Epigraphs and poems with the initials MN are by the author.
epigraphs “Don’t you want”: From Anthony Doerr. All the Light We Cannot See (New York: Scribner, 2014), 270.
“Who will speak these days”: From Muriel Rukeyser, “The Speed of Darkness,” in The Speed of Darkness (New York: Random House, 1968).
WHERE ALL SOULS MEET
by way of a journal. For an in-depth guide into the art of journaling, including 100 journal questions to work with, please see my book Things That Join the Sea and the Sky: Field Notes on Living. Sounds True, 2017.
epigraph “The more you cut the branches”: From Abdul-Baha, quoted in The Sun, issue 478 (October 2015): 48.
1. LIVING WITH MEANING, TRUTH, AND KINDNESS
epigraph “We are people hungry for life”: From Robert Seder, To The Marrow (CavanKerry Press, 2006). To the Marrow is Robert Seder’s intimate and searing journal of his five-year journey through a bone-marrow transplant. I was privileged to write the foreword to this remarkable account.
5. THE PULL OF EXISTENCE
“Our present education”: From J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1995).
6. BEING WHOLEHEARTED
epigraph “Why not call the moment of certainty”: From “Utterance-That-Rises-Briefly-From-The-Source,” in my book of poems The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2016), 94.
the shadow: Entering the work of Carl Jung is like entering an entire universe. To introduce yourself, please see Modern Man in Search of a Soul; The Undiscovered Self; Memories, Dreams, Reflections (his autobiography); or The Portable Jung, edited by Joseph Campbell. For contemporary work on the shadow, please see Robert A. Johnson’s Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche.
“As long as we refuse”: From Jean Vanier. See such Vanier classics as Community and Growth, Becoming Human, and The Heart of L’Arche: A Spirituality for Every Day.
“I am the twelve-year-old girl”: From Thich Nhat Hanh, “Please Call Me by My True Names,” in Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1999), 72.
7. PUSHING ON
epigraph “You don’t need to be without fear”: Tami Simon is a dear friend. She is the founder of Sounds True. This is from her wise audio program Being True.
8. AS MANY TIMES AS NECESSARY
“We shall not cease from exploration”: From T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” in Four Quartets (New York: Mariner Books, 1968).
11. ORIGINAL STEPS
epigraph “A bull contents himself”: From Seneca the Younger, quoted in Lapham’s Quarterly 5, no. 2 (Animals Issue, Spring 2013): 20.
“The newly discovered lines to the epic”: Details about the newly discovered Gilgamesh tablet are from a superb article, which includes the entire text of the tablet both transliterated and translated into English, published by Farouk Al-Rawi and Andrew George of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, http://www.thehistoryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/jcunestud.66.0069_w-footer.pdf, and from The History Blog, http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/38631.
12. DISTRIBUTING THE WEIGHT
epigraph “Everybody’s hurt”: From a talk James Baldwin gave in the fall of 1962 at New York City’s Community Church, which was broadcast on WBAI on November 29 under the title “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.”
“In the Milky Ocean”: From my book The Way Under The Way: The Place of True Meeting (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2016), 161.
“The waking have one common world…” Heraclitus, in Early Greek Philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920 (fragment 89).
14. THE FIRE OF ALIVENESS
epigraph “There was that law of life”: From Norman Mailer, quoted in The Sun, issue 387 (March 2008): 48.
epigraph “In the Judaic tradition”: From Gail Godwin, Heart (New York: William Morrow, 2001), 29.
the naked freedom of a star … a fish gulping for food at the surface: The images toward the end of this paragraph and in the beginning of the next were first explored in my poem “The Promise of the Inner World” in my book Reduced to Joy (Berkeley, CA: Viva Editions, 2013), 135.
“As my prayer became more attentive and inward”: From Søren Kierkegaard, quoted in The Sun, issue 376 (April 2007): 48.
“That’s how we measure out our real respect”: From Ted Hughes, Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007).
15. THE SLOWING OF THE LAND
epigraph “There is a day”: From Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (Berkeley CA: Counterpoint Press, 1999.
