Someday Farm

Mono no Aware 物の哀れ, Mono no Aware, is a Japanese aesthetic and philosophical concept that expresses an awareness of the impermanence of things and a gentle, melancholic appreciation of their fleeting beauty. It embodies a sensitivity to ephemera and transience, the understanding that all things pass, and that their very unlastingness makes them more precious. The term was popularized by Motoor...

This Guided Meditation is the third in our three part Mysteries, Manifestations, & Monsters series. Cultivating the Beast within: Fearlessness, Sustenance, & Transformation in the Legend of Fúhǔ Luóhàn Introduction: the Arhat and the Wild Force In the rich iconographic and narrative traditions of Chinese Buddhism, few figures evoke as much quiet power as 伏虎羅漢, Fúhǔ Luóhàn (The Tiger-Subduing L...

Living Dreams: Alebrijes as Cultural History and Psychological Canvas The vibrant Mexican folk-art forms known as the Alebrije represent one of the most remarkable artistic evolutions of the twentieth century. Combining vivid coloration, intricate pattern work, and impossible anatomical amalgamations, these figures bridge the boundary between physical craftsmanship and the unfettered subconscious....

The Architecture of the Threshold: Yōkai, Animism, & the Enchanted Borderlands To enter the world of Japanese folklore is to step into a realm where the boundary between the seen and unseen remains perennially porous. Translating foreign concepts into English often flattens their nuanced philosophical weight, and few words suffer this fate as acutely as 妖怪, Yōkai (Apparitions, uncanny manifestat...

The golden pool of light under the streetlamp is warm, finite, and absurdly helpful. Standing within it, everything detail is rendered with astonishing detail: individual mineral flecks shine against the dark asphalt, the pristine weave of a wool coat is made obvious, the faint glint of silver on a discarded foil wrapper... Outside this circle, the night drops off like the edge of a map marked wit...

Stone Soup There was once a village worn thin by hardship. A place where Winter had lingered too long, where harvests had failed, where the people had learned to live with the ache of scarcity. The houses were small and tired. The fields fallow, the flocks thin. The plain wooden doors of each home long swollen from years of damp. The village’s many hearths cold except for a few embers saved for ne...

The Seamingly Ordinary Cook and the Sensing Knife In the days of Zhuāngzǐ, there was a cook named Páo Dīng. He served Lord Wén Huì. One day, while carving an ox, his movements were so fluid that the sound of his knife seemed like music. Lord Wén Huì watched in wonder and said, “ How marvelous! Your skill has reached perfection. ” Páo Dīng replied, “ What I care for is the Way, not mere skill. When...

How to Be a Poet by Wendell Berry (to remind myself) i Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet. You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill—more of each than you have—inspiration, work, growing older, patience, for patience joins time to eternity. Any readers who like your poems, doubt their judgment. ii Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air. Shun electric wire...

The Eighty-Fourth Problem an introduction to the parable, and to the practice that follows There is a teaching story that circulates widely in contemporary Buddhist and Zen contexts, most often called “the 83 problems.” Its lineage is not clean: it does not appear in the Pāli Canon nor in any Sūtra traceable to a named source. Versions of it circulate under the Buddha’s name, under Ajahn Chah’s na...

The Art of Stepping Back: An Introduction to Cognitive Defusion For those accustomed to sitting atop the meditation cushion, the mind’s tendency to spin intricate narratives is intimately familiar. A single thought can arise, capture your attention, and instantly pull you into a vivid story about who you are, what you have failed at, or what might go wrong next. In the language of Western psycholo...

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The Substance of Absence: a Path of Guided Meditation When the dark tip of a brush first touches a pale expanse of silk, a world is born. We naturally lean forward to follow the heavy track of the ink, watching the mountain peaks rise or the plum branches bend. Yet, the true life of the work breathes in the silent field surrounding those dark strokes. This is the ancient aesthetic principle of: 留...

In Swimming in the Sea of Qì: The Taiji Path to Energetic and Spiritual Awareness , author Denise L. Meyer shifts the focus of mind-body literature away from mechanical choreography and toward a lived, phenomenological exploration of internal energy. Rather than treating 氣, Qì as an abstract philosophical concept or a fringe metaphor, Meyer frames it as an immediate, embodied reality accessible t...

