Sitting at a Dharma talk at Plum Village—in south-central France in the summer of 1996—I gazed for a few long seconds out of the large community tent, allowing Thich Nhat's Hanh's words to drift into the background of my attention. In the foreground now was a country road—maybe a football field's distance away—upon which passed a series of slow-driving cars. I thought: How sweetly poignant and …
Practice Notes
Practice Notes: Emulsion
I love a good tossed salad—especially during the summer months! Fresh greens, an assortment of chopped or grated veggies, some cheese nicely diced, all tossed with a vinaigrette and a sprinkle of raisins, pecans and/or chia seeds. Yum! If I’m in a hurry or just feeling a bit lazy, the “vinaigrette” part of this recipe is simplified to a drizzle of olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar, …
Perception, Reality, Fitness: Practice Notes
Skate On a sunny winter morning several years ago, I was riding with a friend through some winding mountain roads. Coming around a hairpin turn, we hit a patch of black ice, went into a tailspin, slid across the opposite lane, and took out a half-dozen or so fence posts before the trunk of a towering pine tree brought our wild skate to a thudding halt. The good news is that—though the car was …
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Practice Notes: Perceiver & Perceived
A True Story Recently underwent a minor outpatient surgical procedure (nothing serious, thankfully!) that was going to involve some amount of physical discomfort. I was informed that the standard protocol was to administer a sedative cocktail—featuring the uber-potent opioid painkiller fentanyl—which induces drowsy relaxation as it masks the pain-sensations. While the sedative/painkiller …
Verses
Fifty Verses For twenty-seven years I've carried around a stack of fifty-one 4×6" notecards, bound together with a small piece of white rope, tied off neatly in a shoe-lace style bow. The card on the top (now a bit tattered) reads "The Fifty Verses on the Manifestation of Consciousness, by Thich Nhat Hanh." And each of the remaining fifty cards hosts one of the fifty verses, carefully …
Mindfulness & Recognition
Concentration Practices: Yes or No? Illustrating the ever-applicable maxim, "well, it just depends"—in relation to the practice of concentration (aka mindfulness aka shamatha)—are the following passages from the Avadhuta Gita of Dattatreya, translated and annotated by Swami Ashokananda. Even though this is one of the most quintessentially direct of Advaita scriptures, in one of its early …