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Beginner's Heart

There are so many ways this seems to me a metaphor for my practice: attachment, stuck, boxed in :). But my real purpose for posting this was far simpler: it made me laugh. And some days, that’s what you need most. Enjoy ~

I read a poem today ~ “My Dead Friends.” The poet asks her dead friends for counsel when she faces hard choices. And there’s a great answer from her dead friends: whatever leads/to joy, they always answer,/to more life and less worry. That’s what I want to do — choose joy. Choose what will live…

This is the ‘prayer’ I’m offering each day over my dozen names, during Lent. It’s the first Buddhist prayer I learned, and remains my favourite. Whenever I’m very stressed, this is what I repeat. It  isn’t a prayer in the sense that it’s directed at an outside force; it’s more ‘s a mantra, which is…

Sometimes, when things really cut deep, I try to compartmentalise. I want to be the oyster: coat pain and irritation w/ something soothing, wall it off. I wish the boxes produced pearls… Other times, everything bleeds together. A bit like writing w/ ink on damp paper…You know: you put the pen on the page and…

I usually try to keep Lent in some fashion. It’s a wonderful practice, to offer up a piece of your everyday life for good. To think of your everyday life as a kind of, well, prayer. As a Buddhist, I don’t know that I ‘pray,’ in the Christian definition of prayer. I don’t believe in…

I wish I could persuade politicians to adopt this song as the campaign year’s anthem… I’m not holding my breath. Here’s the deal: I have friends with whom I argue constantly. And a cousin whose political and spiritual beliefs are pretty much 180˚ from mine. But notice the operative word: friend. We try hard to…

It’s a very lucky year — fire softened to steamy gentility by water, dragon fluid instead of flaming. And it’s a cycle, for me ~ a time to revisit goals, map possible futures. It’s also another iteration of Buddhist New Year (you can read more about Buddhist New Year here, here, and here). This year,…

I love this cartoon — I’m sorry I have no better attribution, as it has to have been done by someone intimately acquainted w/ teaching and/or teachers. Because this is the secret about teaching: you can’t prepare for most of it. You can have content knowledge out the wazoo — biology, let’s say — and…

A former student, sharing sad news with me, paid me a lovely compliment this past week. First he told me of his mother’s impending death from cancer. Then he said: I knew you’d want to know. And – I thought that perhaps a beginner’s heart would have ways to cope with loss. I wish I…

I love the ambiguity of the word love — but I also envy all those other languages their precision: aimer, affectionner, encantar… eros, agape… There are almost as many words for strong affection as there are things to love. But on Valentine’s Day, it seems like only romantic love counts. What’s up with that? What…
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