Essays
Ignoble Truths: KillingtheBuddha.com
Life is a catastrophe. This is a quote from Mark Epstein, author of a book about the confluence of Buddhist philosophy and Western-style psychology. What he means by it is that sooner or later into each of our lives, no matter how blessed, no matter how ordinary, real trouble comes. Someone we love dies, or leaves us. A child becomes sick and the doctors cannot save her. The unthinkable happens and we learn what it is to really be in pain. Epstein have given us a modern recapping of the Buddha’s First Noble Truth:….
When the World is Perfect: Tricycle
All beings have been your mother in a former life. This is the concept my teacher presented to his class of Western students. Holding this idea in our minds, he told us, would help us to generate a sense of connectedness and all-encompassing compassion. I remember the first time I tried to meditate on this, sitting quite still on a sofa cushion and conjuring up my mother’s face. All beings have loved you and cared for you as she has, I told myself, and for a moment I felt it: an outpouring of love. But inevitably, my mind wandered…
I’m late, as usual. I clutch my laptop and head into the restaurant, trying to ignore my nervousness. We’re discussing my essay today….
The Tipping Point: Literary Mama
My son, Eli, is a second grader. He has big front teeth that don’t fit his face and tawny hair cut straight across his forehead. A toothy smile, and hair that flips into funny shapes from being slept on at night. He refuses to comb it when he wakes up — he’s too busy watching a Spongebob movie or absorbed in some book called Monsters. In the morning he keeps this book in front of his eyes no matter what he is doing…
Dream House: The Westchester Review
On my days off I tend to rush in to the Shrub Oak Library in a long wool coat covered with cat hair, I’m a mess: my socks are visibly mismatched in the pink Mary Jane Crocs I wear, and my hair, wet and unbrushed after swimming, is covered in a pashmina scarf. But the librarians don’t lift an eyebrow…