Spiritual Odyssey

In 43 years of following a spiritual path, what has always amazed me is that my own inner experience has very seldom coincided with the written and spoken teaching I had been exposed [...]

One of the hardest things for a beginner to understand is the fact that there must be physical changes for spiritual changes to take place. We are so used to thinking of spiritual [...]

As soon as we have words we have concepts. No matter how articulate the speaker, how believable the teacher, using words forces the speaker to form concepts in order to convey ideas to [...]

Many books are being written by sociologists and psychologists, in which they glibly speak of “higher consciousness” and “Enlightenment,” without in the least knowing what they are talking about. It is fashionable to make [...]

A monk asked a great Chinese Chan (Zen) Teacher, “Where will you go when you die?” “Straight to hell!” was the unexpected answer. Surprised, the monk pressed on, “Why would you, a great [...]

On my recent visit to Albuquerque I gave a talk to over 200 people on The Spiritual Life (in a busy world). Many points were similar to the Merging Sense with Essence talk [...]

At the recent, very enjoyable teachers’ conference in Albuquerque [in 1989], I was pleased to hear frequent ref- erence to the “T’ai Chi Chih community.” I do not take this as an organizational [...]

For T’ai Chi Chih to grow in the future the way it has in the past, it is necessary to maintain an idealistic attitude. I believe teachers should earn good money from sincere [...]

"When the horse in Szechuan catches cold, the cow in Hunan sneezes,” say Zen Patriarchs. This means more than the usual statement that we are all somehow connected, each “a spark of the [...]

Shambala publishes a book called Sword of No Sword by John Stevens that should be of interest to all teachers. That does not mean I agree with everything in it, but it stresses [...]

At teacher accreditation courses the candidates all make presentations. This not done for academic reasons, like doing a thesis for a Ph.D., but for very practical reasons: it gives the new teacher a [...]

T’ai Chi Chih has begun to spread. Little pockets of enthusiasm have begun to form in isolated places, and these tend to grow rather rapidly. It is exciting to see this. No amount [...]