We have all had times when we say yes to someone but really want to say no. It’s often difficult to say no because of the desire to be loved: we want to be helpful, we want to show we care, but we may have little to give, are tired, over worked, or need alone [...]
We will always blame and condemn those we feel are responsible for wars and social injustice, without recognizing the degree of violence in ourselves. We must work on ourselves as well as with those we condemn if we wish to move towards peace. — Thich Nhat Hanh, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin [...]
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. John Lennon Who said life would be like walking the yellow brick road, or that the human condition would be easy? And why is it so important to be here? What’s the big deal? It appears that the reason we’re not happy is [...]
Soon after Nelson Mandela’s release from twenty-seven years in jail Bill Clinton asked him if he was angry the day he finally walked away free. “Surely,” Clinton said, “You must have felt some anger?” Mandela agreed that, yes, alongside the joy of being free, he had also felt great anger. “But,” he said, “I valued [...]
Ed is a passionate and expert skier. When you sit for meditation and your mind drifts you can just bring it back to your practice and continue. But if you are skiing down a steep mountain and you lose concentration you could hit a tree. Ed teaches this, calling it inner skiing, where our perception [...]
There is no true religion or spirituality without kindness and love. Swami Brahmananda Ed was raised in the Jewish faith (as he says, on his parents side!), Deb was raised a Quaker. We both began spiritually seeking at the same time in the late 1960′s. Ed was in his twenties living in New York City, [...]
You may try but you can never run away from yourself. Swami Brahmananda While we were living in England we had our own TV series and interviewed the British minister Jonathan Aitken, who had just been released from prison. He was an arrogant, egotistical man who, like many politicians in America, think they can get [...]
However you try to define meditation, it’s not that. Swami Brahmananda Through many years of being involved with meditation we have seen how easily people miss the point, mainly because they take the practice and themselves too seriously. Many ‘try’ to meditate but their minds are so busy they get frustrated and quickly believe they [...]
We have recently witnessed the result of one man’s madness that was unleashed on a group of innocent people in Tucson, Arizona. This recent horror occurred largely because no one responded when the young killer was previously silently screaming for help. And then we witnessed two prominent voices speak up, one in defense of herself [...]
Last March we wrote a blog, Making Friends With Illness, that quoted our friend Liz who, at the time, had cancer. Last week she died. Our lives had intermingled for over 25 years, we lived next door for some of those, we knew her extended family and she knew ours, we used to spend summer [...]
