Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Yet as the day approaches, I feel a kind of lethargy in my soul. Many of us are suffering from COVID fatigue. Some of us have lost loved ones or friends, and for that, I am truly sorry. We have a vaccine but a lot of people remain unvaccinated. We are at a tipping point [...]
In the kickoff episode of Casual Buddhism, I asked Venerable Dhammananda about how we remain hopeful in the face of ongoing uncertainties surrounding COVID, and increased violence towards Blacks and Asians. She surprised me when she said that one hopeful aspect of COVID is that it allows us to think globally. “We cannot be free from COVID alone; we must [...]
This was a tough week. Not only were we struggling with the Corona virus pandemic, we were inundated with relentless wildfires that swept across California leaving in its wake 1.3 million burned acres of charred landscape. Every morning my friends and I would race to our phones to check the air quality. The smoky skies made it hard to breathe, [...]
Like many of my She Writes Press sisters, I was disappointed when the pandemic struck, partly, because my book launch event scheduled for May 20thwill likely be cancelled. I felt genuine sorrow for the people whose family members are impacted with the illness. I was shocked when I learned that a husband of a close friend of mine passed away [...]
I woke at 4:30 am yesterday startled to see a text from a friend who said the State Department had ordered all citizens to return to the U.S immediately. For three weeks I had been peacefully settled in the day to day life of the monastery. Chanting, meditation, chores, breakfast and so on. My trip was cut short abruptly as [...]