Filling with Silence

Filling with Silence


Silence can be an emptiness that is, paradoxically, full.

You do not occupy this silence; it occupies you.


—Mark C. Taylor,“Hearing Silence”

Connecting with Our Power

Connecting with Our Power


What if we said that power is internal freedom,

that power is the capacity for choice?


—Helen Tworkov,“Just Power”

Everybody Knows

Everybody Knows
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2020
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Everybody knows how love can heal a hurt,

Just watch a child’s face when a parent kisses

A scratch from a fall, and says it’ll be OK.
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Everybody knows how love can heal a hurt,

Just watch new lovers back in the game after

A betrayal. Sweet new kisses heal hearts too.
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Everybody knows how love can heal a hurt,

Just watch the bereaved as they go through

Hurts, to sweet memories of love’s goodness.
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Everybody knows how love can heal a hurt,

Just look at those in deepest despair. Give a

Lot of your love to them, and surely you’ll see.
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Everybody knows how love can heal a hurt,

Just look inside yourself at the place where

Hurts hide, if forgiven, you’ll know it too.

Softening Your Ego

Softening Your Ego


Gratitude is a way of undercutting your ego.


—Interview with Rev. Dr. Alfred Bloom by Jeff Wilson,“Beyond Religion”

Accepting Responsibility for Your Freedom of Mind

Accepting Responsibility for Your Freedom of Mind


No matter what happened in the past, the practice tells us, we are now

solely responsible for our own freedom.


—John Kain,“The Beautiful Trap”

Accepting the Way Things Are Right Now

Accepting the Way Things Are Right Now


When practicing mindfulness, even directed toward something as

ordinary as breathing, we enhance the part of the mind that is aware of

the way things are while diminishing the part that is stressed because

things are not the way we want them to be.


—Andrew Olendzki,“What’s in a Word? Sati”

Moments Within Time

Moments Within Time
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2020
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Time is finite for us short-lived, human animals,

But moments are what we live for and cherish.
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Memories serve us well by preserving the best

Moments that have graced our short, busy lives.
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We cherish memories of loves that have graced

Us in childhood, in adolescence, and adulthood.
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The moments that rest lightly in our mind’s eye

Are animated by scenes and sounds and smells,
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And can be recalled within an instant of poignant

Need’s desire to sense and experience them again.
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For many of our isolated-world’s quarantine cohort,

Memories of the best moments we’ve ever known,
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Are returning after long absences, marked by busy-

Nesses that have now almost fled from our minds.
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Sometimes an old movie, or a song, or word or two

With a soul or two who’ve been missing, is all it takes.
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And then, all in a rush, those memories of our old,

Precious moments will open and flood into our minds.
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And we’ll welcome the blessings of those moment’s

Memories as our hearts begin to feel them again.
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Changing Your Mind’s Patterns

Changing Your Mind’s Patterns


Purification is not about being pure.

Purification is about changing our relationship with the reactive patterns that run our lives.


—Ken McLeod,“Forgiveness Is Not Buddhist”

How Mindfulness Can Benefit Your Life

How Mindfulness Can Benefit Your Life


When the Buddha taught mindfulness, he always taught it as part of a whole.

He never said, “Pay attention to your breath and you will be free of suffering.”

More like, “Pay attention to your breath as a way of steadying the mind, and then look at your life.”


—Craig Hase and Devon Hase,“In Brief”

Let Go of What You Cannot Change

Let Go of What You Cannot Change


Why be unhappy about something

If it can be remedied?


And what is the use of being unhappy about something

If it cannot be remedied?


—Shantideva,“Shantideva Patience”

Realizing that Thoughts Are Not Facts

Realizing that Thoughts Are Not Facts


Once we recognize that thoughts are empty, the mind will no longer have the power to deceive us.


—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, “Teachings on the Nature of Mind and Practice”

How to Turn Suffering into Connection

How to Turn Suffering into Connection


Compassion allows us to use our own pain and the pain of others as a vehicle for connection.


—Sharon Salzberg, “A Quiver of the Heart”

The Freedom of Observation

The Freedom of Observation


What kind of freedom is it that exists in doing nothing?

It is the freedom not to interfere or react.

It is the freedom to merely observe.


—Ananda Baltrunas, “A Prison of Desire”

A Tear For One Love’s Loss, As Oceans Wait For Thee

A Tear For One Love’s Loss, As Oceans Wait For Thee
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2020
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As long as solutions to hegemony’s advance are framed

By deaths without ‘official’ body counts, we’ll all suffer

Tears without number, oceans of wet sadness will be all

We’ll have to assuage our losses, more’s the pity for us.
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As long as solutions to coronavirus’s advance are framed

By deaths without ‘official’ body counts, we’ll all suffer

Tears without number, oceans of wet sadness will be all

We’ll have to assuage our losses, more’s the pity for us.
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Please give us pity for that one love’s loss, it hurts so bad.

