by Brock Haussamen Time goes by. The future comes towards us—or, to some, we move towards it. The future arrives in the present. Then both settle into the past, gone but not forgotten. Or so it seems. Here’s a more hard-nosed description: there is no past or future at all; there are just lives—the lives of animals, plants and microbes—running our course through days and seasons. We live in the present. Being alive is a present state, a current condition;... Read more
by James Jarrett Let’s begin with a poem, “Where the Circles Overlap” by Ada Limón, the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. We burrow. We hunch. We beg and beg. The thesis is still a river. At the top of the mountain is a murderous light, so strong it’s like staring into an original joy, foundational, that brief kinship of hold and hand, the space between teeth right before they break into an expansion, a heat. We hurry. We hanker.... Read more
(The author of this piece prefers to remain anonymous.) Below are selections of writings of three men: Nikos Kazantzakis, Rainer Maria Rilke, and the Chinese poet Li Po. Each of these selections, in its way, suggests the idea that the world needs aware, conscious beings to have existence. Or as Kazantzakis states it, Nature needs to evolve aware creatures so that she “sees her entire body for the first time.” Rather than an omni-aware god, these writers present a blind,... Read more
by Thomas Schenk I have been reading An Alchemy of Mind by Diane Ackerman, a book that explores recent discoveries about the human brain. In a chapter titled “The Emotional Climate,” I came upon some sentences that provided insight into a question that has troubled me for some time. The question is: Why, amid the great prosperity of the modern Western world, are so many people angry and unhappy? The sentences are: The discrepancy between the actual world and what we choose to... Read more
by Jeff Worthy High School, Hibbing, MN Each of us seeks fulfillment in our lives. This can take many shapes and mean different things to different people, but for our purposes here, we will be talking about the fulfillment that comes from knowing that the work you do each day is making a difference in the world. In this sense, when you feel “fulfilled,” you feel like you are achieving the purpose you set out for when you chose a specific... Read more
by Eric Steinhart Our bodies obviously suffer: they get injured and sick, they age and die. Life as a body is just plain painful. Lots of spiritual philosophies and practices are ways we respond to our suffering bodies. These responses often involve dissociation. Dissociation is a way of separating your consciousness from its awareness of the painful condition of your body. When you use dissociative techniques, your awareness becomes split off from the awareness of your painful body. When you dissociate,... Read more
by Thomas Schenk The year I graduated from high school (1971), my brother and I spent the summer traveling throughout the Western United States. Along the way, someone gave me a copy of The Upanishads, which I casually read as we traveled. In Washington, somewhere between Mount Rainier and Yakima, while my brother drove, I dozed off. While sleeping, I had a vivid dream. In the dream I saw a golden ball on the horizon. As I gazed at it, golden strings... Read more
by Leigh Anderson Photo by Sébastien Goldberg on Unsplash I want to move my mindfulness practice into more of my daily life. I am aware of wanting to be mindful while I walk, but that doesn’t mean that I’m practicing mindfulness at the time. I pay more attention to what’s going on in my environment or what’s going on inside my head. It seems so much easier to be mindful when I’m sitting still in a chair and concentrating on... Read more
by Daniel Shkolnik The point of this writing is not to make a rational argument or assert truth-claims, but to bring you into a state of presence. I invite you to read the following sentences without agreeing or disagreeing with anything I say and let the words lead you into presence: Be awake. Be alert. Or you’ll miss it. Be like a cat watching a mouse-hole. Be like a servant waiting for the master to return. You never know when “God”... Read more
by Thomas Schenk (Having had more than enough eating, drinking and merriment over the holidays, I offer this piece to start the new year.) “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” – is this not the simplest, most natural philosophy worth putting into words? It cuts through all religious, metaphysical, and supernatural assertions and points directly to the obvious: we’re going to die and there is no credible evidence that death is anything but the end. So why... Read more
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