Spiritually Speaking

The Middle Way Sangha will be hosting an extended meditation retreat at the Shambhala Meditation Centre (1-2033 Belmont Ave), beginning Friday evening and continuing all day Saturday, April 14 and 15respectively.

When I focus on the news headlines and many conflicts of our time, I am overwhelmed.

Speaking spiritually is not simply speaking about spiritual matters. It also involves speaking from your own unique relationship with the Spirit about what matters most to you.

The power that our words carry is a theme that I often go back to - an idea that I have spent a lot of time reflecting on.

The middle way is an approach to life- whether monastic or as a householder- tethered to suchness. Suchness means, in practice, that only harm actually matters.

Recently I vacationed at an all-inclusive, gated, 5 star resort in Jamaica. Well, 4.5 stars, actually; but that is another story.

A while back I began to hear a lot about “confirmation bias” and “motivated reasoning”.

"Always seems to me / 'Sorry' seems to be the hardest word." -- Elton John Sir Elton John and Bernie Taupin are right: it's extraordinarily hard to say that you've done something wrong and hurt somebody. But I think there's an even harder word.

Over the last few months, my family – like many others in Canada and the US – seriously considered our safety and well-being in a part of the world that is often heralded as the bastion of freedom.

I don’t know about you, but I have spent most of 2017 so far longing for the light to come back. Is it just me, or has our normally grey West Coast winter been even greyer? The prolonged {for us) snow and cold haven’t helped, either, I suppose.