The Obstacles to Nowness

Buddhist meditation master Chogyam Trungpa writes in Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior: You should regard your home life as a golden opportunity to experience nowness, by taking an interest in all the details of your life. Interest is simply applying awareness to what goes on in your everyday life—awareness while your cooking, while […]

The Genius of Pushkin

The Russian-born French writer Henri Troyat wrote in his biography of Alexander Pushkin: Pushkin grew with the years. Every other writer claimed descent from him. Inexplicably, the whole of Russian literature proceeded from his genius. Poetry, novels, short stories, history, theater, criticism-he had opened up the whole gamut of literary endeavor to his countrymen. He […]

A Successful Romantic Relationship Is Never Easy

From Alain de Botton’s novel, The Course of Love: Love reaches a pitch at those moments when our beloved turns out to understand, more clearly than others have been able to, and perhaps even better than we do ourselves, the chaotic, embarrassing, and shameful parts of us. That someone else gets who we are and […]