Musings

What's The Secret? I have just returned from ten blessed, restful, de-lightfull days with my dear old ashram friend and mentor, Baba Ram Dass, at his home on Maui, a truly magical and healing place. Spending time with RD is awe-inspiring. Every moment of enlightened conversation or carefree laughter, dinnertime meditation or sacred chanting, opens up new worlds. Memory-making, I cherished and filed away an abundant array of happiness data as well as stories and teaching tales from the Great Path. Spending time with this realized spirit allows me an opportunity to “see” and be more...

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Most of us seem to live at a little distance from our body, or at best in our head. What we seek is right here; the problem is that we are usually elsewhere, distracted and dissociated, wandering mindlessly in the past or future. However, I can assure you that if you’re not here now you won’t be There then. This is karmic law, and the very essence of habit and conditioning.”

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Although written with Thanksgiving in mind, I try to "remember to remember" what I am thankful for everyday! I give thanks for the miracle of daily life and breath, And this gorgeous if endangered natural world, And the treasure of Dharma friends and family surrounding me, In this very moment. I give thanks that I'm not a homeless refugee, Bombed and hounded, unwelcome at borders, Climbing concrete dividing walls, Or an any other person fleeing civil unrest, discrimination, and warfare, Not a Middle Eastern girl kept from school and modern civil rights, Nor black Ameri-teen endangered...

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One of my wonderful Twitter followers @scnitschke  sent me this powerful poem in response a recent post. I loved it so much, I thought you might too! "She Let Go" Without a thought or a word, she let go. She let go of fear. She let go of judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go. She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

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A meditation session can generally be thought of as having three stages: * Stage One– Arriving and Centering: Find a comfortable position and balance-begin to let go- relax and grip less tightly to your thoughts. Try to become more attentive, conscious, and mindful of your breathing *Stage Two–Intensifying and Focusing:... Focus more closely on your inhalation and exhalation. Try to let the scattered thoughts that pop into your head disappear into your breathing. With each thought interruption try to refocus on the simplicity of just breathing; remaining free and untangled. *Stage...

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"Sounds like a new age to me." That was a response I received from a recent Facebook  posting I made regarding Pope Francis' historic U.S. visit. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could help connect the dots as we hear the Peoples' Pope's loving message today, so resonant with the timeless evergreen healing words of the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, Dag Hammarskjold, Dorothy Day, Reinhold Niebuhr, and so many others who can no longer be seen merely as like voices crying in the wilderness? It is our wilderness, and we must do all we can to protect and save...

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I awoke and found it was a new year. Who new?  Every day can and even should be a highlyday, miraculous to be-hold--  if we are open, attentive and attuned. If I only open eyes to hear and ears to feel it, see the light shining as shadows, even thru my selfness, my inner divine heart unfurls wide as the universe; then all is well and all will be well in this agitated yet splendid world. Happy high holy days, friends and foes alike! May you be joyous and well. Put down the entire project for a moment, take a breath, and awaken fresh and renewed. I know now that there is no unequivocal good...

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MINDPOD NETWORK EP. 13 - "Seeing Through, Being Through" When we understand that all being is merely emptiness cloaked in material phenomenon then we begin to see for the…

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Loneliness is like the cancer of the modern world, to parse Mother Teresa. We are not alone. We are all interconnected, interdependent and interwoven -- inter-being, to use venerable Thich Nhat Han's felicitous phrase. We are all alone here together, with all beings, all things great and small, visible and invisible. In my latest book, Make Me One With Everything, I share the following story which was relayed by a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, and illustrates to me the incredible value of inter-meditation in our fragmented, plugged in, tuned-out & cacophonous times.

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After spending several days with His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai in Atlanta, a few years ago,  this way of meditating on Him and with Him simply came to me and I eventually wrote it down. May it be beneficial!     CO-MEDITATING  WITH  THE  DALAI  LAMA 1) Think clearly of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (looking up to Him) 2) Visualize and image-in Him right before you & with you, eye-to-eye, heart to heart, And/or look at His picture 3) Remember the splendid Guru-Lama (and his enlightened qualities) As the Compassionate Buddha and his pure, clear, warm and simply loving presence 4)...

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