Category: Meditation & Transformation
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Paths to Peace: A Libya-Tibet Nexus in Switzerland
By chance, I’m in Geneva at the same time as a stream of black cars full of world leaders, and we’re on peace missions of different sorts. Events of the past two weeks spur reflection on the ways in which their big mission and my little one intersect. I arrived in Switzerland feeling brow-furrowed about…
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Now That I Know You, What Is Your Name?
Smiles all around at the close of our second annual silent meditation retreat with SanghaSeva at the Dharmalaya Institute in the Indian Himalayas. It’s always fascinating to spend a week with people without hearing their voices, and then finally get to ‘meet’ them, while having a sense of already knowing them in a way. Now we’re preparing to welcome new arrivals…
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Himalayan Roots & Global Fruits: The Humble Birth of Earthville
This story was written in response to a request from my friend Rodger Kamenetz to post to his popular Jew in the Lotus page. An unlikely path How did an artist and activist fresh out of college wind up opening a vegetarian restaurant and community center just up the street from H.H. the Dalai Lama,…
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Dharmalaya Inaugurates Green HQ with Service & Meditation
After a marathon rush of construction activity through the winter, Dharmalaya held its first programmes in the new (and still-unfinished) main building of the Dharmalaya Institute. Over thirty participants from ten countries made the journey to Bir for the occasion. Organised in collaboration with SanghaSeva, the inaugural programmes included a one-week silent meditation retreat led by…
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The Road to Mudville
Merhaba from Konya! Arriving in this ancient Anatolian city, once a fertile garden of cross-pollination among the great mystics and scholars, philosophers and poets from all over Eurasia, my warm-hearted tram driver, Mehmet, asked my views about Islam and Linux… I grinned. I had spent the whole night on a bus to reach this place…
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The Rising Canal and Other Changes
Buongiorno from Venice, which i thought i’d better see before it sinks much further. Lately, it’s flooding more frequently and more severely, and it’s chilling to drift around this jewel of history and imagine that, within as few as 20 years (if some scientists’ predictions come true) the first floor or two of every building…
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A Joyful Noise!
Sawadee khap from the warm waves of Thailand! Happy to be hOMe again. Conveniently, i feel that way almost anywhere i go… and yet there’s this familiar flavor of effortless contentment on some of my favorite patches of Asian soil. The static subsides… Mozzies & the Matrix Last month in Bodhgaya (where the Buddha formerly…
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Taking Care
Just now starting to get my energy back after a surreal week. Feels good to be able to walk right again (no more significant dizziness), and i drove for the first time since the hearing loss. Despite rhythmic waves of worry (what might happen to my career as a music producer, and what might be…
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Long, Hollow Bones
I can breathe again…. 🙂 When i arrived at Tao Garden, my breathing was shallow. I didn’t realize how shallow it had become, because, well… i guess i forgot to breathe for the last year or so. But after just a few days of chi kung, yoga, meditation, and simply breathing mindfully, my chest is…
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Taoist Tune-Up
Sawasdee khap from the Universal Tao Garden, home of the Inner Smile and observatory of the Microcosmic Orbit, where you can avail of free Wi-Fi access sipping garcinia tea in the dining pagoda while waiting to get your chi circulated, your blood ozonated, your arteries chelated, and your colon irrigated — all before lunch, and…
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Middle Way Course Correction
Something magic happens when everything familiar is removed from the outside, and all that’s left is (imaginary) me… same old me, new world (or, as one of my old songs goes, “Same Planet, Different Universe”). Kinda like a ginormous sensory deprivation tank but with lots of other auspiciously random people in it, it reflects me…