Rob Tourtelot
- I call these experiences our dark teachers. The lessons that hurt, scare, scar, wound, and almost destroy us are very often the things that make us who we are because they require us to muster what we thought we could not muster—courage, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, love, resilience, strength, generosity of spirit, ferocity of heart. The time... See more
from Happy Anniversary to This
- What can we do when we are forced to face death? Do we continue ignoring it or do we weave it into our understanding, possibly creating a more nuanced appreciation for both the fleetingness of life and its interconnected nature? I find that it is this very activity that can arm us with the tools needed to continue living in a world that no longer p... See more
from After mom died, I found great comfort in a medieval Andalusian tale | Psyche Ideas by Veronica Menaldi
- It’s hard to see which parts of your experience and opinions are distinctive and resonate without sharing them. In my experience, it’s rarely the big grand vision that people are attracted to but rather something more mundane and grounded - something that has a clarity and weight about it that is distinctive.
from Rejecting Specialization by tomcritchlow.com
On the Sublime:
In the presence of the sublime, we are made to feel desperately small. In most of life, a sense of our smallness is experienced as a humiliation (when it happens, for example, at the hands of a professional enemy or a concierge). But the impression of smallness that unfolds in the presence of the Sublime has an oddly uplifting and pr
... See more- FEH, my newest memoir (more details about that soon), began with my wanting to write about the rampant judgementalism and sneering contempt I was seeing all around me. It takes on God, Jesus, Paul Rudd, Nextdoor, social media, Schopenhauer, Wolf Blitzer and Yuval Noah Harari. And even with all those sacred cows, it felt bland... until I decided to ... See more
from Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers
Just as there is no one instrument that is the sole, true embodiment of music, there is no hierarchy of traditions or practices. Who is to say that the violin is better or worse than the piano?
from Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide by Barry Magid
- Recently, one of my private meditation students asked me, “What do you feel like when you meditate?” Right away I said, “Ordinary. Beautifully ordinary.”
Often, in our doubt that we have a real story to tell, we hold something back, fearing that we don’t have anything else. And this can be a form of trickery. Surrendering that thing is a leap of faith that forces the story to attention, saying to it, in effect, “You have to do better than that, and now that I’ve denied you your trick, your first-ord
... See morefrom A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
- I find great value in the spaces between us, when we enter those spaces with curiosity and respect and love.
from "The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something keenly alive on the desert even though it is vast and empty and untouchable—and knows no kindness with all...