We never expected it to be so thoughtlessly swift. How to

Prepare for that is a query without any worthwhile answers.
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Please give us pity for the loss of a multitude, it hurts so bad.

We never expected it to be so thoughtlessly deadly and quick.

Look, all around, the bodies do multiply, and you’ll shed a tear.
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My ocean of tears wants to become an ocean of compassion,

But how can it? Won’t it be poisoned and sickened? I can’t

Help but ask. Won’t you help me find a way out of this mire?
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My ocean of compassion is made up of tears, mine and yours

Too. It isn’t as sad as it appears to be, it’s just humans being

Human, isn’t that true? What an ask. How long can we be blue?
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But now the pandemic stakes its claim. It doesn’t ask for much,

Just a tear here and there and everywhere for one love’s loss.

As unfair as it seems, I’d rather it than yet another stupid war.
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How to Develop Real Intimacy

How to Develop Real Intimacy


There is no such thing as two people—whether baby and mother, two lovers, or teacher and student—being perfectly in sync with each other’s needs and wishes.


Real intimacy arises from an ongoing process of connection that at some point is disrupted and then, ideally, repaired.


—Pilar Jennings, “Looking into the Eyes of a Master”

Love, Grief, Compassion, and Loneliness-Humanism in the Time of COVID19

Love, Grief, Compassion, and Loneliness
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2020
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Humanism in the Time of COVID19
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In beginning this little poetical essay, I’m torn

In pieces thinking about all the senseless loss

Of life and limb in humanity’s ceaseless wars.
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Then my mind and heart contrasts the human

Histories of war’s folly with what’s hurting us

Now, a virus with all our names written on it.
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After so many centuries of deadly conflicts,

We humans seem inured to war’s losses, but

Cry for loved ones taken by COVID’s scythe.
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Let me tell you why. The human costs of our

Wars are offset by huge, nearly tax-free profits

Made from sales of arms and war’s materiel.
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We’re encouraged to cry and mourn COVID19

Deaths by officials who, themselves, are just

As likely to be struck ill and die as you or I.
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But when it comes to injury and death in war,

Those officials rarely join a conflict, and often

Are shareholders in military-industrial profits.
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Therefore, it behooves the world’s leaders to

Celebrate the bravery and heroism of the young

People they use as cannon-fodder in their wars.
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While bemoaning the virus’s economic losses to

All, from the richest to the poorest, and demand

That workers who labor to create their profits;
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Get back to work as soon as possible, regardless

Of risk of sickness and death to them or their

Loved ones. In economics, profits trump love.
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So today we find ourselves in isolation to avoid

The spread of deadly infection. The rich, in splendid

Isolation in mansions, and the poor, poorer than ever;
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Forced to work or starve, or miss work to care for

Loved ones who are either too feeble to care for

Themselves, or are, themselves, sick with the virus.
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And now we come to humanity’s principal pains.

Grief for the loss of a dearly loved one; or grief

For the losses of profits or equity resale values;
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Compassion for the suffering all around us, and

All around the world, with no end in sight. And a

Realization that anyone, anywhere can quickly die.
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And finally, the realization of our own loneliness.

We are born alone. We may share some of our time,

But we shall die our deaths, alone unto ourselves.
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But each of us are only meant to lend a candle’s

Worth of light to a world that feels, to most, as a

Dark, fearsome place where each is adrift, alone.
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I believe that the glow of each person’s light is

What can illuminate the primary purpose of life,

To seek, find ,and then give love to others in need.
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Living a Life of Compassion

Living a Life of Compassion


Compassion is one of the principal things that make our lives meaningful.


—H. H. the Dalai Lama, “Consider Yourself a Tourist”

Breathe with Your Whole Body

Breathe with Your Whole Body


To better understand how to breathe with the conscious participation of

the whole body, nothing is more helpful than to recognize that, in a

deeply relaxed body, the force of breath can cause the entire body to

remain in a state of subtle, constant, fluid motion.


—Will Johnson, "Breath Moves Body"

Creating a Balanced and Accepting Mind

Creating a Balanced and Accepting Mind


Equanimity is not insensitivity, indifference, or apathy. It is simply nonpreferential.

Under its influence, one does not push aside the things one dislikes or grasp at the things one prefers.

The mind rests in an attitude of balance and acceptance of things as they are.


—Sayadaw U Pandita, "A Perfect Balanc

Reveal Your True Self

Reveal Your True Self


Usually, it takes a few—or a number of—meditation sessions sitting with the agitated mind before the true self appears.

But with each session the fog lifts a bit more.


—Joan Duncan Oliver, "The Sound of Silence"

Seeing the Interconnectedness of All Beings

Seeing the Interconnectedness of All Beings


To see into the interconnectedness of all living things is to see how all

living things are part of a unified field that contains all, and at the same

time to see that this entire field is embodied by each being.


—Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, “The Need of the Hour”