When you are walking down the road in Bali and your pass a stranger, the very first question he or she will ask you is, “Where are you going?” The second question is, “Where are...

A family in my sister’s neighborhood was recently stricken with a double tragedy, when both the young mother and her three-year-old son were diagnosed with cancer. When Catherine told me about this, I could only...

The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us,…The madness of this planet is largely a result of the human being’s difficulty in coming to viruous balance with himself.

Psychologists suggest that we must reach back at least three generations to look for clues whenever we begin untangling the emotional legacy of any one family’s history.

The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving.

We’re miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentment and mortality.

I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker,” he continued, as though he had not heard her. “We have them because there is a supreme intelligence in the universe,...

To devote yourself to the creation and enjoyment of beauty, then, can be a serious business—not always necessarily a means of escaping reality, but sometimes a means of holding on to the real when everything...

One by one, the thoughts and memories of sadness raised their hands, stood up to identify themselves. I looked at each thought, at each unit of sorrow, and I acknowledged its existence and felt (without...

I filled the song with everything I wished I could teach him about life. I tried to reassure him with every line about how the world is hard and unfair sometimes, but that it’s all...

Well… “why” is a hard question to answer in any language.

I was perfectly happy in my boring life before you came along.

Religious ceremonies are of paramount importance in Bali ( an island, don’t forget, with seven unpredictable volcanoes on it-you would pray, too).

Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure.Ours is an entertainment seeking-nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one….This is the cause of that great sad American stereotype- the overstressed executive who goes on vacation,...

He was powerful and I died of love in his shadow.

In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of...

We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That’s our privilege. That’s the joy of a mortal body. And that’s why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through...

I asked, “You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell – the destinations – are the same thing anyway?””Same – same,” he said. “Same...

Step forward out of your own lingering residual sense of smallness, take up every inch of life that is your blessed inheritance, and DO YOUR THING.

My mother has made choices in her life, as we all must, and she is at peace with them. I can see her peace. She did not cop out on herself. The benefits of her...

We don’t realize that, somewhere within us all, there does exist a supreme self who is eternally at peace.

We were talking the other evening about the phrases one uses when trying to comfort someone who is in distress. I told him that in English we sometimes say, ‘I’ve been there.’ This was unclear...

He said, “Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see; one, you...

The mysterious magnet is either there, buried somewhere deep behind the sternum, or it is not.

The great Sufi poet and philosopher Rumi once advised his students to write down the three things they most wanted in life. If any item on the list clashes with any other item, Rumi warned,...

… most of my prayers are expressions of sheer gratitude for the fullness of my contentment.

Religion is for those who don’t want to go to hell, and spirituality is for those who have already been there.

Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable conversations, chatted over two thousand indistuinguishable breakfasts, where intimacy turns like a slow wheel. How do you measure the worth of becoming that familiar to somebody—so utterly well known...

But he [Depression] just gives me that dark smile, settles into my favorite chair, puts his feet on my table and lights a cigar, filling the place with his awful smoke. Loneliness watches and sighs,...

free will”. And the question you have to ask everyday is, Which horse is which? Which horse do I need to stop worrying about because it’s not under my control, and which do I need...

Admittedly, I am not the one who looks fantastic in everything, but still I cannot help loving myself.

He showed me a sketch he’d drawn once during meditation. It was an androgynous human figure, standing up, hands clasped in prayer. But this figure had four legs, and no head. Where the head should...

I was struck – not for the first time in my years of travel – by how isolating contemporary American society can seem by comparison. Where I came from, we have shriveled down the notion...

One thing I do know about intimacy is that there are certain natural laws which govern the sexual experience of two people, and that these laws cannot be budged any more than gravity can be...

The day is ending. It’s time for something that was beautiful to turn into something else that is beautiful. Now, Let go.

I want to be with God all the time. But I don’t want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasures. I guess what i want to learn is how to live in...

The inability to open up to hope is what blocks trust, and blocked trust is the reason for blighted dreams.

The Yogic sages say that all the pain of a human life is caused by words, as is all the joy. We create words to define our experience and those words bring attendant emotions that...

Nothing is so essential as dignity…Time will reveal who has it and who has it not.

Offer it up personally,then. Right now. I thought of how many people go to their graves unforgiven and unforgiving. I thought of how many people have had siblings or friends or children or lovers disappear...

We’re miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentments and mortality. We wrongly believe that our limited little egos constitute our whole entire nature. We have...

… both pleasure and devotion require a stress-free space in which to flourish…

Generally speaking, though, Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one.

There’s no trouble in this world so serious that it can’t be cured with a hot bath, a glass of whiskey, and the Book of Common Prayer.

Once the troublesome mind “begins to compose speeches and dream up arguments, especially if these are clever, it will soon imagine it is doing important work.” But if you can surpass those thoughts, Teresa explained,...

But at some point you have to make peace with what you were given and if God wanted me to be a shy girl with thick, dark hair, He would have made me that way,...

… the rules of transcendence insist that you will not advance even one inch closer to divinity as long as you cling to even one last seductive thread of blame.

When it comes to developing a worldview, we tend to face this false division: Either you are a realist who says the world is terrible, or a naïve optimist who says the world is wonderful...

… you should never give yourself a chance to fall apart because, when you do, it becomes a tendency and it happens over and over again. You must practice staying strong, instead.

I think there are writers who take a quieter approach to their work — one that is just about respectfully showing up for your vocation day after day, steadily doing your best, and letting go...