Mindfulness has become a popular topic in today's world of therapy, healing and self-help teachings. I wanted to write something from a less common angle, hopefully stimulating possibilities for fresh understanding and appreciation. I began this article in a prose format but then decided to put it into verse form to allow greater opportunity for … Continue reading Mind and Mindfulness
I'd like to begin by briefly sketching out some personal events that led to the ideas in this essay/poem. In my early 20s, while at Kalu Rinpoché's monastery near Sonada, India, I participated in an ancient ceremony in which I and a few other young men, in the presence of a community of monks, yogis … Continue reading Taking Robes: Embracing a Life of Natural Awakening; Reflections on Ordination and Divine Ordinariness
I wake again from a seeming series of wakings, sleepings, dreamings, beings, eyes slowly opening to soft dim dawn. I breathe, May all beings be well and happy. The body aches, patchy sensation, not quite connected thinking and feeling. The birds begin to sing and wrapping all around is a blessing beyond words. And I … Continue reading Early Morning Pith Instruction
with thanks to David French for asking me to write something on this topic Oct 25/15, 5:52 am. I am sitting in my hut at Orgyen Hermitage, our 2 acre block situated in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. The sky appears crystalline, washed with the colours of dawn and framed with silhouettes of trees … Continue reading The Dharma of Illness and The Medicine of Wonderment
Dear Friends on the Path of Dharma If we look deeply around us, we will find ourselves to be living parts of a cresting wave of an ocean of life-unfolding, a world awakening, a mystery embodying. We have been blessed with friendships, and myriad opportunities to cultivate skills in compassion, attentiveness and deepening understanding. We … Continue reading Wholesome Activity – Keep It In The Ground
"The central purpose of all dharma practice is to cultivate a well balanced, thoroughly integrated, vibrantly alive, humane human becoming." 'Dharma' is a rich and bounteous concept. Common translations give us words or phrases such as truth, teaching (particularly spiritual teaching), natural law, law of nature, phenomena, process and 'thing'. It's difficult to grasp in … Continue reading A Life of Dharma
"True Refuge", an inspiring new book by Tarchin Hearn, is now available from Wangapeka Books for $20 plus postage. Some of you may have heard that Tarchin has been having some health issues. We are pleased to announce that not only has this book, ten years in the gestating, been born, but at the same … Continue reading "True Refuge" a new book by Tarchin
In Buddhism, wisdom is not a knowledge of ultimate facts or truth but an ever deepening process of understanding, life enhancing connectivity, and communion. In this sense, wisdom is living. Not something we have, but something we do. It is the fundamental ground that we are. We radically intermingle; cells and organs, minds and bodies, … Continue reading View, Meditation and Action – a path of Wisdom-in-action
We are living is shocking times. On a personal level, Cecilie, a long time friend, and teacher for many readers of this post, is journeying in unknown territory in an intensive care unit, as she slowly reassembles her body/being after a major car accident. On a collective level, we are filled with the images of … Continue reading Two Poems
We are living in extraordinary times. Our understanding of life as a planet-wide, delicate, yet creatively responsive phenomena, is becoming clearer than ever, while at the same time, we humans seem to marching, robot fashion, into an authoritarian form of money driven governance that makes the novels of Brave New World and 1984 seem almost … Continue reading Sufficient Love To See
Green Dharma Treasury 