“It is inner stillness that will save and transform the world.”                -Eckhart Tolle Once upon a time, I gathered this as a quote that spoke to me.   This promise of stillness and what it could make possible, not only for me but for the world, was something I...

Writing is a difficult path.  It is a purging.  It requires one to bare open their soul.  It requires the sometimes cold, dark solitude of isolation before the words come through.  In that sense, it is much like committing to the daily practice of meditation or a...

What if the act of simply being were enough?   What if there was nothing that the world was depending on for its survival that you needed to do?  What if there was nothing you could do to improve yourself or save another person?  What if you were enough by simply...

A recent article in the New Yorker entitled “Why Walking Helps Us Think” provided the inspiration that “since the time of the peripatetic Greek philosophers, many other writers have discovered a deep, intuitive connection between walking, thinking and writing.”  In a...

Any attempt to describe the essence of Zen falls short within the limited construct of words, like trying to convey the sound of raindrops falling upon a flower petal in September, or the sensual experience of a warm cup of tea on a winter morning, or the awareness of...

One of the cultural aspects of Japan that I was very interested in exploring during my year in Kyoto was "Chado" or the Japanese tea ceremony or the Way of Tea. I became interested in tea after my travels to China and then my visits to "Guan Yin Tea House" in Austin...