32 The Tao can’t be perceived,Smaller than an electron,it contains uncountable galaxies. If powerful men and womencould remain centered in the Tao,all things would be in harmony.The world would become a paradise.All people would be at peace,and the law would be written in their hearts. When you have names and forms,know that they are…
According to legend, Helen of Troy was ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’… I have no idea whether Homer’s Iliad reflects actual events, or whether it is a tribute to the mind of a brilliant story-teller. The tale of a prolonged conflict between the Greeks and a city state is profoundly human, psychologically…
TIS night: now all the gushing fountains speak louder. And my soul also is a gushing fountain. ‘Tis night: now only all songs of the loving ones do awake. And my soul also is the song of a loving one. Something unappeased, unappeasable, is within me; it longs to find expression…. Light am I:…
How many are the ways by which one might die? Infinitely many. Dying like living, is limitless as to time and context. Think for a while on that. Yet, one requirement for a “good” death is sure. You must put away notions of fame, the accolades of the masses. Forget about that! Dying well…
Die at the right time! This is either the most absurd statement than can be uttered or the most inescapable. The coincidence of a timed death, a departure from this life that harmonizes with one’s goals, purposes… I assume that you are aware of the goals which animate you? I mean those for which…
An inauspicious day from the get-go by Hisham Bustani translated from the Arabic by Alice Guthrie Some damn thing made her mom start talking to her about her fiancé yet again. “He’s just not cast from the same clay we are,” she said, “and I don’t think he’s really got it in…
What we have at present in our country is a ‘dialog of the deaf’. A group of eight to ten friends recently considered the failure of communication between Americans. I mean between those who believe a bygone way-of-life, paternalist, authority based, moral principles as reasonable, the only option for creating a future – and…
It is snowing outside. It is the first snow of the season to significantly cover everything, and the snowplows are out. Snow covered asphalt reacquaints us with the laws of physics. With a warming climate, winter snow, as it happens, comes later, and less of it. I can remember the blinding snowstorms of many…
Gray and raining outside. Starbucks is momentarily, unnaturally quiet, only the two of us minding our screens and our thoughts. Why so silent? Is this the edge? I mean the edge (never with a safety rail) of the abyss? Perhaps it’s extraordinary to know when one is proximate to the edge, a “hazard zone”…
Today, the 21st of December is Winter Solstice. Darkness will be at maximum duration. In the Northern Hemisphere the earth’s pole is tilted at greatest distance from the sun. But that is not all… Spring is coming! I wish that I knew a metaphor of greater exuberance, of unalloyed childlike anticipation to celebrate the…
