I broke down and watched Rambo (4) the other day. Not because I had any illusions that it would be a good movie (it wasn’t), but because I thought it might give me some insight into Burma (it didn’t). The movie takes place mostly in Burma, where Rambo is running around blowing things up and shooting people’s heads off with a big machine gun in order to save some naïve Christian missionaries who have been kidnapped by the oppressive military regime. As... Read more

It’s about life. I had hoped to have finished a review of The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes, (available now at Shambala) about two weeks ago. But, with the ounce of perfectionism I still have, I decided I just couldn’t do justice to the book by then. So I left this rain-check, hoping to be back soon. We all remember the line from “As Good as it Gets” when Jack Nickolson’s character says “You make me... Read more

Mammoth Hot Springs, March 12, 2011 Read more

As I lumber through the reading/review-writing of The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes, (available now at Shambala) I am reminded to stop. To reflect. To re-notice this world of ours in all its beautiful detail. Early in the text we are reminded that: “The possibilities of perception are limitless, and clear seeing is joyful.”  Such truths need to be sat with, to settle, to permeate one’s whole being. And that’s very much how the whole book... Read more

America, like much of the world, has made much progress in the last 100 years. But we still have a long ways to go. This afternoon, I went with my friend Patia (thanks, Patia!) to the rally in Missoula, MT honoring many of Montana’s fearless pioneering women, from Jeannette Rankin to Christine Kaufmann, and many in between.  Click here http://www.internationalwomensday.com/ – learn more, and find out what you can do to help make true equality a reality. Missoula MT International Women’s Day rally.... Read more

* Correction: “Dealing with people who do things that make life difficult” (see video below). This week, James, a good friend of mine in the buddhoblogosphere asked for suggestions on how to deal with mean people these days. It’s a touching post, one I’m sure we all can relate to. But he asks for specifically non-Buddhist books that might help with this. While I can think of a dozen Buddhist books right off the top of my head, nothing specifically... Read more

*For full disclosure I’ll mention that Bodhipaksa was my first meditation teacher, “way back in the day,” as they say (in the fall of 2000 in Missoula, MT). However, since he got his business degree and his website became wildly successful, he’s managed to avoid me well for quite some time and even waited for me to be safely in India before returning to Missoula on his recent book tour. That said, his recent book, “Living As a River: Finding... Read more

A friend recently posted a link to an article in UK’s Guardian newspaper on the “Soundtrack to the Arab revolutions.” And while each song is in its way both beautiful and poignant, I thought I might share another, more subdued bit of revolutionary music-video. Below is a video of my housemate, Hani, an Egyptian living in London at the same time as myself and several others from around the world. This night, like many others, was spent sharing food, some libations,... Read more

I heard this last year on retreat and again today he brought it out. I don’t recall the build-up from last time, but today he explained that it was a bit about our tendency, especially that of young men, to become so eager for spirituality (you can probably insert ‘activism’, ‘religion’, ‘nationalism’, etc) that a sort of militancy builds up and we end up missing the whole point of what we’re doing. So the story goes: There once was a... Read more