A Path With Heart: The Classic Guide Through The Perils And Promises Of Spiritual Life

Love is mysterious. We don’t know what it is, but we know when it is present. If we seek love, we must ask where it is to be found. It is here only in this moment. To love in the past is simply a memory. To love in the future is a fantasy. There is only one place where love can be found, where intimacy and awakening can be found, and

ENLIGHTENMENT IS INTIMACY WITH ALL THINGS

As Zen poet Basho reminds us, The temple bell stops But the sound keeps coming out of the flowers.

idealistic and romantic. People tried to use spirituality to “get high” and to experience extraordinary states of consciousness.

The Taoist Lao Tzu celebrated this spirit when he wrote: She who is centered in the Tao can go where she wishes without danger. She perceives the universal harmony, even amid great pain, because she has found peace in her heart.

Insight Meditation and similar Buddhist practices can lead to quietude, to withdrawal from and fear of the world. The emptiness taught in Zen and nondualist Vedanta can lead to a related problem, to being disconnected and ungrounded. Any form of idealistic, otherworldly teaching that sees life on earth as a dream or focuses on higher realms can lea

A fifth quality of spiritual maturity is a sense of the sacred that is integrated and personal. “Integrated” in that it does not create separate compartments of our life, dividing that which is sacred from that which is not; “personal” in honoring spirituality through our own words and actions. Otherwise, our spirituality is not of any true value.

An integrated sense of spirituality understands that if we are to bring light or wisdom or compassion into the world, we must first begin with ourselves. The universal truths of spiritual life can come alive only in each particular and personal circumstance. This personal approach to practice honors both the uniqueness and the commonality of our li

Only in the intimacy of the timeless present can we awaken. This intimacy connects us to one another, allows us to belong, and in this belonging, we experience love. In this we move beyond our separateness, our contraction, our limited sense of ourselves.