When a human life comes into being, a unique form comes together, like a drop of water when it is separated from the wholeness of the river as it hits a rock or falls down a waterfall.
Category: Book Excerpts
“You Can’t Pray a Lie” – Mark Twain’s Huck Finn
Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn suggests that evil is not something manifested by wicked people, rather it perpetuates with the conventions that we absorb from childhood.
The Path That Leads Into the Mountains
In 1993, Zen teacher Joan Halifax published a book called The Fruitful Darkness based on her anthropological engagements with Tibetan Buddhists, Mexican shamans, Native American elders and other tribal communities.
Aldous Huxley and Beauty
Huxley on the beatific vision of divine beauty that resides in Pure Interval and harmonious relationship, and experiencing the divine through architecture, music, sacred geometries and human relationships.
Florence Scovel Shinn and the Game of Love
Published in 1925, The Game of Life and How to Play It was a trailblazing tome of self-help literature couched in positive thinking and affirmative actions.
To Name and Describe, You Must First See
Writer and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Braiding Sweetgrass is a call to awakening to ecological consciousness and an awareness of our interconnectedness with nature.
Only Justice Can Stop a Curse
In this essay about anger and injustice, writer and social activist Alice Walker begins by presenting a curse prayer found by Zora Neale Hurston that is more than a century old.
The Guidepost of Silent Illumination
"When wonder exists in serenity, all achievement is forgotten in illumination. What is this wonder? Alertly seeing through confusion is the way of silent illumination and the origin of subtle radiance." - Hongzhi Zhengjue Hongzhi Zhengjue was a 12th century philosopher and Zen master in China who authored a large number of philosophical texts as… Continue reading The Guidepost of Silent Illumination
Every Book is a Failure – George Orwell on Truth in Writing
"One can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a window pane." - George Orwell In his 1946 essay, Why I Write, George Orwell set out what he saw as the main motivators for writing: they were, sheer egotism, esthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose.… Continue reading Every Book is a Failure – George Orwell on Truth in Writing
Eighteen Thousand Universes Through Eighteen Thousand Eyes
Ibn Arabi was a 13th century mystic, poet and philosopher in the Islamic tradition. He lived between Spain and North Africa and produced a prodigious and varied output during his lifetime.