Back in the days when I was still in college and converting to Catholicism, I gathered the impression from my reading that I should deny all desires. Desire, or “craving” in Buddhist thought, was not only the root of all evil, it was evil itself. I dutifully disciplined myself to ignore anything I might like, […]
Like the plum tree, we all have a few knots on our “I” tree where the branches have sharp turns. Many times we may not realize that our “I” is broken because we carefully sealed the break with anything from rubber cement to actual cement and then forgot about it. But now, we realize that
Have you ever seen a Chinese painting of a plum tree? I used to brush paint plum branches when I was learning how to apply ink to paper with a brush and come out with something beautiful. The Chinese plum tree doesn’t grow in nice, smooth, flowing lines. The branches are full of sharp angles
“I want to get out of here! This is the 70’s all over again!” The year was 2004 and I was at a healing retreat, but it was a reprise of everything I had not liked in the 1970’s. In the 70’s, Esalen in Big Sur on the California coast, was becoming famous as a
Last month I talked about growing new leaves on our Soul-tree. But growing new leaves isn’t always easy, and sometimes our painstakingly tended branches may be clipped off our tree by unforeseen events. The Divine Gardener may have a different plan about how our Soul-tree will flourish. Often we do not see the great Pruning
“I’m so vulnerable. I have no self-confidence and I cry all the time for no reason.” Tears filled the eyes of the young woman with long brown hair and plastic-rimmed glasses hiding her child-like blue eyes. We were at a retreat in Marin County in Northern California, where we were exploring “Transparent Communication.” This person