Christmas 2021
After writing Christmas letters for almost a half century, I am compelled to continue communicating with anyone who will listen, that Christmas is the greatest proof of the existence of…
No Birth- No Death
On Januray 22 the Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn, died in Hue. He was a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. and he came to the U.S. in 1965…
A Phenomenology of Matter
As I begin my meditation on “matter” in search of what Edmund Husserl would call the “essence of the phenomenon,” I immediately realize that the traditional historical deconstructions already performed…
A Cloud Never Dies by Thich Nhat Hah
It was about our nature as 'Cloud'. Cloud can be water, steam, ice,snow. 70% of us is Cloud. The Cloud changes constantly: some of our cells are dying, while other…
How NOT to Think Your Way Into Religious Belief
The conservative columnist, Ross Douthat, wrote a magnificent article in the New York Times Sunday Review, "How to Think Your Way Into Religious Belief," in which he answered the atheist Daniel…
Thomas Merton on Oneness
I have a picture of Thomas Merton on my wall that says: ''We are already one, but we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is…
Memorial Day, 2021
The Poet Marianne Moore on Life and Eternity My dear friend, Patricia Willis, was Director of the Marianne Moore Library at Yale University, and sent me this poem by Moore…
Mother’s Day, May 9, 2021
For the past two years, one of my friends, Charlie Wilkinson, of Evanston, IL, has suffered the excruciating pain of his wife of 50 years, slowly slipping away into dementia.…
Good Friday or Bad Friday
Easter Sunday, April 4,2021 This is the season of death and resurrection. Wednesday, the man next door killed himself. His wife was taking a shower, so he took an old…
Four Mystics: Osho, Richard Rohr, John of the Cross, and Mirabai Starr
There Is No Self – Nothingness Becomes Wholeness“Buddha is right – there is no self – but he is not helping people, poor people, because they cannot figure out all…