A Classroom has a Soul
When I was in seminary, I had planned my master’s thesis around the title “Psyche and Spirit in the Classroom.” I see now that this was a skew...
Category: Zen
My True Teacher
Having a childAfter 18 months I still can't sayWhat it's like 4th Ave & 12th St, Manhattan
American Psyche
Originally posted on 10/18/2020, thought I’d share it here. In the ancient Greek used in the Gospels, the word for soul is “psyche”, as contra...
Clouds of Witness
I was in Austin, Texas for a few days before I really looked up at the sky. I saw churning clouds under a hot sun, a favorite object of contemplation of mine in...
Stepping Back
I’ve been to a handful of silent retreats before, so when my teachers on this most recent one said, “don’t try to get anything out of this,...
Reflections after a silent retreat
I returned from my zendo’s ten-day silent retreat just yesterday, called a “sesshin” (which means “gathering the mind”). This is n...
More like you than you
I’ve often felt an affinity for the marginalized. It comes from an early place in my life of feeling marginalized myself — powerless or less importa...
I know they say this tent is waterproof but I’ve pitched it at sea.
On the meaning of the teaching of Origen of Alexandria, from his Of Tents and Wells. And so, contemplating in the Spirit these progressions, he calls ...
Why leave the palace?
As the story goes, Shakyamuni Buddha was a prince in northern India. Before his birth, it was prophesied that he was destined to become one of two things: a gre...
On the “broad and generous spirit…”
In my last post, I ended with Darlene Cohen on the benefits of facing our pain, rather than distracting from it or trying to push it away: …you begin to feel ge...