The East knows more about this than the West. The East has established techniques, identified aids. Practitioners can help themselves freely from this stock. Some silently repeat a mantra. Others meditate to a Zen koan, those enigmatic, luminous phrases that a master gives to his disciple to ruminate on over a period of years: “What was your face l

Over the years, our communal Shabbat practice at Lama has morphed into something only vaguely Jewish. But it draws on the contemplative essence of the ancient ritual and adapts it to meet both the spiritual thirst and the wariness of organized religion that characterize our times.