This week’s topic for reflection is, “Did you vote?” If you haven’t and still have the opportunity, please reflect on what’s important to you, choose and vote. Each of us have a voice and it needs to be exercised in this way. This simple vote is equal to every other vote. Added up these votes help determine the direction of our communities, nation and to some extent the world. So please vote. The outcomes of elections often surprise me. I’m left wondering how can so many peo

This weeks’ topic for reflection is friendship. The value of friendship is huge. Please pause for a while and reflect on what friendship means to you. For me it’s the difference between feeling separate and alone and being heard, held and loved. We all need friends. With good friends we can make it through anything. I once had a neighbor, Victor Nolan. He said some people say if you have good health you have everything. He disagreed and said that wasn’t true. He believed if

This week’s topic for reflection is meticulous effort. The other day we were having some friends over for dinner and the house needed to be cleaned. Some of the cleaning was detailed and not easily noticed. As I began a simple, exacting cleaning task I became aware of the need to pay attention to detail and be patient with it. As I began to notice this detail and care about it, I lost the need for our quests to appreciate that this small aspect of the house was clean. What st

This week’s topic for reflection is being embodied. Notice your body. Notice how you view your body. How is your body changing and how it has changed. We do zazen with our body. Starting with sitting in the proper posture, settle into steady relaxed breathing. Follow the breath, slowly in and out, physically alert and curious. Physically alert and curious. As you pause and become present in your body, what do you become aware of? Do a body scan if you need to. If there is any

This week’s topic for reflection is coming home. Home is a place where we feel safe, comfortable, familiar and welcome. Even dealing with difficult change, being at home this change seems easier to manage. We know who we are here and our place or role. To “Make yourself at home.” means be yourself and relax as if you own the place. Some people are at home traveling around, meeting new people and discovering new ways to live. Their home seems to be everywhere. Perhaps they l

This week’s topic for reflection is anchors. Where do you put down your anchor? I was recently told that large ships entering the Columbia River from the Pacific Ocean pause there and put down one anchor off their bow. When the tide comes in the ships swing around and face the ocean. When the tide returns out to sea they swing around to face inland. Anchored yet free to flow with the changing tide. As things keep changing, where is your anchor? What do you use as an anchor an

This week’s topic for reflection is resistance. A few decades ago when I was a plumber, the new technology was the pager. I’d be driving along in my truck and my pager would go off with a phone number. Because we didn’t have cell phones yet I’d look around for a pay phone to call the number. The technology was just getting going and I was already having difficulty with it. Now it feels like the technology is trying to get control over more and more aspects of my life. I have

This week’s topic for reflection is change and settling in. It seems there is a time for change and also a time for settling in. They also need to balance each other. A lot of change without settling in can lead to a chaotic disorientation. Too much settling in can lead to complacency and being lethargic. We recently moved from our country home to the suburbs thirty minutes away. This change has been like living in a disorienting fog of exhaustion. There was no time for sett

This week’s topic for reflection is open. What does it mean to be open? Certainly it’s having the ability and desire to listen and see something you are not aware of. Reflect on how you are good at this and where you shut this down or set up barriers to this. Being open also requires being vulnerable. Is that the right word? Vulnerable or open to change and seeing that things are not like we want them to be. Being vulnerable is a function of love. It involves both pain and j

This week’s topic for reflection is courage. A popular example of courage is the warrior or first responder running toward immanent danger to protect or help others. Courage could also mean humbly saying, “I need help.” It could be firmly saying, “Stop.” It also sometimes takes courage to face the truth of the situation we find ourselves in. It takes a certain amount of courage just to deal with everyday life. I think this is true for everyone. It’s not easy to deal with the

This week’s topic for reflection is the value of a regular meditation practice. As we try to successfully navigate a stressful, challenging life, it’s easy to spin off into a kind of chaotic confusion. I find myself lost in confusion as to where I was going or what I was needing to do next. It’s kind of a disorientation toward what is needed and how to appropriately respond. In times of greater change this frustrating difficulty can increase significantly. It feels like my li

This week’s topic for reflection is Bodhidharmas' response. Bodhidharma was the first teacher of Zen in China. When he was very old he asked his senior students to each compose a poem. In response to these poems he told one student, “You are my skin.” To another he said, “You are my flesh.” To another he said, “You are my bone.” To another he said, “You are my marrow.” My teachers have told me that some people think “You are my skin” is not as good as “You are my flesh” etc.

This week’s topic for reflection is gratitude. Please pause and remember your good friends. Consider how your life has been enriched by them. Notice the natural world around you. The air, the beautiful sunset, flowing clear streams, birds singing, the day turning into night. There is a grocery store near here with all kinds of things to eat and I have plenty of money to purchase whatever I need. Our water heater died yesterday and I was able to replace it with a new one and

This week’s topic for reflection is dealing with change. Some change is desirable like a pleasant vacation. Some changes are not desirable like the death of a loved one or loosing a job. Many changes come at us and we don’t have a choice about it even though we desire control and a sense of certainty. Since change is a fact of existence, let’s reflect on how to deal with it. The first step is to try to see how things actually are. What is the situation? This includes you. Wh

This week’s topic for reflection is subtraction. What do we need to do less for our life to go better? It might be letting go of an expectation that’s not realistic. Or something that is being put off or procrastinated over. A negative or down attitude. Somethings are done out of habit and they’re not worth it anymore. Take a few minutes to reflect and inventory what’s in the way or is a hinderance that could be subtracted. Subtracting unnecessary things can reveal opportunit

This week’s topic for reflection is patience and trust. Thinking feels to me like grabbing hold of and figuring something out where patience and trust opens us up and allows for new possibilities and discoveries. To be patient is simply to be present and open, holding the issue as if it's on your open hand allowing the answer to arrive on its own when it wants to. To trust is not knowing when it will arrive and being okay with that. Trust also involves not needing to know how

This week’s topic for reflection is responsibility. For me responsibility comes down to doing what is needed for things to move in an orderly and beneficial way and not doing things according to what I want in the moment with no concern for the consequences. Being responsible is recognizing how we are in the world makes a difference. Yesterday Senkei and I went to Jerry’s, our neighborhood hardware store. On the way out the woman at the register was friendly, happy and said

This week’s topic for reflection is loss. Loss is one of the most emotionally painful experiences we can have. Loss of a child or spouse is sometimes never gotten over. We can loose a job or career that we expected to last a lifetime. I think of refugees fleeing with nothing, from the country they have always known for an uncertain and difficult future. We long for certainty, security and a way forward. How does significant loss feel? Perhaps like a tearing in the chest. A d

This week’s topic for reflection is alone. Feeling alone, not noticed and that no-one cares is heart breaking. The other day, driving up Interstate Five we pulled over and stopped at a rest stop. Off to one side sat a woman with a sign reading, “Anything will help.” Senkei asked if I was going to give her anything and I said, “Yes.” Bending over to give her a dollar bill, she looked up. Reaching up to take the dollar she said, “Thank you.” I was surprised to see how completel

This week’s topic for refection is your voice. Utilizing our voices we express what we think and what is in our heart. Our voice functions with the breath. The breath makes it possible for the voice to be real and create change in the world. This voice is open, in the moment, confident and humble. What we say can be helpful or harmful, honest or deceitful. What we say reveals where we are coming from. Our personal morality or ethics. Are we humble and respectful or arrogant