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The most urgent issue we humans face is how we conceive ourselves — whether as isolated, individual, complex lumps of matter guided by the so-called blind laws of nature, or as unified, interconnected creatures who, although physical, are also imbued with something more:  consciousness, mind, spirituality: that difficult-to-define quality that says we are connected with something that transcends our individual self and ego. Every decision we make is influenced by […]

Children seldom misquote you. They usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said. —Unknown One summer at a family reunion, I went to chat with two of my nieces, ages three and five, who were playing in the sandbox. As I sat down, they greeted me as follows: Amelia: Here’s Uncle Peter. Let’s play. I’ll be the mother. Marie: Yeah, I’ll be the little daughter. Uncle Peter can […]

Sunlight flashes across the nursing home lobby when I enter. By degrees the brightness dims as the door swings shut. My eyes adjust to a line of wheelchairs, their occupants so still they might be in deep meditation. One woman rouses, her brown eyes searching me out. “Feet don’t work a’tall,” she says politely. “Not a lick of good.” I walk down the hall past living koans. A man is held in a […]

The nature of the bombs, the nature of injustice, the nature of the weapons, and the nature of our own being are the same. – Thich Nhat Hanh My friend Jennifer and I had an interesting tug-of-war with words after I commented on the term “illegal alien.” I was sitting on a bright red rug in her home, while she sat in a nearby chair, bending her head over a […]