16. STAYING POSSIBLE
epigraph “I test the limits of myself”: Many of the quotes and details in this chapter about Marina Abramović come from the excellent article by Sean O’Hagan, “Interview: Marina Abramović,” in The Guardian/The Observer, Saturday, October 2, 2010; the Museum of Modern Art website, www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2010/marinaabramovic/; and from Marina Abramović, ed. A Daneri (Milan, Italy: Charta, 2002), 29–30, 35.
The Artist Is Present: I highly recommend the HBO documentary The Artist Is Present (directed by Jeff Dupre, 2012) which portrays the living exhibit and retrospective while tracing the life and art of Marina Abramović, www.hbo.com/documentaries/marina-abramovic-the-artist-is-present/index.htm.
17. LESSENING FEAR
epigraph “A person who is beginning”: From Ken Wilbur, quoted in The Sun, issue 487 (July 2016): 48.
18. WHAT TO BRING FORWARD
epigraph “If you can understand”: From Edward B. Burger, Coincidences, Chaos, and All That Math Jazz: Making Light of Weighty Ideas (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005). Burger is a professor of mathematics and the department chair at Williams College.
19. OUR ORIGINAL TALENT
epigraph “Dive into the ocean”: From Attar, quoted in Sufi, A Journal of Sufism. London: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, issue 91 (Summer 2016): 10.
Bernice Johnson Reagon … movement: Keynote speaker, honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, Stetson Chapel, Kalamazoo College, January 16, 2012.
21. THE ART OF BEING SENSITIVE
The Art of Being Sensitive: An abridged version of this chapter appeared in Spirituality & Health Magazine, March/April 2017.
epigraph “The artist’s struggle”: From a talk James Baldwin gave in the fall of 1962 at New York City’s Community Church, which was broadcast on WBAI on November 29 under the title “The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity.”
Chopin nocturne: The Polish composer Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) composed twenty-one nocturnes, short pieces for solo piano written between 1827 and 1846. These intense compositions are considered among the finest short solo works ever created for piano. Chopin expanded on the nocturne, building on the form created by the Irish composer John Field.
22. CHASING PARADISE
epigraph “The only protection I can offer”: From Emad Burnat, a Palestinian photographer, the writer and director of Five Broken Cameras (2007), a documentary that chronicles the struggle of his hometown of Bil’in as a border town brutally divided and quarantined by the Israeli wall.
chasing Paradise: I first explored this notion in the chapter “Meeting Difficulty” in my book The Endless Practice (New York: Atria Books, 2014), 68.
“[People] will get angry”: From Jacquelyn Vincenta, The Lake and the Lost Girl (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2017), 91.
In the 1960s … “‘improvident’”: From George Foster, Premises Underlying the Efforts of the Wildflowers Institute (unpublished paper), p. 3; originally cited in Melford Spiro, “Buddhism and Economic Behavior in Burma,” American Anthropologist 68: 63–73.
23. AS WE KEEP SEARCHING
finding our courage: For an in-depth exploration of inner courage, please see my book Finding Inner Courage (San Francisco: Conari Press, 2011).
epigraph “I have walked through many lives”: From Stanley Kunitz, “The Layers,” in The Poems of Stanley Kunitz 1928–1978 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 35.
headnote: “A human being is a part of the whole…” The Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey to the Frontiers Where Science and Buddhism Meet by Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan. NY: Broadway Books, 2004. This excerpt is from a letter of consolation that Einstein wrote in February 1950 to Robert S. Marcus, whose young son had just died of polio.
28. THE COVENANT OF PRACTICE
“The role of spiritual practice”: From “Who Hears This Sound?” an interview with Adyashanti by Luc Saunders and Sy Safransky, in The Sun, issue 384 (December 2007). I used this quote as well in the chapter “Outwaiting the Clouds” in my book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen (New York: Atria Books, 2013).
“the other, greater beauty”: From Rainer Maria Rilke, Auguste Rodin (New York: Dover Publications, 2006) 7. This is one of the most remarkable explorations of the nature of creativity written by a great poet as he watched a great sculptor work up close. Rilke worked as Rodin’s secretary in the early 1900s. This book is comprised of two profound personal essays published by Rilke in 1903 and 1907.
29. UNWAVERING
a dog named Hachikō: Details about Hachikō’s life are taken from Barbara Bouyet, Akita: Treasure of Japan, vol. 2 (Hong Kong: Magnum Publishing, 2002), 5–7.
