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Beginner's Heart

Once, when my life was going very badly, and I was so angry every moment that it was like a white-hot inferno raging inside of me, Thích Nhất Hạnh soothed me. Actually, he probably saved me. At the very least he made it possible for me to live the life I have now, (relatively) peaceful. In…

I am working on my death. Well, actually, it’s more like I’m working on my life up to my death. But I’m trying to hold that singularly discomforting goal in mind — the one event no one avoids. My friends are dropping around me. Like petals from a perfect white Iceberg rose, they drift into…

The Buddha talks quite a bit about teaching, about learning. He did almost almost all his teaching outside, to my knowledge (which isn’t as encyclopædic as I’d like!). Not in a circle of too-small desks, in a room w/out windows, dominated by a green chalk board and a broken clock. Not in anything remotely resembling…

I hate laundry. Really — I mean it. I once told my sons, in a fit of I’ve had it! that I would remember their childhood years as great mountains of laundry. And while I also remember games and hugs and shared confidences and the smell of baby hair, I still remember laundry, too. It’s…

I can’t run anymore. Haven’t been able to for years. My doc told me that if I fell one more time on either knee, I’d lose a kneecap. All that’s left pretty much is bone on bone — cartilage went MIA years ago. And I don’t walk on a treadmill, since my joint replacement. Worst…

A  blogger I admire deeply — The Dalai Grandma — has been talking about a topic near & dear to my heart: everyday Buddhism. That’s not, I’m sure, what she would call it :). She is both far more educated in classical Buddhism and way better read. Which is, I suppose, one of the reasons…

Sawatdee pi Maï! Happy New Year! Well, almost — it’s Thursday, April 12th this year. In Thailand, this greeting is accompanied by joyful gouts of water — splashed on you, at you, over you. And while the New Year’s festival of Songkran falls in the spring (sometimes, like this year, in the same week as…

I like Robert Frost. He’s not in vogue w/ much of the ‘Academy,’ those members of the ruling university class who decide which books/ writers/ thinkers/ ideas are in or out these days. Right now, Frost isn’t ‘in.’ I think it’s because he’s misunderstood. And popular — the Academy doesn’t care much for popularity. But…

It’s cold today. And the light is watery — rain-drenched. The birds huddle by the feeder, their wings flicking water. And I celebrate central heat, sweaters (especially cashmere!) and a roof that doesn’t leak… Mostly? I celebrate a life where I can write about rain dispassionately — where its lack or plentitude either one is…

I’ve been looking at poetry through a different lens lately. I write the poem — which is always the best first step, when you look at poetry… 🙂 — and then wondering how it reflects my practice. It’s a fascinating process. I’m one of those people who are more than a little tree crazy. My…
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