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Tag: being

Shunryu Suzuki
Book Bits

Sharing the Feeling: Zen Teacher Shunryu Suzuki on Becoming Ourselves

September 30, 2025September 28, 2025 Vanessa Able

The importance of keeping an empty mind for savoring the present and expressing ourselves in our most authentic way.

Tagged becoming, being, Buddhism, Emptiness, Enlightenment, exporession, liberation, Mind, Suzuki, teaching, ZenLeave a comment
Danusha Lameris
Poetry

Danusha Laméris – Stone

April 3, 2024April 3, 2024 Vanessa Able

Danusha Lameris' poem Stone invokes the turning towards a way of being, a focused, cherishing attending.

Tagged attention, being, letting go, listening, Meditation, nature, Poem, Poetry, reminder, renunciationLeave a comment
Ursula K LeGuin
Uncategorized

Ursula K. Le Guin – Kinship

March 26, 2022March 25, 2022 Vanessa Able

The mystical teachings of trees are beautifully expressed in Ursula K. Le Guin's poem, Kinship, in which she explores our own primal origins.

Tagged being, forest, interbeing, life, nature, Poetry, TreesLeave a comment
Joan Didion
Book Bits

The Courage of Our Mistakes – Joan Didion on Self-Respect and Moral Nerve

December 23, 2021December 23, 2021 Vanessa Able

In this excerpt from a 1961 essay titled On Self-Respect, Didion argued for a morally robust state of being and looked back a generation to a value that was once called 'character'.

Tagged being, character, discipline, Essay, self-respect, value, VirtueLeave a comment
Silent Illumination
Book Bits, Book of the Month

Guo Gu’s Guide to Silent Illumination

August 2, 2021August 8, 2021 Vanessa Able

The core of Chan meditation is the concrete experience of being in the present moment, not holding on to any mental concept or idea about oneself or one's activity

Tagged attachment, being, Chan, Chinese Zen, embodiment, Meditation, self-consciousness, Silent Illumination, sitting, windows1 Comment
Eihei Dogen
Book Bits, The Masters, Zen

Dogen’s Seal of the Ocean: How Meditation and Life Can Flow Like Water

July 6, 2021August 13, 2021 Vanessa Able

Japanese Zen Master Eihei Dogen invokes an oceanic state of non-identification as something that expresses the true Dharma, or our true nature, according to the teachings of Buddha.

Tagged authenticity, being, Buddha, depth, Meditation, ocean, oceanic, sea, seal, Shobogenzo, Source, Water, Zen1 Comment
Nan Shepherd
Book Bits

Out Of the Body and Into the Mountain: Nan Shepherd’s Journeys Among the Scottish Cairngorms

June 29, 2021June 28, 2021 Vanessa Able

Published thirty years after it was written, Nan Shepherd's nature memoir describes a very physical intimacy that grew and developed through the author's exploration of the Cairngorm Mountains.

Tagged being, Body, Cairngorm, ecology, landscape, memoir, mountains, nature, nature writing, pilgrimage, Scotland2 Comments
Thich Nhat Hanh
Book Bits

Anger Is Me and I Am Anger

April 26, 2021April 26, 2021 Vanessa Able

Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh on how we can become intimate and compassionate with our own anger and even transform it into love.

Tagged anger, being, love, Meditation, peace, Zen2 Comments
Elizabeth Bishop
Uncategorized

Elizabeth Bishop – In the Waiting Room

February 17, 2021February 17, 2021 Vanessa Able

A formidable description of epiphany: when the poet's world goes from a mundane waiting room to a radically altered sense of identity.

Tagged being, epiphany, illumination, language, Poetry, revelationLeave a comment
Mockingbird
Way-Seeking Mind

Hey, Mockingbird

February 16, 2021February 16, 2021 Vanessa Able

BY ABIGAIL KING This is how it began: mornings, sitting outside on a stone bench, listening to the mockingbird. You exist. I exist.

Tagged being, epiphany, illumination, interbeing, Interconnectedness, mockingbird, revelation4 Comments

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Older posts

TOP POSTS

  • This is the Life: Annie Dillard Asks, Then What?
    This is the Life: Annie Dillard Asks, Then What?
  • Joseph Fasano - Instructions for Having a Soul
    Joseph Fasano - Instructions for Having a Soul
  • John O'Donohue - Beannacht / Blessing
    John O'Donohue - Beannacht / Blessing
  • The Ten Paramis by Stefania Russell
    The Ten Paramis by Stefania Russell
  • Mary Oliver - Teach the Children
    Mary Oliver - Teach the Children
  • William Stafford's Looking Across the River
    William Stafford's Looking Across the River
  • Mary Oliver - When Death Comes
    Mary Oliver - When Death Comes
  • Wislawa Szymborska - Conversation with a Stone
    Wislawa Szymborska - Conversation with a Stone
  • David Whyte - The Bell and the Blackbird
    David Whyte - The Bell and the Blackbird
  • Gurdjieff and The Two Rivers
    Gurdjieff and The Two Rivers

- BOOK BITS -

  • Chop Wood, Carry Water: Scott Berkun on Finding Amazement in Ordinary Life
    A classic Zen koan shows that true presence isn't an escape from the ordinary work - and delight - of being human.
  • Don’t Waste Suffering: Ramiro López Larroy on Opening the Doors of Liberation
    How can we use the things that give us difficulty in our lives to learn and grow, rather than avoiding them, or trying to push them away?
  • Rick Ruben
    “Expanding the Universe” – Rick Rubin on Awareness in Creativity
    What is the role of awareness in creativity and how can we cultivate it to make our world a bigger and clearer place?
  • Thich Nhat Hanh
    The First Door of Liberation: Thich Nhat Hanh’s Vision of Emptiness and Interbeing
    Rather than signifying a lack or a void, Thich Nhat Hanh took emptiness to be a state of inextricable and fundamental interconnectedness.
  • Mike Travisano – Bob’s Tattoos
    A short story on the power of three simple words and how much they can mean and embody.


- POETRY-

  • Paul Ilechko – Zinc
    In the sparing verbiage of his poem "Zinc", poet Paul Ilechko purifies the chaos and complications into a singular simplicity.
  • Alison Luterman – Canoe
    In her poem "Canoe," Alison Luterman explores how luminous memories anchor us into the marvellous moments of our lives.
  • Nathan Hassall – Write a simple poem, my wife said, so I wrote a short one
    Poet Nathan Hassall's "Write a simple poem, my wife said, so I wrote a short one" transcends the small confines of its verbiage into the enormity of universal divinity.
  • A Year of Kō: 17th Sekki
    17th Sekki poems by BOB RAMA, COLEMAN DAVIS and SHAOMEI YU
  • Shaomei Yu – The Closed Door
    Chinese-American poet Shaomei Yu reflects on loss and transition with Zen-like sparseness in her poem "The Closed Door".
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