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    Being Somebody, Going Somewhere Paid Member

    I have yet to experience a story. I think stories are actually lies. But they are incredibly important to our survival.  —Wim Wenders, “Impossible Stories” More »
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    Ten Mindful Ways to Use Social Media Paid Member

    For the last two years, I have provided a daily wisdom quote through a Twitter account called Tiny Buddha. Since the follower count has grown by leaps and bounds, people have suggested I tweet more often throughout the day. I’ve realized, however, that the greatest lesson we can all learn is that less is enough. In a time when connections can seem like commodities and online interactions can become casually inauthentic, mindfulness is not just a matter of fostering increased awareness. It’s about relating meaningfully to other people and ourselves. With this goal in mind, I’ve compiled a list of 10 tips for using social media mindfully.  More »
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    Poetry as Path: Five Haiku by Basho Paid Member

    Awaiting snow, poets in their cups see lightning flash *Noon doze, wall cool against my feet. *Do not forget the plum, blooming in the thicket. *Dipping moon, sea-pungent  rice wine. * Skylark on moor—sweet song of non-attachment. ▼ Translated by Lucien Stryk from On Lbve and Barley: Haiku of Basho, Penguin: New York, 1985. More »
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    Basho as Teacher Paid Member

    Don't follow the old masters' footsteps, seek what they sought. To learn about pine trees, go to the pine tree; to learn of the bamboo, study bamboo. Old pond frog jumps in the sound of water. More »
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    Second Innocence: With Basho at Sesshin Paid Member

    I've just returned home from the New Year sesshin at Zen Mountain Monastery, where I'm a student of John Daido Loori. Basho was there, too. Not in person, of course (having died in 1694), and not in print, since reading and writing are not allowed during sesshin. But he was there nonetheless, a stowaway in my mind, because I was trying hard to achieve what the poet Elizabeth Bishop, in another context, called "a perfectly useless, self-forgetful concentration," and Basho's poems, which spring from exactly that kind of mind, have been another of my teachers. More »
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    Basho's Practice Paid Member

    When studying the work of the masters, / I watch the working of their minds." Lu Chi's advice to aspiring writers of the third century has been especially appealing to the followers of Basho, students and critics alike. Just when every scrap, every journal of every acquaintance, every letter and paraphrase had been thrice examined and commented on and theorized about, along carne the Kobe earthquake, and three hundred years after its completion, the "final" version of Basho's Narrow Road to the Interior was discovered. A new, annotated manuscript edition was quickly published, confirming the longstanding proposition that the poet continued to revise his masterwork even during his last days. More »