All my work says, be serious, be passionate, wake up. The amazing literary figure, Susan Sontag, who died this week

Our identities are not genetic, social, cultural, or economic givens. We create our identities through the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. Life doesn’t limit us to any single story, but rather, like a faithful lover, life conspires to support unconditionally whatever stories we do choose. To see this is to live in alignment and harmony with reality.

The only thing we bring into this life and take with us from this life is our capacity to love.

Today is a good day to resist micromanaging the universe by giving it specific plans it is supposed to serve to us on a fast-food counter.

Zen teacher Osho makes the point that it is absurd that we allow fighting in public but not love. This morning’s NY Times featured its Year In Pictures - so many showing violence and suffering but not love making. Osho as editor would have things otherwise.

Pain only has the purpose we assign to it.

Naked winter trees
drip with the brilliance of icy smiles
at the illusion of death.

The metaphor for meditation is more carving stone or wood than painting on canvas or paper. It’s less a process of layering on what isn’t there and more of a process of removing that which obscures discovery of what’s already present.

One of my zen teachers, Ogui Sensei, gave me a very simple and powerful koan a couple of years ago. A koan is a question designed to evoke freedom from suffering and the cause of suffering. It is: What can I do now? With the impassable snow in these parts, unavailable options are quickly apparent. So today is a good day to live this empowering and centering question.

Part of seeing things as they are is understanding the magnetic qualities of our thoughts in all their incarnations and incantations. Then for the first time, we begin to feel responsibility for what we attract.