What is a Hero?

What is a hero? Do you really know? Is it someone strong and vibrant who goes off and slays your enemies and upholds your friends? Or is it a football quarterback who wins the Super Bows in the last second with his “hail Mary” throw? Christoper McDougall doesn’t think it is any of these.   […]

How to Calm Our Ambitious Mind

These words of wisdom from Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche teach us how to calm our ambitious mind with shamatha meditation, simply concentrating on our breathing. Spend a moment contemplating this quote and then read my story below. Less Ambition, Less Disturbance The beautiful thing about having less obsessions and ambitions—and just sitting straight and watching […]

The Tao that Can be Told

On the first full day I was in Pune, India in 1975 with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, he began a series dharma talks on Lao Tzu‘s Tao Te Ching. These talks resulted in a series of four volumes call Tao: The Three Treasures. The narrator, a long-time disciple of his, reads this […]

Ambition and Spirituality

Ken Wilber teaches us how to reconcile ambition and spirituality in these words of wisdom in his essay on “Egolessness” from his book The Essential Ken Wilber: An Introductory Reader. I’ve been admiring his work for more than twenty years now and find his wisdom very palpable. I have listened to the audio recordings of […]

Anna Halprin Came to Our Shabbat Sangha

Last Friday, Anna Halprin came to our Shabbat Sangha. My good friends, Maryanne and David, open their homes on the first Friday of the month for a group of us to come together and build a community. We gather in the kitchen around 6:45 PM and set out our delicious plates to share with each […]

How To Treat People

This quote from Lao Tzu teaches us how to treat people. Lao Tzu was a 6th Chinese mystic who wrote the Tao Te Ching and is credited with the founding of Taoism. The Tao Te Ching has had a great influence on my life. When I first met Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, […]

The Vanishing Bucket List

My dharma brother and fellow OI1 member, Peter Cutler, posted this article on the OI Discussion board on Friday, October 4. I wrote back that what he wrote fits very nicely with Dr. Sara Gordon‘s article, Undivided Self. Peter’s writing about the vanishing bucket list is clear and interesting. The Vanishing Bucket List Whether we […]

Wisdom Teachings Come From Everywhere

These words of wisdom from Lama Surya Das attempt to answer the question, “What is wisdom?” Lama Surya Das was born Jeffrey Miller in Brooklyn, New York and became a lama after studying in the Tibetan tradition for more than 20 years. He teaches the wisdom of dzogchen – a Tibetan word that means Great […]

Another Take On The Bodhisattva

Roshi Bernie Glassman delivered another take on the bodhisattva at the Sivananda Yoga Retreat from May 6-12, 2011. He delivered a dharma talk on “Becoming a Mensch.” What is a mensch? My dad used to point out that this person was a mensch. What did he mean? It was a person with the qualities of loving kindness, […]

“I speak as if I am speaking on my own self” – Osho

The day after I arrived in Pune, India, I headed over to the Rajneesh Ashram for the morning satsang (being in the presence of the master) with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, more commonly known as Osho. The beauty and the flow of his voice entranced me right away. I have to say that his way of teaching is a […]