It’s so interesting how often the desire to be a person of kindness and compassion can seem to create as many problems as you’d think it would solve. I’ve noticed that I’ve been hearing a lot of anecdotes lately that have something to do with the struggle to create or maintain healthy boundaries: personal, physical, [...]
Your Headlights are Your Responsibility
January 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment
This morning I watched Naomi Tutu speak at the annual MLK Day breakfast in Minneapolis, and she told her favorite story about Dr. King. He was traveling from one engagement to another and was traveling by car at night. His brother-in-law was driving, and complained about how car after on-coming car failed to dim it’s [...]
New Year – Why Not?
January 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Happy New Year. I have always found myself in a quandary about this day on the calendar. Intellectually and instinctively I have always thought that too much was made out of this artificial distinction in the flow of time. At the same time, I can’t help but be caught up in the cultural mindset that [...]
Sacred Space, Sacred Moment
December 1, 2011 By 1 Comment
I was struck again recently, by the awesome responsibility and blessing that my work is. Having someone place themselves in my hands is an honor. I try not to take that trust too lightly. The word that came to mind to describe the work we do together is “sacred”, that my office is a place [...]
Personal Posting Guidelines: Frequency, Brevity, Impulsivity
November 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I originally kept my blog on Blogger, which generally worked very well. For a variety of reasons, both economic and practical, it now lives with my website. I still, however, get comments on old blog posts that people stumble across in the way that one does when cruising the wild open spaces of the internet. [...]
More Precept Talk: Lying
October 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I’ve been interspersing my blog entries with considerations of the various Buddhist precepts, or guidelines for “living like an enlightened being does naturally.” The next one I have decided to take on is the vow to not speak untruths – not to lie. In my previous posts on not killing and not taking what is [...]
Being the Anthropologist of Your Own Mind
October 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Curiosity is a powerful thing. Humans find the state of curiosity and its satisfaction to be quite pleasurable. This is a good thing, and probably an important evolutionary adaptation, as it is the motivating force behind invention, experimentation, exploration, and learning. It is the source of such thoughts as, “What if?” “How?” “Tell me more,” [...]
Are You Taking What is Not Given?
September 16, 2011 By 1 Comment
In a recent blog, I explored the Buddhist precept of “Not Killing”. The precepts are guidelines for behavior, and they are not considered “rules”. I’m particularly fond of the description of them as”the way an enlightened being naturally lives”. The process of “taking” these precepts culminates in a ceremony called Jukai, an acknowledgment that these [...]
Vow Not to Kill
August 20, 2011 By 4 Comments
The Precepts, which are a list of guidelines for living a life in accordance with being a force for good in the world tend to vary somewhat from source to source: There are often five precepts listed as being for everyone, some lists contain eight, and there lists that contain 10 that are sometimes designated [...]
