Beyond the Cartoons

I’m struck this morning by the tendency of human beings to use our taxonomies to turn each other into simplistic, distorted cartoon characters. We take our categories -- which humans understandably use to help make sense of a complicated world -- way too far. Man, woman, old, young, boomer, millennial, black, white, brown, yellow, American, Asian, Latino. These labels become a substitute for an actual encounter with an infinitely complex, nuanced human being. 

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There’s no such thing as “I really don’t have a practice”

Often, when conversation turns to practice, I hear the following: “I really don’t have a practice.”

I no longer believe this to be true. I believe that, in fact, for each of us and all of us, our lived life is our practice. However I spend my time today is my practice today. Of course, if I get up, do yoga, sit in meditation, chant, pray, read a spiritual text, and the like, nobody would argue that I have a practice.

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