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    The Opportunity of Uncertainty Paid Member

    By Sogyal Rinpoche
    One of the central characteristics of the bardos is that they are periods of deep uncertainty. Take this life as a prime example. As the world around us becomes more turbulent, so our lives become more fragmented. Out of touch and disconnected from ourselves, we are anxious, restless, and often paranoid. A tiny crisis pricks the balloon of the strategies we hide behind. A single moment of panic shows us how precarious and unstable everything is. To live in the modern world is to live in what is clearly a bardo realm; you don't have to die to experience one. This uncertainty, which already pervades everything now, becomes even more intense, even more accentuated after we die, when our clarity or confusion, the masters tell us, will be "multiplied by seven." More »
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    Insomnia Paid Member

    By Judith Simmer-Brown
    I'm awake again. Were those coyotes howling, or was that just a dream? It's four o'clock in the morning, and it is often difficult to tell what is a dream and what isn't. I lie here in bed, hearing my husband gently snoring next to me, my body warmly nestled, but my mind is moving, constantly moving. Since childhood, I've always been an insomniac. Being awake in the middle of the night is part of my psychological and spiritual landscape, part of my wholeness. But it is often excruciating, full of edginess and disparagement. Insomnia keeps me close to my pulse. And it is always a practice. More »
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    Bardo of Lost Mammals Paid Member

    By Andrew Schelling
    What but the wolf's tooth whittled so fine the fleet hoof of the antelope? —Robinson Jeffers More »
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    A Tree With a View Paid Member

    By John House
    Orangutans are largely solitary creatures, and because the ingredients of their preferred diet are widely dispersed, they've developed ways to avoid having to rummage through the canopy all day, expending precious energy in a restless search for food. One of these strategies entails little more than sitting quietly on a high branch and peering off into the dense green air until the desired delicacy announces itself to their gaze. Primatologists who study the apes have called this behavior "the fruit stare." I've been doing it a lot myself lately. Midway through last summer, I stepped into the in-between of in-betweenjobs. I'd visited this particular bardo before and had always returned, at the end of my transit, to a mundane realm inhabited by an alarming number of both hungry ghosts and jealous gods: the world of New York journalism. Now I was hoping that time in the in-between might lead me somewhere else. More »
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    The In-between State Paid Member

    By Pema Chodron
    The secret of Zen is just two words: not always so.—Shunryu Suzuki Roshi It takes some training to equate complete letting go with comfort. But in fact, "nothing to hold on to" is the root of happiness. There's a sense of freedom when we accept that we're not in control. Pointing ourselves toward what we would most like to avoid makes our barriers and shields permeable. More »
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    Something Strange is Happening Paid Member

    By Duane Michals
    Duane Michals's most recent book is Questions Without Answers (Twelve Trees Press, 2001). His show "Who is Sydney Sherman?" will open this November at Pace/MacGill gallery in New York. More »