedes Breakthrough Graham earned enough to be under the taxable limitBecause he didn’t want to pay for war He couldn’t say “No” when someone asked“Would you help us fight back?” He gave and gave…