One of my favorite (and sometimes most dispiriting) lessons from Robert Adams was his admonition that you can tell how far you've come in your spiritual growth by how you behave when life throws you a curve ball. Do you retreat into your shell, throw dishes against the wall, lapse into a depressive funk, reach [...]

Not so long ago I caught a snippet of a story about a U.S. drone attack on insurgents in Pakistan. Turns out we killed some villagers including a handful of kids. These things happen, right? The story explained that the U.S. government apologized and offered to pay reparations. A dead kid's parents would - at [...]

In the cathartic scene of "Good Will Hunting," our hero is at last forced to accept that the abuse he endured as a child was not his fault. After a lifetime of marching to an invisible drummer, Will is at last so beaten down that the facade cracks and this truth is allowed in. It [...]

What a peculiar prison sentence is this thing we call life. Each of us appears to have been born into captivity, a death sentence hanging over us, only the actual date of our 'execution' unknown. We are shackled to these bodies - bodies that are not of our choosing (otherwise, I'd have chosen the Brad [...]

At dinner the other night came a conversation about the importance of experiencing all that life has to offer before, you know, it's too late. The basic idea being that we need to be out there scaling Mt. Everest or racing elephants in the desert or earning our first millon by 30 lest we fail [...]

If the season has you hurting, longing, or otherwise feeling out of sorts, I urge you toward nonduality. It's the only path to truth, because it is not a path at all and has no place for all the concepts I just mentioned. It has no room for anything, including self, time, or the universe [...]

"Why does the universe go through all the bother of existing?" - Stephen Hawking Am I living a life or am I a life being lived? Am I or am I not? And if I am not then why is there still this sense of being? You don't have to spend much time looking at [...]

"There is only one time when it is essential to awaken. That time is now." - The Buddha Have you noticed that 'you' really never age? That there is a timeless quality to you? In periods of silence it can be so obvious. The body ages, but I do not. The 'me' to which I [...]

"I am the miracle." - Buddha Do you wander through the typical day hurting or happy? Were you raised in a supportive, loving, stable family environment? Or was your parenting malignant, indifferent, nonexistent? Was the environment of your childhood safe, intellectually stimulating, devoid of material want? Or did you navigate a hostile, dangerous, uneducated world [...]

"In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning." - F. Scott Fitzgerald It's easy to blame the loneliness of the spiritual path on the reluctance (or refusal) of others to join in the journey. But it's more than that. It's lonely in part because it's so damned difficult [...]