We are familiar with the phrase, “We are what we eat.” And in one sense, this is certainly true. Our body receives its fuel and building material from what we put into it. Food is transformed into energy, blood, tissue, and bone. This body is continuously rebuilt from what we take in. Last night, while eating a garden-fresh dinner, I was contemplating this. I thought, yes, I am what I eat. But clearly, that is not all I am. And then another sentence came to me: I am what I think. We may be...

Easter invites reflection on death and resurrection. We might think it is a story from long ago, but it is as relevant as ever; it points to something deeply alive in our own spiritual life. No matter what tradition we come from, there is something in us that longs to wake up. Something in us longs for what is real. And often, that waking up asks something difficult of us. It asks for a kind of dying. A deep letting go. Not necessarily the death of the body, but the death of who we think we...

In the Zen tradition, this is the time of the Rohatsu Sesshin. From the 1st to the 8th of December, thousands of practitioners around the world are sitting right now. It is the most vigorous retreat of the year. This retreat remembers Shakyamuni, who is said to have sat for eight days and eight nights under the Bodhi tree until he woke up on the last morning, seeing the morning star. That moment of seeing clearly gave him the name Buddha, “the awakened one.” In the Christian tradition, this...