I searched modern fiction and poetry for clues to how we confronted and evaded reality, how we articulated our experience and turned to language not to revel ourselves but to hide. I was as sure then as I am now that by looking at contemporary Irania...
Being in the depths of the ocean was like being in the womb, suspended in a liquid environment, listening to my own breathing and heartbeat. Whether it was the serenity and security of being surrounded by this living liquid, or the total distraction ...
The honey doesn't taste so good once it is being eaten; the goal doesn't mean so much once it is reached; the reward is no so rewarding once it has been given. If we add up all the rewards in our lives, we won't have very much. But if we add up the s...
Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Poo...
I know everything's alright but I want proof and the Buddhas and the Virgin Marys are there reminding me of the solemn pledge of faith in this harsh and stupid earth where we rage our so-called lives in a sea of worry, meat for Chicagos of Graves - r...
He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to ho...
Do I look the sort to cause trouble?" he asks. For the first time, he looks me directly in the eye. I catch my breath as his eyes slam into me. They're the gray of the sky right before a blizzard. "Well, they did just throw you into a cell," I say, v...
A handshake is a balanced transaction, an even interaction based on agreement. A handshake is a physical representation of quid pro quo. But if Seth Goden is right, and we are now past this for that in a gift society, what should we do with our hands...
You should not try to live without thinking and feeling, for then you are only a piece of machinery, not a human being. Even if it hurts. Even if the thing you have to think of are sad, think them through; live them through and write or tell me. Only...
Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from th...
My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours… it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I hav...
The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die.
If we try to resolve terrorism with military might and nothing else, then we will be no safer than we were before 9/11. If we truly want a legacy of peace for our children, we need to understand that this is a war that will ultimately be won with boo...
Profound silence would brood over the valley, even weighing down our spirits with indefinable heaviness. There can be no other place in the world where man feels himself so alone, so isolated, so completely ignored by nature, so incapable of entering...
I am human. Like all humans, I do not remember my birth. By the time we wake up to ourselves, we are little children, and our advent is something that happened an eternity ago, at the beginning of time. We live like latecomers to the theater; we must...
Some might debate whether people are born with talent, or whether it is developed. Toyota’s stand is clear—give us the seeds of talent and we will plant them, tend the soil, water and nurture the seedlings, and eventually harvest the fruits of ou...
The New Age movement, for all the validity of its protest and the value of some of its recommendations, is in truth a very old blind alley. There is a very long history to remind us of what happens when nature is our ultimate point of reference . . ....
If it is the case that we are merely slaves to the natural processes computing our advanced fight and flight responses, then we are never truly thinking, which means that logic and reason - the things we hold so dear - do not exist either.
Everyone wears masks.They come in all different shapes and sizes.The only problem with trying one on is that it fits. How easily we fall into the trap that we don’t have to be who we really are.How easily we convince ourselves that we need to cover...
Watching someone you love go through difficult times is like being trapped in your own body but paralyzed. You want to yell at them, scream, help them, but your body won’t move, and you know that no matter how hard you try, in the end, the path is ...
Sometimes I wonder if we ever truly let anyone completely in. The desire for another human being to know you, all of you, all the pieces, even the ones you’re ashamed of — is huge. But too often, we sit down and sort through the pieces only picki...