Category: Dharma Journal

It is late August and the cool crisp air feels like seasons beginning to change, especially where we are hiking at high elevation in the Newberry Caldera. The trail steeply climbs to the summit...

My mind is not happy today. Nothing I do seems to lighten the mood. The various practices I’ve learned  to settle an unsettled mind just makes my mind more unsettled. It feels like winter...

Once Chuang-tzu dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Chuang-tzu. Suddenly, he woke up and there he...

…Very little grows on jagged rock.  Be ground.   Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.   You’ve been stony for too many years.   Try something different.   Surrender.  ...

Wildflowers are always new. Every season they vary in form, color, and proliferation. People ask why I go to the same place every year to see the same flowers blooming. I just say, “they...

…when your heart’s on fire You must realize smoke gets in your eyes These lyrics from the song, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, made famous in a recording by The Platters in 1958, reminds...

I recently watched a movie about Michael J. Fox and his journey with Parkinson’s Disease. Fox describes his experience with the tremors and inability to become still. He realized this was the theme of...

Today the sun is unencumbered by clouds and the spacious sky is the color of blue flax from horizon to horizon. Winds are barely perceptible but for a few exhales urging sparse foliage into...

We are studying A Dakini’s Counsel by Sera Khandro Dewai Dorje during our Wednesday evening practices. This is a rarity in the dharma book realm. Sera Khandro was a rarity herself having left home...

We created a small native plant garden in the side yard of our home. It is a wonderful expression of how desert plants require very little to survive. The plants do not like too...