The Quiet Work of Becoming Resilient

We hear about resilience often, yet most of us don’t recognize it when it quietly appears in our own life. It doesn’t always look like strength or steadiness. Sometimes resilience is a trembling breath we manage to stay with when we’re meditating after a stressful...

read more

Why I Always Thought Other People Were Upset with Me

“Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz I used to walk into a room and check everyone else’s emotional temperature before I noticed my own. A tightened jaw meant I should get quieter. A distracted answer meant I’d done...

read more

Going on 94, and Still Waking Up

As I’m nearing 94, in December, I’m finding my own relationship to age, sickness, and death has changed.  When you read about the life of the Buddha, you may get the impression that meditation offers the key to freedom from all suffering. Well, that’s not quite true....

read more

Celebrating an American Bodhisattva

On Monday I was honored to attend a gathering to mourn the passing and celebrate the life of a great American bodhisattva. Robert Thurman died on June 16 at his home in Woodstock, New York at the age of 84. He was probably the preeminent American Buddhist of our...

read more

How Patience Helps You Stay Present

My mountain of a dog, Monty, is bouncing around the foyer, pawing at the door, whinnying and whining like a racehorse straining at the bit. We’ve just adopted this big guy—ninety-five pounds of pure strength and sweetness—and he’s eager to muscle his way past my legs...

read more

The Longing That Keeps Me Company

When I was a child, I found a secret place in the bayberry bushes. In the summers my family floated free from the known world—the world that was measured by carpools and sidewalks—and went to the seashore. It was lonely for me there; I felt alone in my separate self,...

read more

Pin It on Pinterest