“Going with Intention, Not the Result”
Suppose someone, let's say your mother, offers you a cup of tea and in the process of giving it to you, spills it over you. How do you react? With anger - or with love? Do
2026-05-22T19:41:21-04:00May 22, 2026|
“The Chips on the Sculptor’s Floor”
I’ve spent my life chiseling away to find the beauty within it. But now I realize the chunks I discarded were just as beautiful – and so was the original rock.
“Reflection for Mother’s Day”
When I was young, there was a daily radio program in which, as previously arranged by each mother, the children whose birthdays were on that day would be instructed to follow the string tied to the
“There is Only One Karma”
There is only one Karma. Not one for each person, for each tree, for each planet or star. Just one universal Karma. Everything is moving along – being moved along – according to the Karma. Karma
“The Godhead: Infinite, Eternal, Empty”
Infinite, Eternal, Empty. That's the Godhead. Why Empty? Why do Buddhists say The Empty, the Void, Nothingness? We used to think that between the stars there was nothing. Now we know that it is filled with
“A Little Wise at Last?”
The English sinologist Arthur Waley writes of great Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu: "To be known is to be lost. The wise man ‘hates that the crowd should come'."* Well, I'm so much less known now than
“The Genesis of Religion”
To quicken: to give life, to vivify. The anthropologist Margaret Murray at the age of ninety-nine declared in her "The Genesis of Religion" that the origin of the religious feeling occurred long, long ago when a woman first felt the mysterious quickening and attributed it to an unseen Power.
“Accepting the As Is”
I never cried during my mother's illness, nor at her death. Nor later at my daughter Kathie's funeral. I had come to understand that tears are for unfulfilled fantasy: what I had imagined the rest of
“My Mother as Raku”
The essence of the Japanese tea ceremony is the acceptance of the As Is: to attain a state of detachment transcending judgement, when things, people, all events, all of existence, are accepted just as they are.
“My Painting Room”
Let me tell you of the room where I do nearly all my painting. There are many physical influences there, but I'll now just mention the Chinese because they seem to be the more powerful.