The Now of the Tao
When you practice, remember that you are in the now wherever you are and in whatever you do. The now is a constant, massive, ginormous thing. It is ever productive and always changing. I tend to forget this and catch myself striving to get ahead, longing for a place I …
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Resource Without End
Today we are blindly burning through our natural resources the world over. The globe’s waterways, soils, forests, plant, and animal species, energy sources such as gas, coal, cobalt, and oil are being depleted at break neck speed. Mankind, in his addiction to the material world is squandering the very life …
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The Womb of the Buddha
On this mother’s day we are reminded that all human beings are born from the womb. I am thinking not just the ordinary, run-of the-mill womb however, but the cosmic womb, the womb of the creator, the buddha-womb. Take for instance the great god Vishnu, fast asleep on the primordial …
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Wild Wild Growth
Springtime at seven thousand feet in the Rocky Mountains is wild. Just today it was 70 degrees, then plummeted to 40. In the morning the skies were a brilliant blue and by 4 o’clock a hail storm blew in, shredding the recently budded aspen leaves. Personal transformation on the path …
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In the River of the Tao
Each day of our life flows by like a river and each moment escapes us. Ultimately nothing can be captured, and like the Zen phrase goes, “as expected you can’t grasp it”. In order to demonstrate and embody this, the Chinese performance artist Song Dong stood in the flow of …
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The Art of Doing Nothing
For centuries yogis have know the benefit of doing nothing. In fact there are entire schools of practice devoted to not doing and reams of treatises, sutras, and verses that elaborate in great detail the “practice” of doing nothing. Take for example this well known verse from the Heart Sutra, …
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The Spirit of Play
All life begins in a spirit of play. For instance in the mythology of India, the gods, bored to death with their own enlightenment, conjure endless varieties of human dramas for their entertainment. Every action, every scene, every human thought are manifestations of the divine sport of the gods. Life …
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Don’t Cling to Equanimity
It is common that a practice becomes like spiritual Tylenol for people seeking solace from a difficult world. It’s true that the practice can work like a sedative, in fact, for years I have used my own yoga as a means to self medicate. A yoga practice can certainly mellow …
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Radical Acceptance
The celebrated narrative of Jesus Christ living and dying on the cross strikes me as more powerful than ever this year. For here was a man who was compassionate and kind, who embodied what we would today call “radical acceptance”. Yet he was condemned by authoritarian figures seeking control and …
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No Comparison
In our minds we divvy up the world into bits and pieces—plus or minus, good or bad, right and wrong. Our small, insecure mind frets, “am I good enough,” or “she is so much better than I.” This can drive any reasonable person crazy and result in grinding mindsets of judgement and competition. …
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