The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.

Each age has its own tasks. For most of us now, our monasteries have no walls except the silence our meditation gathers to the center of our lives, and this is enough—it is more than enough. Our hermitage is the act of living with attention in the midst of things; amid the rhythms of work and love, the bath with the child, the endlessly growing paperwork, the ever-present likelihood of war, the necessity for taking action to help the world. For us, a good spiritual life is permeable and robust. It faces things squarely knowing the smallest moments are all we have, and that even the smallest moment is full of happiness.

When all striving ceases
I awaken to behold
Ever-present Awareness
Keeping silent watch.

Dance is meditation in movement, a walking into silence where every movement becomes prayer.

I see dance being used as communication between body and soul to express what is too deep to find words.

One sound seldom heard on a prison yard is the sound of someone singing. Yet, unmistakably, I heard the joyful voice of my inmate friend, Ed, singing in the dormitory shower. It was positively liberating to hear him sing, totally immersed in the music.

Having no material goods, no family, and serious health problems, Ed confided that he has no reason whatsoever to be happy and sing like that. He said, "I have a happy spirit and it's just natural to sing and dance."

Nothing is more commendable than to live lyrically, to make our lives a continuous song of experience...To let go into the music, to dance, to spin and sway as the sounds resound in your bones, to feel your feet grow lighthearted as they sweep you along to the rhythm of the music, is to touch into the harmonies of the soul.

The first thing that must change is that in me which insists upon the smaller view of myself and tries to make that permanent... I watch my personality from the reality behind it. In that moment I am no longer identified with ego. Spirit begins to emerge and know itself. The dance changes! I no longer dance to become worthy or prove my value. I do not dance to measure up or earn that which has belonged to me all along. I dance because I dance.

We laugh together like we never have before. Her face radiates pure joy. She's a good little dancer, music in her blood...maybe a word from God. She's so happy and strong , despite her world crumbling around her, that I can only gaze in awe. She leaps into the air, giving shape to the music that reposes in all matter, just waiting to be released. She liberates the music and, in her innocence, cannot know what she has done and thereby is all the stronger. Is God speaking to this tired old heart? Is God saying, "Look — don't you get it? She's as marvelous as a galaxy. You have nothing to fear. If I can call her into being, there's nothing I can't do. Now dance. Dance!"

All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child. And children know what we adults often forget, that is—our bodies are made to move, to "embody" our joy, to keep us in touch with our own breath and pulse, and to make us feel alive.

I carve cathedrals
with the sweep of my arms
I turn whirlwinds of change
I center and ground
deep bend to the earth
recenter and move
scooping sorrow like birds
each motion rebalancing somehow
earth and sky
self and divine
sacred love and sacred growth
temple dancer's work
spinning the world into balance
exhausted heap I fall
satisfied

I said to my soul, be still, and wait... In the darkness shall be the light And the stillness the dancing.

Hope is the foundation or beginning step of faith and an essential expression of love. It provides the formless general aspiration for that which is higher and better, and then faith fills out the picture with the specific shape that a better self or a better world would take. As the expression of love, it sends that image out to the loved one and to the universe. By hoping you are taking an active part in the process by which the present creates the future.

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark.

I see in [these] folks the human capacity for change, for redemption, for forgiveness. I believe that every one of us, made in God's image as we are, has that capacity. Our challenge is to learn to call it forth in each person. Our hope is that we will succeed.

Above all, hope is based on relationships, on a collaborative connection with people as well as a higher power.

Suddenly an influx of light, though it was late, filled my room. I looked out and saw that the pond was already calm and full of hope as on a summer evening, though the ice was dissolved but yesterday. There seemed to be some intelligence in the pond which responded to the unseen serenity in a distant horizon.

Dusty cobblestones glow in the darkness
I walk out thinking the moon is illuminating them
but the sky is only pinkness
A city engulfed in its own smog and light
Red sky prophesies say this is the end of days
A lone frog singing says the days will last
Outside I am overcome
Inside I am too big for my own cage
Shining intensity at my own smog
It glows too brightly
to see the moon
or stars beyond
I wait for a shift
For things to end
Or for a miracle
that will come
and clean everything
Like the rain
the frog is calling

Wild winter winds depart
in a final, dying howl.
Blackbird returns, a red-winged
oracle of spring,
announcing new life and renewed light,
shimmering with possibilities
of ever-circling Hope.

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love others. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them. It is pure affection, and filled with reverence for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love others for what they are, not for what they say.

This is what our love is —a sacred pattern of unbroken unity, sewn flawlessly, invisible inside all other images, thoughts, smells, and sounds.

If you want to be a rebel, be kind.

It has been well observed that though nations may differ from nations, communities from communities, and people from people, human nature is the same everywhere. As there is but one sun that warms and gives light to the earth, there is but one God who teaches us to love one another and care for each other.

Maybe the purpose of being here, wherever we are, is to increase the durability and the occasions of love among and between peoples. Love, as the concentration of tender caring and tender excitement, or love as the reason for joy.

This rock has seen many storms. Here it stands exposed to the elements, covered with the scars of its past. But one thing that always gave me comfort in coming here—it has not crumbled. It is still standing at the water’s edge, facing the wind and the sea and whatever the future will bring...Our hearts are like this rock. They will not crumble as long as we live and as long as we love.