What's Happening Now
Waste Not, Want Not
The Japanese practice of mottainai, to not waste, helps with creative menus and grocery savings.
The Nerve That Calms
We often think of nerves as agitators, but there's one that can calm, the vagus nerve.
Emotional Intelligence
How can we keep our cool, respond rather than react? A calm mind is a good start and here are four ways to cultivate that.
Our Living Planet
While we are called to be stewards of this planet, it's also helpful to see how the Earth maintains its own existence perfectly fine without us.
Beginning Meditation?
Start here, simple, straightforward, without an OM in sight.
What Gets Me Smiling
Pumpkins Grown in Sand?
Yes! As it turns out, humans can be highly creative and the earth can be highly responsive!
Time to Space Out!
On the way to starting a meditation practice, it can help to just space out a bit (I call it generative boredom!).
Go Small to Go Big
This tiny cabin is open to the wide world of nature.
More Green! Less Grey!
The Netherlands is having a competition to replace pavers with gardens. (This may be old news, though still good news!)
Great Pet Photos
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