putting this blog to bed for a while

The world can feel dark these days: unstable, shaky, sometimes horrifying.

So how do we live with all this? And is meditation even a worthwhile response to a world in crisis?

What are we actually doing with this racehorse of a mind every time we sit down and take a look?

I started hearing about the future impacts of climate change when I was in high school in the mid-90s: predictions of fires, floods, heat waves, droughts, rising seas, mass migrations, and the rest.

Fast forward 30 years: the conversation is no longer about what might happen.

Everything is big. Cities are big, highways are big--and emotions? They blow through like a category four typhoon.

what's struck me lately is not so much what we're doing but the raw fact that we're doing it.

Put simply, meditation is an audacious act.

⁠It doesn't really matter what the question is.⁠

⁠The answer is metta,⁠

⁠lovingkindness,⁠

⁠this cultivation of the boundless warmth of the heart.⁠

I think this life is precious beyond measure,

not only because of ponderosas and songbirds,

but because we have this opportunity, this precious opportunity,

to wake up from the dream of suffering,

right here, right now.

Coming out of this yearlong retreat, our maxim has been: do less, slower.

As in, put less on the calendar.

Also, try to accomplish less in a day.

Finally, do less in meditation—less effort, less striving, less accomplishing.