Want to put an end to the suffering in your life? The Buddhapointed to a path. He had an idea on how to get there. Coming back to the Day of Reflection liturgy, reading it as if for the first time, I am startled. The Precepts are guideposts on the path to peace. Not just the Grave Prohibitory Precepts: there were also the Three Pure Precepts.   The first Pure Precept is traditionally translated, “Cease from Evil.” I prefer the Hippocratic formula, “First, do no harm.” I reca

Between a rock and a hard place? We’ve all been there. What do you do? There’s a Zen koan which really ups the ante:   You’re a Zen teacher and you’re up in a tree, hanging from a branch with your teeth. You can’t reach a branch with your hands or feet. A student appears below and asks, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?”  Scary situation? Some koans are even scarier. Sometimes there are lions or wolves at the bottom of the tree waiting to devour me i

Bernie taught me to use all the ingredients of my life to prepare what he called the “supreme meal.” We don’t use every ingredient in every recipe – we’re not emptying the spice shelf into every pot – but all the ingredients have value. Each one is there to be appreciated and used. This teaching came up for me as I looked at the first words of the Gatha of Atonement , “All evil karma.” Why just the evil karma? Why not all the ingredients of my life?   “Evil” was never the rig