When Yamada Roshi went to Bodhgaya, he wrote a little poem.

“While I gazed at the great stupa

Towering into the red dawn,

Softly I wept.”

For years I asked myself, “Why did Yamada Roshi weep?” When I visited Bodhgaya years ago, I maybe understood a little.

There’s something heartbreaking about going to a place where a holy man or woman has had a profound realization.

I feel that way about liturgy and being in Upaya’s temple. When i step over the threshold with my left food leading, when I walk one breath one step, when i bow deeply my hands pressed together, when i chant the sutras in Sinojapanese, sometimes I feel my eyes wet with tears.

It is about coming home, coming home with all beings, coming home to the ancestors, coming home to who I really am.

~Roshi Joan Halifax

a little wisdom and a little flourish…

inquiry for today~ may this new hope of discovery nourish….

the deepest web of hope

The first step to saying yes is realizing that in the end it is so much easier than the alternative. Once we understand this, we can begin examining the moments when we resist what is happening, and experiment with occasionally saying yes instead. It might be scary at first, and even painful at times, but if we continue to say yes to every moment through the process, we will discover the joy of being in a positive conversation with a force much bigger than ourselves.

~Madisyn Taylor