Zen Moments

“How’s the water? “ “..There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the [...]

“It’s cracked like this because it’s perfectly in line with the Buddha’s teaching” A friend of mine bought a Blackberry the other day. The new Blackberries are pretty slick – email, contacts, calendar, sat-nav, camera… He got it set up, but he couldn’t get the email or the sat-nav to work properly. After waiting on [...]

“…inner peace is the ultimate source of happiness…” His Holiness the Dalai Lama: A 2 minute video clip from Khashyar “Ultimately we want happiness. We do not want suffering – everybody – every sentient being. Now we are actually creating more unnecessary suffering. I think it’s very important to make clear to the public – [...]

No matter our disposition, we still have a choice…” By Lara Owen March 12 2008, Soreze, France. I walked Balthazar this afternoon a little way along the lane to the next village, accessible from Soreze by a path that runs along the edge of the mountain. On the way back we met a sad-looking older [...]

“So – stand back and look at what it’s costing emotionally. Forget the money for the moment…” Having been a Buddhist monk, and now running an IT support business, I find that these two worlds sometimes overlap in surprising ways. In running my business, I never sign contracts with people. Everything is done on trust, [...]

“It is through this creative process that we love and are loved…” I want to write about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don’t listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all – which is so important, too – to those [...]

“I used to be pushing and pushing to get ahead… but now I am like the Zen Warrior… It’s a completely calm existence…” This short 7 minute video by Bill Beaty shows how he has learned to drive in dense traffic, leaving a long gap between himself and the car in front. This reduces the [...]

“There comes a time in your life when you finally get it… “ There comes a time in your life when you finally get it… When in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out- ENOUGH! Enough fighting and crying [...]

“No thanks, I don’t need anything right now… was like shutting a door in their face…” I learned a lot about receiving when I was a monk. I lived as a Buddhist monk without money for 17 years – where everything I consumed (apart from water and toothpaste) actually had to be put into my hands [...]

“…no difference between us except degrees…” I recently volunteered with a group to treat 81 homeless people to a holiday party in San Francisco. The party was the culmination of a day of providing these guests various services that most of us can enjoy and sometimes take for granted, like a haircut, new clothes, a [...]