Why Five Penguins Made Me Believe In Miracles
One hot August afternoon, just after the end of WW II my mom and aunt Helen took me downtown on a bus to a department store having a Circus...
Bundle Of Mmisery
There is a Sufi parable: A man used to call every night to God and he would pray the same prayer. Again and again he would ask, “Do one...
Right Audience
I am reminded of a story that actually happened. In Lucknow, there was a crazy king, Wajid Ali Shah. He was crazy in many ways: the whole day he...
Miracle Of Trust
In Tibet, there is a beautiful story about Marpa. It may not be factual, but it is tremendously significant. I don’t care much about facts. My emphasis is on...
An Idiot And A Wise Man
There is one Russian story, a small story. In a village a man, a young man, is called an idiot by everybody. From his very childhood he has heard...
The Wild Elephant
One of the many lives of the Bodhisattva was spent as an ascetic. This one time, he came back as the most superior ascetic in the whole order and...
Death Is Inevitable: A Buddhist Short Story
From the moment we’re born, we are, in a sense, dying, and the sooner realize how impermanent this life is, the less entangled we’ll get in superficial things that...
Self And No-Self
I have told many times the story of Bodhidharma and his meeting with the Chinese emperor Wu — a very strange meeting, very fruitful. Emperor Wu perhaps was at...
A False Laughter
Look at people’s faces. They carry life as a burden — boring, with no meaning. It seems that everything is just a nightmare, a very cruel joke, that somebody...
Enlightenment And Compassion
As soon as a person becomes capable of knowing himself, a unique energy — which is the greatest energy in this world and the greatest miracle — is achieved...