Nepal Packing, Part I
Jeanne bought us our first item to pack for Nepal…. and I believe it is the most important purchase of all: our journals! Considering the fact that my journal from Baron Baptiste teacher training in...
View ArticleLessons from a Buddhist Lama: Thompson Street, NYC
I met Phurba Lama today. He is a Buddhist lama (lama is the Tibetan word for monk) that owns a Tibetan store right on Thompson Street and West 3rd, two blocks away from my apartment and across the...
View ArticleHello, from Shechen Monastery in Nepal!
We finally arrived last night! It is 9:25am Tuesday morning right now and so far the jet lag isn’t too bad. It took us a total of 32 hours to get here (17 hours in flights and a 15 hour layover in...
View ArticleDay 1, Nepal
The monks saunter around the grounds in between their daily prayers and chanting. Some make eye contact and nod in acknowledgement, and some keep their gaze down as they walk around us. If our eyes...
View ArticleDay 2, Nepal
“I like one ship — that is friendship” - Shanti- “Love is feeding those that are hungry” - Reena- Bala burns a candle on behalf of all the women of the world. In meditation, she asks us to think of...
View ArticleNepal: Shop Ladies
I love the people of Nepal because their happiness is authentic, effortless, and humble – a true statement of how living simply can provide you with an abundantly satisfying life. Wouldn’t it be...
View ArticleFollow Your Bliss
“If you follow your bliss you put yourself on a track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t...
View ArticleNepal: “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to...
The experience of being alive comes with moments that surprise us, rattle us, challenge us, inspire us, devour us, comfort us, bring us to our knees, force us to question ourselves and others, ask us...
View ArticleNepal: Soulful Sadhus in Pashupati
Having learned my grandfather passed away the previous night, I was forced to make a decision. And it needed to be a quick one. I had one final day to explore Nepal and hadn’t visited the place I was...
View ArticleNepal: Song of Rain, by Kahlil Gibran
Song Of The Rain VII Kahlil Gibran I am dotted silver threads dropped from heaven By the gods. Nature then takes me, to adorn Her fields and valleys. I am beautiful pearls, plucked from the Crown of...
View ArticleNepal: To match the beat of the universe
The goal of life is to be a vehicle for something higher… to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. The return is seeing the radiance everywhere. -Joseph...
View ArticleNepal: Leaning Into the Afternoon
Tired shoulders fold in, the week begins its repose. I lean forward, elbow to knee, and backwards into ancient spaces. Temples, doors, walls, moss-covered stone, spaces for midday recess. Knees up,...
View ArticleNepal: “The best things can’t be told”& Polaroid Photography
There was something about Nepal that I haven’t been able to capture with words, so I have relied on my photography to tell an unspoken story. Heinrich Zimmer said, “the best things can’t be told” and...
View ArticleMerlin’s Favorite Remedy: Learning
“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie...
View ArticleRilke: “Life is Right, In Any Case”
“It is always what I have already said: the wish that you may find patience enough in yourself to endure, and simplicity enough to believe; that you may acquire more and more confidence in that which...
View ArticleNepal: She is many moons, every moon
Earrings curve into golden rings as her waist wraps into certitude. Steadily, she crosses brick and stone, leaning into her midday walk, like a blossom curling into willowy sunbeams. Inhale, she steps,...
View ArticleNepal: Windowsills & Doorways
“So I wait for you like a lonely house till you will see me again and live in me. Till then my windows ache.” — Pablo Neruda “At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face...
View ArticleVincent van Gogh: “It is so beautiful, I must show you how it looks”
“When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. He sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his...
View ArticleThich Nhat Hanh: We already have what we want to become
It is hard, but we have to remind ourselves that it is OK to feel completely disoriented at times. To feel a deep ping of uncertainty and the tormenting anxiety it is normally met with. To be...
View ArticleA lesson in Yoga: BE FIERCE
I met with my mentor this week and shared an incident where I took something personally, and then adjusted myself to have more compassion for the person. As Thich Nhat Hanh says, “it’s likely that the...
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