It’s all included (What comes to mind)

What comes to mind tonight is, "I don't know what to say." Then again, that is always what comes to mind if I am honest, if I don't grab hold of "I know what to say." Floating around, then, is a semblance of an answer to a perpetual question about the first Bodhisattava vow ("Sentient [...]

Flip through the morning newspaper. Among the headlines and blurbs and briefs and spreads of type, little catches my attention for more than a minute or so. They say journalism is a rough draft of history. I take in the information - jihads, creditors, deficits, bans, inquiries, rulings, findings, pronouncements, victories, defeats - and turn [...]

Already Thursday. I know by the clock and calendar that the week, the month, the evening are advancing, but I can neither catch nor describe their ceaseless movement. It is without measure, a constant, magnificent flight neither to nor from anywhere. Meanwhile. I exchange electronic fragments with friends and acquaintances on four continents. I walk [...]

So Tiger Woods has repented and promises to become "normal," like everyone else. Wonder what that means. He also vows to return to his Buddhist roots. Wonder what that means, too. And of course, we can wonder why we care. Whatever else, maybe this whole story provides a glimpse for some into the toxic illusions [...]

Have been waking early these days and setting off for work before the sun is up. On the Métro at that hour, most of my fellow passengers are heading to jobs that most anyone who has the choice doesn't want -- cleaning offices, toilets, streets, or tending to other tasks that most people consider "undesirable." [...]

Going through the days, one thing to another, and not finding words for this space. Always with "bodhisattva" in mind. Then find these words from Thich Nhat Hanh: "When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things [...]

Snow coming obliquely through the gray light this morning has me thinking, as ever when the flakes come "general all over" like this, of the final lines of Joyce's masterful short story The Dead: "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of [...]

I read tonight that when Shunryu Suzuki Roshi was on his deathbed, his successor, Richard Baker, asked him where they would meet again. Suzuki Roshi stuck his boney hand out from under the sheet and drew a circle. Indeed. No one is going anywhere ever. And after a fruitful day of writing, with breaks for [...]