In the teachings of the Christian Desert Fathers and Mothers, these intense feelings arising out of personal issues were known as the “passions,” and most of the Desert spiritual training had to do with learning to spot these land mines and get free of them before they did serious psychic damage. In contrast to our…

For Father Richard, emotional sobriety is found when we experience life from our True Self:  There is something in us that is not touched by coming and going, by up and down, by for or against, by totally right or totally wrong. This part of us is patient with both goodness and evil, exactly as…

One of the foundational charisms of St. Francis of Assisi was the way he integrated contemplation and action. Early on, he is attracted to contemplation and to living in silence out in nature. But he’s not sure if this is what God wants him to do. So Francis sends two brothers to Sister Clare and…

“Therefore, if I don’t pretend, like other people, to understand the war, I do know this much: that the knowledge of what is going on only makes it seem desperately important to be voluntarily poor, to get rid of all possessions this instant. I am scared, sometimes, to own anything, even a name, let alone…

Father Richard Rohr offers a contemplative practice of embracing “and.” We encourage you to read these words slowly, allowing for a “both-and” space to emerge within: “And” teaches us to say yes “And” allows us to be both-and “And” keeps us from either-or “And” teaches us to be patient and long suffering “And” is willing to wait…

“Even though we find ourselves afraid, and not feeling peaceful, and less than fully loving and compassionate, we must act. There is no way you can be in an incarnation without acting. We cannot wait until we are enlightened to act. We all hear the way in which our silence is itself an act of…

Richard Wagamese (1955–2017) is a beloved Canadian indigenous writer whose life was transformed by returning to his Ojibwe family and culture after being separated from them for most of his young life. In his final book Embers, he shares meditations, reflections, and prayers that came to him during times of ritual and morning silence. He writes:…

When you stand back far enough, all of your life experiences, independent of what they are, are all learning experiences. From a human point of view, you do your best to optimize pleasure, happiness, all the nice things in life. From your soul’s point of view you take what comes down the pike. So from…

Any unnoticed resistance toan emotion will feed it and makeit grow stronger. So don’t forget to  check, to see whether you really ac- cept an emotion or whether you have a resistance towards it. — Sayadaw U Tejaniya