meditation

A newspaper editorial reflects the thinking of not just one editor, but the editorial staff in general. When so august and influential newspaper as the New York Times publishes its…

Someone asked me what I feel the single most important action for a human being is. It is right observation, the action of non-action.

A pristinely clear and cold stream flows by at my feet, its brown and reddish stones burnished by the fresh current and glistening in the sunlight. A woodland hawk soars…

Theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind, a professor at Stanford, says, “The fear of death was hardwired into our genetic makeup in the deep past.” That’s a dubious premise.

A large, red, cup-shaped leaf, its stem pointing straight down, parachutes into the creek in the windless air and is instantly swept downstream on the clear current of death, and…

A novel that deeply affected me when I was young is Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot.” In it, the central character utters one of the most memorable and mysterious lines in all…

After a light, all-night rain, the clouds cleared and the sun made a welcome appearance in the early afternoon. People got outside and into the parkland in droves, including me.…

After the slaughter in Paris I called a Portuguese friend in the Azores who had lived for nearly 20 years in California. We hadn’t talked in nearly half a year,…