Learning Courage

Learning Courage

At dinner with a friend the other night, we discussed some of the traits we were grateful to have acquired from our parents. Both of us had dads that took risks, dads that worked at the edge of their experience and skill, dads that harvested some spectacular failures...
More Misconceptions about Meditation

More Misconceptions about Meditation

Meditation is not something that takes you “away.” It does not remove you from your troubles, nor does it take your troubles away from you. It is not some amorphous, peaceful nirvana that you can wear as insulation against the unfolding of the world. Meditation will...
Getting smart about pain

Getting smart about pain

Pain-free is not an option. Whether it’s the pain unfolding into the next phase of life, like a flower bud holding tight against the blossom of release. The stone-in-your-shoe annoyance at work that nags you to live a bigger life. The pain of consciousness inhabiting...
氣 is not pronounceable in English

氣 is not pronounceable in English

Qi is not pronounceable in English. Its whistled aspiration is not a sound found in our language. And much as we can approximate it with the “chee”, as in the beginning of “cheese”, it will forever be a curious transplant; like an exotic...
Resistance

Resistance

  I suspect you have encountered this. That there is a decision made to break the lizard brained pattern of habituality; it could be something as simple as acquiring a new habit of eating, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, stretching in the morning...
No Guarantees

No Guarantees

You see it in most advertising, whether it’s for wheels, clothes or computers: The Guarantee. It underlies the been-burned-before anxiety of the pre-nup agreement of a second marriage. That one foot just a half step out of all the way in. A fallback. A crisp...