‘Followers of the way: If you attain anything at all, it’s conditional, it’s karmic. It turns the Wheel birth And death.’ Bodhidharma

A bell sounded, slow and sonorous, from a nearby church. It was early in November, the maples still ablaze against a cloudless sky. Such rusty reds and flaming golds, such a delicate, pale bright blue! It was as if the chimes swirled out around each separate tree,...

“In each life there are two lives, and the second one begins when we realize we only have one.” This quote attributed to Confucius is one of my favorite bits of wisdom ever written about death. Its simple math illustrates poignantly the medicine present in...

The mind is a tricky, stubborn thing. When we try to force it to behave, it resists. Sometimes it seems as if it’s an external force taking us over, out of our control, in our face. This is definitely the case with anxiety. Anxiety lodges in our mind and freaks out...

‘It isn’t question of thinking in terms of becoming a stream-enterer or becoming an arahant, or wondering, ‘‘Have I attained stream-entry yet’’.’ Ajahn Sumedho

Soto Zen monastics around the world learn a ritualized eating practice known as oryoki. This word combines the Chinese characters for “receive,” “amount,” and “bowl,” so it’s basically the practice of receiving the right amount. The ceremony is an elaborate sequence...