Life sometimes takes such surprising twists and turns that we can either be thrown off balance and never recover, or we can be led to new and exciting adventures and possibilities, especially if we are awake enough to notice and brave enough to take advantage. My life is now entering a new phase of wonder [...]
When I, a student of Dharma, Look at the real form of the universe, All is the never-failing manifestation Of the mysterious truth of Tathagata. In any event, in any moment, and in any place, None can be other than the marvelous revelation Of its glorious light. This realization made our ancestral teachers and [...]
At the recent day of mindfulness on September 28, I gave a dharma talk about opening our hearts to another, to ourselves, to love... and how terrifying that can be. I thought about it for days before. Then I spent Friday and Saturday preparing for the day, searching through notes, books, and my heart to [...]
Many years ago I was interviewed on TV for one of my books. The last, rather surprising question was: What is the secret of life? Without thought or hesitation I answered: Breath. Even before my father took his last breath almost twenty-nine years ago, an event that rocked my world and set me on a [...]
The first three weeks of the Buddhist Contemplative Care training have been rich, deep, and amazing, so I thought I’d share some of what struck me from the books we’ve read so far. More to come in future posts. "We all must deal with conditioning. The sense of ourselves as separate is what we are contending with [...]
Twenty-one years ago when I became a Zen Buddhist and vowed to uphold the ten precepts of Buddhism, I was given the dharma name of Myochi, which means Wondrous Wisdom. It felt like a name that would take me many lifetimes to fit into. I don’t use it much anymore since leaving my teacher a few years [...]
