Zen Moments

I lost twin babies to death at a few days of age. That was forty years ago. The circumstances of the time prevented my expression of grief until I recently found catharsis in the writing of the poem below. THE SMILES Tomorrow will be another day, some told me, to offer solace or new hope [...]

“…I saw how it bends, flowing with the wind…” newborn – we are tender and weak in death – we are rigid and stiff living plants are supple and yielding dead branches are dry and brittle so the hard and unyielding belong to death and the soft and pliant belong to life an inflexible army [...]

“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 [...]

“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 [...]

“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 [...]

“In making our minds up, we set them up to be broken down. We create the conditions for doubt by trying to create certainty.” Once upon a time I knew what I wanted out of life. I knew where I was going. I was going to be a Great Inventor. And I revelled in that [...]

“It’s a pretty fun day actually…We’re good. We’re real good.” Today as it was going to be when I went to bed: Get up, make breakfasts and lunches, get kids to school, go to BJ’s for big grocery etc shopping, library, Walmart (unfortunately) some xmas shopping. Get kids from school, do dinner, go to a [...]

“She asked if I felt frightened… and rather to my surprise I had to say no…” Well, this is how it started. I am a photographer, and Tuesday in Wincanton was a lovely sunny afternoon. I found I had a few minutes to kill before driving to an outlying village were I was booked to [...]

“Seeing I had nothing of value for him to steal he sat and chatted with me…” While sitting on a bench one evening, waiting for the bus to Old San Juan, I met a young Puerto Rican dude. He was evidently a mugger. He sat down next to me, smiled, and saying, “permiso,” (excuse me), [...]