Category: Dharma Journal

Crocus Pocus

Winter arrived late this year. As Spring attempts her debut, snow squalls intermittently cover the ground in a frosty white. Yet, a few hardy plants do not care much about what is going on...

Roaring Silence

I stand on a narrow basalt saddle far above an unnamed moraine lake overshadowed by the craggy slopes of Broken Top. My view toward the Three Sisters volcanoes is totally unobstructed. Vast space swallows...

Scars

The scar on my knee is speaking to me today. It tells the story of a joyful day quickly turned horrific through the inattention of a bicyclist. The impact threw me to the pavement,...

Discovery: Uncovering Love

The Dry River snakes its way through Central Oregon for miles but very few humans visit much of its length. A small part of the river canyon is popular but most of the meandering...

Teen Wisdom

Several times a year I am invited to teach the Buddhist point of view at local high schools when they offer courses on world religions. I count this as a privilege. Since I am...

Eaten

I wonder if it felt pain like I feel pain. This dismembered, mostly consumed bird hidden in the sage and rabbitbrush must have met its demise in the claws and jaws of a large...

Mud

On this early January day, I am hiking in the juniper-dotted hills near the southern reach of the John Day Formation. Here, sandy desert soil intermingles with patches of red clay and winter moisture...

Nothing to Say

I sit here with nothing particular on my mind. I just enjoyed a small bowl of beet green soup and feel my satisfied body soaking up the deliciously simple nutrition. I think to myself,...

Law of Unstuckness

On this cold crisp morning, the sky reveals an unmistakable frosty blue hue of winter. The solstice dawns once again as the seasons march on in an infinite circle—always repeating yet never the same....

Nothing Is as It Appears

This morning the thermometer reads eleven degrees. Outside, the sun is making an effort to burn through fog formed in a stubborn atmospheric inversion—a condition in which cold air is trapped by a higher...