Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Did you attend the Republican conference in Philadelphia? I’m guessing you did. I wasn’t there of course and did not hear the president’s speech, but the reports I heard and read about its tone and content were sufficient to add to my alarm. Did you not feel the slightest concern about
Essays
Listen
Those planning to rush ahead with plans to “repeal and replace” (“replace”? really?)) the Affordable Care Act owe it to their constituents to listen to what they want—in some cases, not what they say they want, but what they really want, which is often clearly different: there is plenty of evidence to show that many Americans don’t realize…
Intensity
I just read the text of the Tr*mp inaugural address. I had promised myself not to actually listen to it, but then, in the car, on the way to a medical appointment, the radio happened to have remained switched on from yesterday, so I found myself listening to about…
Ill Will
I’m with John Lewis. I plan to boycott the Tr*mp inaugural. Not in the flesh, of course, but at least on television. I’ll not watch it. I’m in agreement with the Congressman that the Tr*mp presidency is not legitimate. There are just too many indications that the election was not…
Panic Attack, Revisited
I had an interesting exchange yesterday on my Facebook page when a reader responded to my entry expressing fear about the coming Tr*mp inauguration. Noting that one of my blogs is called “The Buddha Diaries,” he wrote, I could “obviously” not have been practicing meditation if I was experiencing the feelings I expressed…
Panic Attack
I cannot remember ever having been so riddled with anxiety about the future of our country and the world. There has never been a comparable situation before this. We are on the eve of inaugurating a “president” of the United States […] whose unpreparedness for the office is monumental
The Deal
I find myself shuddering every time I hear that word, these days: the “deal.” Everything, it seems, in Tr*mpworld, is reduced to the deal, no matter whether it has to do with trade, where it seems appropriate, or health care, education, foreign relations… where it isn’t…
Slow Looking
Slow Looking describes and elaborates on the author’s “One Hour/One Painting” sessions, an idea he developed to practice a different, more profound and more rewarding way of looking at art. It combines the practices of meditation and contemplation, asking participants to sit for a full hour in front of a single work of art. Slow […]
Mind Work
In this collection of short, highly readable essays Peter Clothier explores his past and present in the effort to discern which parts of his life are essential and which might be left behind. Within the framework of an active Buddhist meditation practice, Mind Work is an authentic search for the creative core through a process […]
The “Mosque”
A new friend and reader of my blog, The Buddha Diaries, challenged me — whether consciously or not—to offer my own thoughts on the brouhaha around that “mosque” planned for a location two blocks for the site of the World Trade Center. My friend…