Be Fair: A plea for a more compassionate response
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, There is a field. I will meet you there. – Rumi As a teacher I saw this sort of scene unfold more times than I can recall. I would be watching group of children playing a game – kickball or keep-away or freeze tag. I’d look away [...]
How To Be Compassionate: Stuck in traffic? Maybe you are behind your spiritual teacher.
Three years ago, I was at a spiritual retreat at Blue Cliff Monastery in New York with the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master, poet, and peace activist. I can’t begin to express what a transformative experience it was: learning to sit peacefully, gently attending to my in breath and out breath; learning to eat mindfully [...]
Be Different: Because in being different, we are all the same
During the month of December, I’ll be participating in a project called Reverb 10. Reverb 10 is “an open online initiative that encourages participants to reflect on this year and manifest what’s next. It’s an opportunity to retreat and consider the reverberations of your year past, and those that you’d like to create in the year ahead.” Each day [...]
How To Be Connected: A Class Reunion in Cyberspace
During the month of December, I’ll be participating in a project called Reverb 10. Reverb 10 is “an open online initiative that encourages participants to reflect on this year and manifest what’s next. It’s an opportunity to retreat and consider the reverberations of your year past, and those that you’d like to create in the year ahead.” Each day [...]
How To Be True: Remembering your divine purpose
Imagine the moments just before you were born — milliseconds before you made your grand entrance and drew your first, jagged, shocking breath of air. In those last few moments before you emerged, your soul, held tenderly in the hands of the Divine One, was about to be placed within your tiny body. The Source [...]
How To Be Compassionate: You really have nothing better to do . . .
My clock-radio is always set to wake me to the morning news. Sometimes I question the wisdom of this decision. Most of the stories that are broadcast in the morning are not especially uplifting or motivating. I often think that a tooth-rattling alarm might be more pleasant to wake to. This morning’s news was especially [...]
How To Be Curious: Do you know what’s in your neighbor’s garage?
A couple of weeks ago, my children and I were visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Ohio. In the afternoon of our second day, my two daughters and I decided we would go for a walk. As we wandered the unfamiliar landscape we passed house after house with garages. One-car garages. Two-car garages. It may [...]
How To Be Understanding: Comforting your consuming emotions
We all have the experience with being afflicted by the ravages of consuming emotions: Guilt. Envy. Bitterness. Worry. Despair. These are the emotions that feed on the goodness of our hearts, bit by bit taking from the heart’s abundant energy. These emotions eat away at us, but they are never satisfied. Never nourished. Whatever energy [...]
How To Be Compassionate: Use Your Imagination
I wish I knew What it’s like to be A splinter, a bee. A song, a sea. A tree, a shoe. A bird that’s new. I wish I knew What it’s like to be you. - By my daughter Tamar, at age 7 When I was a child, I experienced an awakening moment. My mother [...]
How To Be Loving: A Mother’s Message of Love
Today is Mother’s Day. My mother passed away thirteen years ago, in September of 1996. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about eighteen months before. After surgery and treatment, she went into remission for over a year. In that time that she was in remission, I became pregnant with our first child. Her first [...]