illumination

Let’s tentatively accept the premise that there’s an intrinsic intent in evolution (without implying a deity) to develop brains with the capacity to consciously commune with cosmic mind that infuses…

At the little creek at the edge of town, the wind blew and the clouds flew, but there was hardly a flutter of thought. Some days, like this one, meditation…

All systems of meditation are based on a false premise—that of control. The essence of any system, technique or method is control. Therefore all systems and methods of meditation are antithetical to meditation.

If the events of recent days have demonstrated anything, it is that the Enlightenment ideals of human reason and rationality, which originated in France, cannot hold sway over the chaos…

Life is perpetually beginning, and so right living means beginning each day anew—dying each day and beginning each day without continuity. To my mind, that’s the only way to live…

As negation in meditation deepens with effortless diligence, one comes into direct, wordless contact with the infinite and omnipresent fact of death. Rather than react out of fear however, one…

A conversation with a Buddhist teacher from India turned to the Buddha’s illumination. “The Buddha,” he said, “was attacked by Mara, but the Buddha came to see that the evil…

Overhanging the gorge are great angular outcroppings of volcanic rock—solid and sharp-edged protrusions from some long-ago eruption of Lassen or some other volcano in the area.