Zuzu’s petals: Detail drawn from the Urban Dictionary, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Zuzu%27s%20Petals.
30. HONORING THE ANONYMOUS
epigraph “We draw the circle of our family too small”: From Mother Teresa, quoted in David Addiss, “Spiritual Themes and Challenges in Global Health”; originally cited in Steve Reifenberg, “Afterword,” in In the Company of the Poor: Conversations with Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, ed. Michael Griffin and Jennie Weiss Block (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), 189–197.
“Name Withheld”: From Sy Safransky, The Sun, issue 457 (January 2014), 27–28.
31. LOOKING AT THINGS FRESHLY
“[He] used to talk about the value”: From Carol Lee Flinders, “Our Spiritual Genealogy: A Conversation with Carol Lee Flinders,” in Sufi, A Journal of Sufism, issue 91 (Summer 2016), 22.
32. A CHILD OF THE SIXTIES
A Child of the Sixties: For an intimate documentary about the sixties, please see Sean (2006) by writer-director Ralph Arlyck, which begins with a conversation with four-year-old Sean Farrell, the son of free-spirited parents living in 1969 in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Arlyck revisits Sean and his parents thirty years later, reflecting on his own life journey along the way.
33. PROSPERITY BLINDNESS
epigraph “The human race has had”: From Alan Gregg, quoted in the journal The Sun, issue 370 (October 2006), 48.
Wildflowers Institute: Established in 1997 by Hanmin Liu, Wildflowers Institute (www.wildflowers.org) is a social-innovation and application lab focused on understanding how communities work. The aim of the institute is to design methods and tools to catalyze the innate power in communities. The institute’s work is based on the belief that the greatest promise for self-sustaining community change comes from strengthening the existing resources within the community.
“To be is more essential than to have”: From Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Earth Is the Lord’s: The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2001), 14.
34. THE WANTING PLACE
epigraph “When I see”: From Eddie Cantor, quoted in The Sun, issue 47, (June 2015), 48.
“In Spanish, querencia”: From Georgia Heard, Writing Toward Home (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995).
35. THE CONSTANT UNFOLDING
epigraph “Only whose vision”: From E. E. Cummings, “Only whose vision can create the whole,” in 100 Selected Poems (New York: Grove Press, 1959), 99.
36. FOUR SMALL LESSONS
Between 1934 and 1939 … because of his photograph: Details from the compelling exhibit Roman Vishniac Rediscovered, at International Center of Photography, New York City, March 10, 2013.
37. OUR ORBIT OF CONCERN
“There’s a lot of talk in this country…” Barack Obama, an excerpt from his commencement address at Northwestern University in June, 2006, https://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2006/06/barack.html.
38. GLIDE, PULL, WALK, AND CARRY
“The place specifically where all my family is from”: From Alex Wilson, “Showing Love in Our Actions” in Sufi, issue 91 (Summer 2016), 32.
epigraph “Now, I have no choice”: From Yannis Ritsos, “Necessary Explanation,” in Yannis Ritsos: Selected Poems 1938–1988, trans. Kimon Friar and Kostas Myrsiades (Brockport, NY: BOA Editions, 1989), 25. Yannis Ritsos (1909–1990) is one of the legendary modern Greek poets. Both profound and prolific, Ritsos authored more than 117 books of poetry, translations, fiction, essays, and drama. This seminal collection includes over twenty-five illustrations of the poet’s paintings on rocks.
epigraph “Remaking the treasure for another”: Margo McLoughlin is a dear friend and amazing storyteller, http://www.margostoryteller.net.
“We begin life”: From Sally Z. Hare, The Journey from Knowing about Community to Knowing Community, (March 2005), 4.
40. HOW DAY FOLLOWS NIGHT
epigraph “The hero is [the one]”: From Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Rainer Maria Rilke, Auguste Rodin (New York: Dover Publications, 2006), viii.
41. EACH TIME I BEGIN
The Age of Bronze: The sculpture The Age of Bronze by Auguste Rodin seems to breathe in the center of a sunlit hall in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rodin completed the sculpture in Paris in 1876.
