What's Happening Now
Compassion, Not Empathy
Here is a brilliant description of the power of compassion, recognizing someone else's pain and offering support, vs. empathy, taking on someone's pain. The first leads to connection, the latter, to separation.
It's All About Perception
As a good friend of mine has said time and again, perception is in the eye of the beholder. Remembering that how we see the world is not how everyone sees the world could help us be kinder and more connected.
Trust the NYTimes?
This is a very intelligent, though very long, op-ed from a former NYTimes editor explaining how The New York Times lost its independence to report without "fear and favor" (the purpose of the paper per Adolph Ochs in 1896).
Awkward Is the New Brave
Learning how to embrace those awkward, uncertain moments leads to our most courageous moments.
What Is Real?
Even Pope Francis is advocating for discernment between what is real and what is fake after someone put him in a white puffy coat and posted it online.
What Gets Me Smiling
We Are All Innately Mathematical
What do thousands of years old sand drawings have to do with math?
Photos of the Universe
Recent gorgeous and awe-inspiring photos from the JWST.
Equally Relevant for 2025
This article is an excellent guide to counter procrastination. A Just Do It for the new year.
A Way to Your Mind Is Through Your Stomach
Research is showing even more correlation between a healthy gut and a clear mind.
Captain Nemo, Eat Your Heart Out
Look at how fabulous the ocean is 10,000 feet down!
Teachers, Teachers, Teachers
Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart Tolle explains Buddhist principles clearly, and offers present day interpretations of many spiritual texts. From The Power of Now, "Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you."
Alan Watts
A 1960s, self-proclaimed "spiritual entertainer," Alan Watts uses engaging and provocative analogies to describe Zen Buddhism. From Become What You Are, "You may believe you are out of Harmony with Life and its Eternal Now but you can not be. For you are Life and you exist Now … so become what you are.”
Reverend Jaganath Carrera
For an up-to-date and inclusive translation of Patanjali's Yoga Surtras, refer to Reverend Jaganath's Inside the Yoga Sutras. With another translation on the way, he offers, "The goal of Yoga is not to obtain something that is lacking. It is the realization of an already present reality. Yoga practice does not bring about Self Realization directly - Yoga removes the obstacles that obstruct its experience."
Sri Nisargaddata Maharaj
A chain-smoking gnani (self-realized) Guru from the 1960s, Maharaj encouraged practitioners to dive deep into the question, who am I? From published conversations with him in a book entitled, I Am That, "When the mind is kept away from its preoccupations, it becomes quiet. If you do not disturb this quiet and stay in it, you find that it is permeated with a light and a love you have never known, and yet, you recognize it at once as your own nature."
Abraham Hicks
As the inspiration for The Secret, the teachings of Abraham resonate regardless of the source. Far more than manifesting things, these teachings are Zen at the core - we choose our own experience A favorite quote, "Do not look for love of self, look for Love that is Self." We are, as Abraham says, liquid love; that is our True Nature and loving is our natural state of being,
Other Teachers and/or Spiritually Informed Books
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
- Epictetus, The Art of Living
- Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You
- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
- Vernon Kitabu Turner, Soul Sword: The way and mind of a Zen warrior
- Nischala Joy Devi, The Secret Power of Yoga
- Eknath Easwaran, translation of, The Dhammapada
- Cheri Huber, There Is Nothing Wrong With You
- Amit Goswami, Ph.D., The Self-Aware Universe
- Any and all poems by Hafiz or Rumi