In Taijiquan: a Path to Becoming Superconscious , Rick Barrett completes an ambitious trilogy that spans two decades of somatic inquiry, energetic research, and philosophical reflection. Following his foundational works, Taijiquan: Through the Western Gate and Finding You in a World of It , this third volume presents a mature synthesis that dismantles the long-standing wall between physical moveme...

The Substance of Absence: a Path of Guided Meditation When the dark tip of a brush first touches a pale expanse of silk, a world is born. We naturally lean forward to follow the heavy track of the ink, watching the mountain peaks rise or the plum branches bend. Yet, the true life of the work breathes in the silent field surrounding those dark strokes. This is the ancient aesthetic principle of: 留...

The Light Between the Pillars: an Introduction to Ma In many Western cultural traditions, empty space is treated as a mere void. It is viewed as an absence of content, a blank canvas waiting to be filled, or a silent pause where nothing is happening. Yet, in the aesthetic and philosophical traditions of Japan, emptiness is understood not as a lack, but as a dynamic and vital presence. This profoun...

Hermann Hesse and the Inward Path Who am I, really? Hermann Hesse spent a lifetime circling a single, unyielding question: “Who am I, really?” This was not an idle philosophical puzzle but the burning center of a life marked by crisis, exile, and relentless self-examination. Born in Calw, Germany, in 1877, Hesse rebelled early against the rigid expectations of his pious family and the authoritaria...

Be sure to see a separate-from-this-series take on a Guided Meditation based on Dr. Frankl here: Finding Meaning in Darkness: an Introduction to Viktor Frankl’s masterwork What keeps a person moving forward when everything has been stripped away? In moments of profound crisis, human beings inevitably search for an anchor. In 1946, a Viennese psychiatrist named Viktor E. Frankl published a slim vol...

Be sure to see a separate-from-this-series take on a Guided Meditation based on Dr. Frankl here: Finding Meaning in Darkness: an Introduction to Viktor Frankl’s masterwork What keeps a person moving forward when everything has been stripped away? In moments of profound crisis, human beings inevitably search for an anchor. In 1946, a Viennese psychiatrist named Viktor E. Frankl published a slim vol...

Be sure to see a separate-from-this-series take on a Guided Meditation based on Dr. Frankl here: Finding Meaning in Darkness: an Introduction to Viktor Frankl’s masterwork What keeps a person moving forward when everything has been stripped away? In moments of profound crisis, human beings inevitably search for an anchor. In 1946, a Viennese psychiatrist named Viktor E. Frankl published a slim vol...

Finding Meaning in Darkness: an Introduction to Viktor Frankl’s masterwork What keeps a person moving forward when everything has been stripped away? In moments of profound crisis, human beings inevitably search for an anchor. In 1946, a Viennese psychiatrist named Viktor E. Frankl published a slim volume that answered this question with radical clarity. That book, Man’s Search for Meaning , has s...

Presence Replaces Patience The gate to Nityakāli’s farm is large is large and well worn, its weathered wood softened by years of hands and weather, set into a low stone wall that borders Nityakāli’s farmland with quiet permanence. Beyond the wall the fields stretch and breathe. Before it, a rutted road runs through the afternoon, its muddy puddles holding small mirrors of the sky - and of the clou...

8 Dàoist Virtues 8 Ethical Principles The Eight Virtues in Dàoist thought can vary depending on different interpretations and texts. However, one common set of virtues often associated with Dàoism includes: 慈, Cí - Compassion : The quality of showing kindness and consideration to others. It emphasizes empathy and a desire to alleviate suffering. Loving-kindness. Tenderness, tender-hearted(ness)....

a long‑form, poetic, Buddhist‑inflected Guided Meditation on letting go through the metaphor of rain . When the Sky Lets Go a Buddhist Guided Meditation to Support the Welcoming of Release Settle your body: Let the weight of your sitting be enough. Let the breath arrive as it arrives. Let the breath leave as it leaves. Feel the ground beneath you. Feel how it receives you without effort. Feel how...

This Guided Meditation invites the listener to walk through an inner showroom where unhelpful traits are displayed in their most seductive form. Each trait is voiced by an internal salesperson who promises the world. Awareness becomes the act of not buying. Music Cue: The Showroom of Unhelpful Traits a Guided Meditation for Cultivating Nonattachment Settle into your seat. Let the breath lengthen....