I was in the second hour of wandering around my Brooklyn neighborhood on a glorious Saturday when I got an innocent text from my wife: “Want to pick up a pizza on your way back?” I responded immediately in the affirmative, relishing an opportunity to eat one of my favorite…

Spoilers for the film ‘A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’ throughout. Certain movies stick in our memory, speaking to us long after their credits roll. One of these, for me, is director Marielle Heller’s A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood from 2020, a fictionalized version of the encounter between an…

Life could be so simple: we could feel connected to each other, acting from a place of love for one another, in solidarity with all human beings (and other animals, too!). It could be this way, but in practice, does it happen? …

Trying to grasp the slippery nature of spiritual effort — Typically, to get what we want, we have to identify what it is we want, and then, even if it is very difficult, we can figure out a way to get it. We simply have to do the correct series of things. Sounds easy enough. But do spiritual pursuits work…

On one hand, we have the pleaser mugging for the crowd, whose hollow life is emptied out by the absence of your laughter loud. On the other hand, we have the nihilistic Shiva god, destroyer of securities, whose nuclear laugh engulfs the awed. And we can’t forget the mother, prematurely reborn, who rises like the beating sun to rejoin the murmuring forlorn. Lastly, of course, the lover, forever loving incomplete, bowing low to kiss the feet, and breathing space for sound’s retreat.

It’s never what we think! — This is an article about the preliminary steps of a spiritual journey. We may wish to skip the basics, but if we are serious about self-inquiry we should proceed carefully, considering deeply (and skeptically) what a “spiritual” endeavor is really all about. …

A boy once went in search of himself, digging through crevices of mice-infested apartments where he conjured paranoid success fantasies to make himself feel worthy. But mostly, of course, he searched in others’ eyes, wishing secret violence against loved one’s psyches, aching to induce a nod or grin, grimace or kiss so that they might do his existential work. But do not regret that misguided treasure hunt! For as his lazy, hungry, empty self came into focus, the boy saw that he was not special the way he thought, but altogether things are stranger than thought can think.

The question that spirituality asks is a deep and strange one: “Who am I?” Most of the time we don’t even consider this question worthy of asking because it’s so obvious to us: I’m me. …