A Guide to New Year’s Resolutions

“People don’t really change.” How often have you heard that phrase? How often have you said it yourself? I heard it a lot growing up, and so I was surprised when I met my teacher and he told me the opposite. “People really do change,” he said. “Not magically, not in a day — but […]

An Acorn For Someone’s Proverb

Ajaan Fuang once said that, for most people, the act of meditating is like climbing a ladder slowly, step by step, to the second floor, and then jumping out the window. What he meant, I think, is that most people mistakenly see meditation as a preparation for something else. They make some time to get […]

Our Other Lungs

There’s a passage from The Dhammapada that describes a vision the Buddha had of the world as a puddle drying up in the sun. In the puddle, he saw, were fish struggling against each other to hold on to the last drops of water. But then he saw that the cause of this struggle was […]

Mercy

Since the storm came, I’ve been reading the Book of Jonah. I’m not much of a believer, so it isn’t the part about faith that makes me love that tale so much. The story of Jonah, as I read it, is an allegory about compassion. Jonah is a man who’s running from his own ability […]