Echoes of Silence

Touching Life in Silence

Touching Life in Silence

There is life, and there are thoughts about life. If we see our thoughts as thoughts, we don’t become our thoughts; we recognize that we are different from our thoughts. Thoughts just arise and disappear; we can’t even say they arise within us...

Woman on beach listening

Deep Listening

I want to talk about awakening. I want to talk about the kind of awakening that is all around us, that doesn’t require any special effort or activity, the kind of awakening that exists as the inner truth of all living things…of all...

Woman feeling alive with arms outstretched on a mountain

Are You Truly Alive?

What does it mean to be truly alive? Does it mean to be so busy, frantic, or worried that we cannot enter this moment deeply? Does it mean to be so full of yesterday’s knowledge or tomorrow’s hope that we cannot see the contours of today...

Work-As-Play

Work-As-Play

My father worked for a living; he didn’t play for a living. My father died at 53. He died of heart failure. The autopsy revealed that he also had pancreatic cancer, which would have killed him within months. For years, I had watched him...

The Cosmic Abyss

The Cosmic Abyss

A few years ago, I took an executive team to the Green Gulch Zen Center in Mill Valley, California for a three-day retreat. Our agenda was to review corporate goals, renew commitments, and strengthen relationships. Well after the first day’s...

Angelic Presences Abound

Angelic Presences Abound

When we are visited by an angelic presence, we become attentive for a long while after. Our attention turns towards that wonderment which opens before us in the wake of angels. A new strength and faith is ours. A softness comes into us, as when one...

Meditation Is A White Rose

Meditation Is A White Rose

Each of us, in our own way, is seeking liberation. We want to experience the rapture of reality. We have been taught to pursue this through addition. We want to add happiness, prosperity, love, success. Yet no matter how much we add to ourselves...

Vice President of Consciousness

Vice President of Consciousness

Imagine: every company hires a mystic to sit in the executive circle as an advocate of consciousness. His or her role is to enter meditative communion with the source of life, there to dwell and listen to the goings-on in the meetings. The mystic's...

Pulling the Trigger

Pulling the Trigger

On Christmas Eve, 1995. Susan asked, “A friend called me and said she was going to kill herself. Should I have interfered and tried to stop her, or let her be responsible for her own life? I tried to think about what was right for her.”...

The Governor As Executioner

The Governor As Executioner

The governors of each state must execute the guilty person. I say the governor because that is the person who, in the system we have created, carries the power of clemency: the governor can commute a death sentence. The governor that we have elected...

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