BY PAMELA AYO YETUNDE - A retelling of the Buddhist legend of Kisa Gotami, bereaved mother Keisha comes to a Buddhist Monastery for guidance.
Tag: Suffering
David Anthony Martin – The After
Colorado poet and outdoorsman David Anthony Martin reminds us of the inevitability of life and tomorrows with his poem "The After".
Samantha Imperi – To my child, on God
Samantha Imperi's powerful tragic poem "To my child, on God" muses God as a feminine force, forced to birth a universe she doesn't want.
Why I Write: Christian Dillo
Christian Dillo on a contemporary Zen approach to awakening and what meaningful transformation actually looks like.
Jane Hirshfield – All The Difficult Hours and Minutes
In Hirshfield's poem, calamity turns to calmness when things turn into themselves, a principle that goes to the heart of transformative practice.
Everything is Made of Mind: Norman Fischer on the Playing-Out of Impermanence and Eternity
"Life is the wind. Life is the water. As long as life appears as phenomena there will be the stirrings of delusion. Delusion is in fact the movement, the stirring, of awakening." - Norman Fischer In this 2019 essay featured in his new book, When You Greet Me, I Bow, Zen teacher and poet, Norman… Continue reading Everything is Made of Mind: Norman Fischer on the Playing-Out of Impermanence and Eternity
Buddhism’s Most Basic Teaching: Everything Changes
Shunryu Suzuki on our inability to accept the truth that we and everything around us are in a state of constant flux.
Issa – This Dewdrop World
Written shortly after the death of his daughter, Issa's haiku touches deeply on the heart of the human condition.
The Culture of Healing: Louise Glück on Art’s Restorative Power
Louise Glück's essay condemns current trends of pathological optimism, as well as the tendency towards 'the pornography of scars.'
The Absolute Nature of Suffering
Zadie Smith asks whether the discourse about privilege still applies in the same way when we consider the suffering of individuals.