by Abby Mushin Terris | May 1, 2022
One of the Paramitas that we practice is patience. Patience prompts us to take our time, be kind, listen well, and to persist in our efforts. I surely notice for myself these days, and maybe you do too, that I am called on to practice patience — with myself, with...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Apr 24, 2022
Dust, gravel, mud, clay, flesh, bone, muscle, breath, cloud, tree, bird, flower, cement, rock, wire, mountain, worm, shrub, rice, water, whale, human. When we celebrate Earth Day, we’re celebrating how every morsel of matter that makes up this world is brought to us...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Apr 17, 2022
One of the miscellaneous koans is “Stopping the sound of the distant temple bell.” We begin looking into this koan by considering our experience with sound. First, what do you know of bells? Your direct experience of them? There are so many varieties of bells. The...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Apr 10, 2022
One of the Four Practices that Bodhidharma teaches in his Outline of Practice is requiting injustice, or requiting animosity. “Requiting” is a word we don’t use in American English much but it’s a key to embodying wisdom and compassion. How to respond to animosity?...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Apr 3, 2022
In this spring season, all that died away and went back to earth last fall is now reborn as spring’s garden. What was returned to the Earth was received, digested and carries on in emerging, new life. In this way there is no end to possibility. Dying, leaping,...
by Abby Mushin Terris | Mar 27, 2022
As all the world around us in the valley buds and flowers, we see before our very eyes a delightful manifestation of pure dana, generosity. With nothing withheld and nothing to gain but sunshine, rainwater, air and the full unfolding function of beauty, the tulips...
