A Mindful Life

I just returned from my first sesshin at Hazy Moon Zen Center. It was fruitful. I’m tired and glad to be home. All that I experienced is settling, so I hesitate to write extensively about it. Here are some brief reflections. The first one is from my drive down, when I stopped at San Luis [...]

“When you have completed 95 percent of your journey, you are only halfway there.” – Japanese Proverb

Today Claire asked to make Simba, from the Lion King. She hasn’t seen the movies but is obsessed with the songs, especially The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Hakuna Matata, and He Lives In You. She wanted to also make his father and an elephant friend. Thank goodness for paper plates, construction paper, glue and paint! Claire [...]

The lull of summer has me reading a lot but writing little. This blog has become a pictorial daybook with a few quotes tossed in for spice. Well, I blame the summer, but evidence shows that this is the trend my life has taken for the past year. Somewhere along the way I feel I’ve [...]

“When you practice every day, you come into resonance with cosmic cycles. After many days you can feel the diurnal cycle inside your work; after many moons, the lunar; after years and years the constellations come in. The whole spectrum of vibration, from the slow, lowest tones of turning galaxies to the highest speeds of [...]

Life is the flower for which love is the honey. –Victor Hugo Updated 7/11 (because comments are closed and I didn’t want to take the time to figure out how that happened): Perhaps the quote makes more sense if it reads, “Life is the toast for which love is the honey.”

“It’s like the story of the ugly duckling. That’s a perfect example of how the dharma works. There was this bird that was born into a flock of ducks, and he was extremely ugly – so ugly he was barely tolerated by the mother duck. He was misshapen, he made funny noises that didn’t sound [...]

Blessing the boats (at St. Mary’s) may the tide that is entering even now the lip of our understanding carry you out beyond the face of fear may you kiss the wind then turn from it certain that it will love your back may you open your eyes to water water waving forever and may [...]

Lift your arm. Let it fall onto your leg. Simple? Is existence simple? Consider that there are two massive objects: the earth — the whole big round rock of it — and your relaxed arm. The reality of the earth’s gravitational pull can be experienced in the heavy fall of your arm. Drop your arm [...]

Mine, all mine! At preschool, Claire had a tendency to hurtle into tears if a small thing didn’t go her way, or if she perceived some other child’s behavior as a slight. My response typically had been to croon, hug, and comfort. For instance, one day she brought a stuffed animal with her. In circle [...]