There’s an old story that turns up all over the world that goes something like this: A young man (it’s an old story, so it’s almost always a man) travels miles over rough terrain and endures all kinds of hardships to reach a legendary temple or secret group of great spiritual masters. Often the ... Read More
Unorthodox Meditations
Do you remember your first time? The first time you tried to meditate, I mean. What did you think? I remember mine. I had found an unlikely paperback at my local drugstore, a book called You Forever by someone named T. Lobsang Rampa. I was only about 13 or 14 years old, and had never run across a ... Read More
Building Your Practice from the Ground Up
How are your New Year’s resolutions going? If you’re like most people, you may have to think for a second to remember what they were. There are so many jokes about resolutions because the universal human tendency is to drop them. We now know from scientific research that a lot of that has to do ... Read More
Whose Thoughts Are These? Addiction, Recovery and Buddhism
When I was in my freshman year in college, I had a professor of English who liked to start the first class of the semester with the question, “What are the books that changed your life?” Not “What books did you enjoy, or really love,” but “changed your life.” Even as a voracious reader, it took some ... Read More
A WINTER WORLD OF HOLIDAYS
Hanukkah Sameach! Merry Christmas! Habari Gani! Happy Holidays! However we say it—and there are many different ways—the idea of “happy” combined with “holidays” is a very, very old one. But in our consumer-driven culture, the holidays come at us so early, fast and hard that by the time they ... Read More
THANKFULNESS
There’s no getting around it: thankfulness is good for us. Damn! I don’t know about you, but I definitely have days when I just don’t feel all that thankful or grateful, when the guy when sits next to me on the bus drips water all over my previously dry pants, a favorite store is unexpectedly out ... Read More
SAD with the Seasons?
The great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas—yes, that guy, the one that singer/songwriter Bob Dylan took the name from—wrote in his most famous poem, ‘Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” The good night he’s talking about, of course, is death; and he’s advising ... Read More
PEACE IN RECOVERY
PEACE. Pax. Shalom. Salaam. Every language has a word for it. We have images and signs for it, the peace sign being one of the most recognized in the world. There’s the famous song, “Give Peace a Chance.” There’s the Peace Movement and the Peace Corps. And as I write this, this month of August, ... Read More
Sobriety and Spirituality: Keys to Recovery
Are you spiritual, but not religious? If so, you’re in good company. Greater numbers all of people all over the world are identifying themselves this way. And, as a friend of mine said recently, “it’s not a good time to be in the religion business.” He talked about the decline of the churches in ... Read More
Animal Companions On the Path
“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” (Anatole France, French novelist, 1844-1924) The crows were mocking my dad. Growing up in rural Connecticut with all kinds of animals, wild and domestic, I’d had plenty of experience to convince me how smart animals were, ... Read More