Touching Now

AWAKENING NATURAL MIND

In the Shambhala tradition, moments of perception are considered sacred, as they contact us to life as it is. The more we train the mind to rest in its immediate moment to moment experience, the clearer life becomes. The more contact we have to this unfiltered contact to reality, the more stabile … Read the rest


Last Night with Monkey Man

Huxley is under the bed, dying. After weeks of thinking one more thing will turn things around, this rugged, angry, difficult and – in the right place and time – extraordinarily loving being is calling it quits. We don’t know what this is, or why its happening.  Diagnoses, like signposts, provided temporary direction. Culled from … Read the rest


YES, and . . .

WAKING UP TO POSSIBILITY.

Meditation Master Chogyam Trungpa would frequently begin talks by saying “Good Morning,” regardless of the time of day, or night. It was not about time. It was about the idea of a fresh start, or clean slate. It was about saying YES to our morning in any state of mind.  In Read the rest


Crying To the Sky

A Grace Stronger Than Hate

Nine people lay in final silent prayer on the floor of the church that had been a place of solace, safety and strength to their families for over a century. The victims, those who died, and those left to suffer for them, prayed as the gunman – just a boy, … Read the rest



Bringing Meditation to Life

It was a long day preparing for the Sakyong’s arrival. Shambhala Mountain Center was abuzz with activity. The driveway was chalked with the auspicious symbols, and strewn with flower petals. The kitchen was readying the welcome feast. However, it would be false to say that all was joyful in anticipation. And while most were joyful … Read the rest


The Fires of Baltimore

Baltimore burned last night.

Ravaged neighborhoods long left for dead lie in the shadows of the award winning, highly praised, renovation of the waterfront, the jewel in Baltimore’s charm bracelet. The influx of money, people and life that filled the harbor and its adjacent neighborhoods, had faltered by the time it reached its east and … Read the rest


TRUNGPA

That winter was thick, frozen and bleak.  We spent long nights at the main house huddled around the woodstove, drinking sake and singing Scottish sea shanties.  The students would trade broken-hearted stories of a teacher whose passing, nine months prior, was still fresh in their hearts.  A man of outrageous warmth and brilliance, Trungpa, Rinpoche … Read the rest


Taurus Winter

Stars exploded across the night sky. Among them the giant V, the horns and nose of the bull, an arrow pointing to the earth you’re heir to. Oh, Taurus slave to this winter, lonely, driven, dark and chained to your domain, even as you dream of Venus, ruled by her, but shunned, a beast of … Read the rest


Across a Night So Wide

Snow had covered the ground and frozen bright, reflecting trillions of diamonds in the night. The sky was clear, ringing into an aura of a full moon. Stars nonetheless stood out in that amazing black and completely ice lit sky shining above the glistening earth, reflections of a moon reflecting its sun 93,000,000 miles behind … Read the rest