42. THE FINITUDES
I stumble on Martin Heidegger’s notion of dwelling … everything: Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) was an influential German philosopher known for his explorations of the question of being. His best-known book, Being and Time, is considered an important philosophical work of the twentieth century.
only to discover he supported Hitler … rector: Heidegger joined the Nazi Party on May 1, 1933, nearly three weeks after being appointed rector of the University of Freiburg. Heidegger resigned about one year later, in April 1934, but remained a member of the Nazi Party until the end of World War II. His first act as rector was to eliminate all democratic structures, including those that had elected him rector. There were book burnings on his campus, some of which he successfully stopped, as well as some student violence.
It’s taken over sixty years … to the beginning: Parts of the opening two paragraphs originally appeared in an earlier version as a poem called “The Finitudes” in my book The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2016), 58.
Hannah Arendt … after the war: Arendt (1906–1975) was an influential German Jewish political theorist and a student of Martin Heidegger. Her best-known works are The Human Condition (1958) and Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). Immigrating to the United States from Germany in 1941, she became the first female professor at Princeton University in 1969.
“I would argue”: Please see Parker Palmer, “The Politics of the Broken-Hearted: On Holding the Tensions of Democracy,” in Deepening the American Dream, ed. Mark Nepo (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005), p. 231–257. This quote is from a conversation with Parker early in the writing of this book.
44. THE GREATER PRAYER OF BEING
epigraph “In Quakerism”: From an interview with Parker Palmer by Alicia Von Stamwitz, “If Only We Would Listen,” in The Sun, issue 443 (November 2012), 12.
45. AN INNER RIGHT-OF-WAY
“intimacy as the proving ground for the conscious heart”: Carolyn Rivers and Henk Brandt have created The Sophia Institute (www.thesophiainstitute.org) in Charleston, South Carolina, where leading teachers and artists from around the country convene creative individuals to explore personal and relational transformation as it impacts the awakening of the conscious heart. I have been blessed to teach and present there for more than a decade. It is an outstanding community of seekers worth joining.
George Nakashima: Details about the life of George Nakashima are from an exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City of his legendary Table, Conoid Lounge Chairs, and Greenrock Benches (1986–1987), made of American walnut.
Abenake elder Joseph Bruchac: This notion is from a dialogue I had with Joe Bruchac in March 2007. For an invaluable introduction to the Native American worldview, please see his Our Stories Remember: Indian History, Culture, and Values through Storytelling (New York: Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2003).
Joseph Haydn: Haydn (1732–1809) was a prolific Austrian composer of the classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music and is considered one of the fathers of the symphony. Young Beethoven was a student of his. In 1806, at the age of seventy-four, unable to go to the piano anymore, Haydn said, “Usually musical ideas are pursuing me, to the point of torture, I cannot escape them.… My imagination plays on me as if I were a clavier.… I am really just a living clavier.” This quote is from Albert Christoph Dies, “Biographical Accounts of Joseph Haydn” (from 1810), in Haydn: Two Contemporary Portraits, trans. and ed. Vernon Gotwals (Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963). A clavier is an early form of keyboard, a precursor to the piano, more like a harpsichord.
It was a mild summer night … that day: Details about the “Farewell” Symphony (Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor) are from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._45_(Haydn).
48. WHAT IF?
epigraph “Who looks outside”: From Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffe (New York: Random House, 1961).
“What if you slept”: From the poem “What Then?” in The Selected Poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. H. J. Jackson (London: Oxford University Press, 2009).
49. TRY, ACCEPT, BEGIN AGAIN
epigraph “When an imperative arises”: Tami Simon is a dear friend. She is the founder of Sounds True. This is from her wise audio program Being True.
50. THE FRAGRANT CLIFF
Afraid of dying,… “After you die, what will you need?”: This is the beginning of the eighteenth case in the legendary Blue Cliff Record, a compilation of one hundred koans with commentaries, a Zen Talmud of sorts, begun by Dōgen (1200–1253) and added to by many voices through the years. The Blue Cliff Record, trans. Thomas Cleary and J. C. Cleary (Boston: Shambhala, 2005), 115.
51. THE AGENTS OF KINDNESS
epigraph “What keeps buildings and forests”: From Elizabeth Lesser, Marrow (New York: HarperCollins, 2016), 306.
52. THE TEMPLE IS THE WORLD
“Thousands of candles…” attributed to Buddha, a paraphrase of Section 10 of the “Sutra of 42 Sections” in a Japanese text, The Teaching of Buddha.