In Hirshfield's poem, calamity turns to calmness when things turn into themselves, a principle that goes to the heart of transformative practice.
Tag: humanity
Ellen Skilton – Like Every Good Thing
Ellen Skilton's poem offers poignant words that touch on a universal feeling experienced by humanity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic - the sacredness of human interaction.
Diane Ackerman – We Are Listening
'We Are Listening' is steeped in a sense of wonder at the scale of the universe, coupled with a tenderness towards the fragility of life.
Muriel Rukeyser – Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)
Muriel Rukeyser's poem about how we stay connected to one another, making love and awakening, through the noise of and distraction of politics and war.
The Great, Generous Laugh
Susan Murphy's book, The Red Thread, addresses the guts and gore of the flesh-and-blood humans who sustain spiritual practice in the midst of desire, mortality and heartbreak.
If Love Will Not Swing Wide the Gates, No Other Power Will
James Baldwin describes his own coming of age and awakening to spiritual and political consciousness as beginning with the revelation of sin: 'I became, during my fourteenth year, for the first time in my life, afraid—afraid of the evil within me and afraid of the evil without.'
Why is a Buddhist Monk So Interested in Science?
In this excerpt from his spiritual autobiography, the Dalai Lama sets out why science has always been so interesting to him, and how in his mind, the scientific method and goal are in fact very close to the Buddhist one.
“The Violence in Our Minds Manifests in the World” – Thich Nhat Hanh on Smiling Away Your Anger
"Author Cuong Lu recently told me that the greatest lesson his teacher Thich Nhat Hanh gave him was to believe in him: "He kept trusting me. That was his power, his insight and his love." What I find comes across in Thich Nhat Hanh's books is that same sense of confidence, but on a global… Continue reading “The Violence in Our Minds Manifests in the World” – Thich Nhat Hanh on Smiling Away Your Anger
Ursula le Guin and the Importance of Imagination
This essay by Ursula le Guin - a talk given at a meeting of Oregon Literary Arts in 2002 - is one of the longest posts on The Dewdrop to date, which is perhaps appropriate given that the subject of the piece is the merit of reading and the importance of nurturing the imagination. In… Continue reading Ursula le Guin and the Importance of Imagination