C.M. Rivers

"I only borrowed this dust." ~ Stanley Kunitz

Journal

  • Chogyam Trungpa’s Saddle Analogy

    I just love this passage from Smile at Fear: Awakening the True Heart of Bravery by Chogyam Trungpa.  To arrive at this place he describes, within one’s self, must be to arrive at a place of deep, deep peace.       “In the saddle, as long as you have good posture and a good seat, you… Read more

  • A Passage On Writing From Natalie Goldberg

    Excerpt from “Thunder and Lightning” by Natalie Goldberg: “I never escaped being a monk!  The morning gruel, the frost on the bell, bare feet on frigid floors, all have been mine.  Except that my meditation position has been a bent body hovering over a notebook with only my right hand moving across a blank page for… Read more

  • Recipe

    Life is the approximation of cooking, not the exactitude of baking.  It’s a messy project, not a calculation, more art than arithmetic.  There are an infinite number of ways to proceed.  Be curious, consider the methods used by everyone you meet and, in doing so, find your own way.  Develop your recipe and never hesitate… Read more

  • Old Inuit Song

    I think over again my small adventures, my fears, those small ones that seemed so big, for all the vital things I had to get and to reach. And yet there is only one great thing, the only thing. To live to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world.… Read more

  • A Passage From Natalie Goldberg’s “Long Quiet Highway”

    A Passage From Natalie Goldberg’s “Long Quiet Highway”

    “There is no one thing to hold on to…” Read more

  • Alchemy

    The peacock struts around eating things that are brightly colored: plants, insects and snakes.   Much of what it eats is poisonous.    May we learn to move closer to pain, invite in the Lady of Sorrows to sit it at our table, as if she were our neighbor, as if she were a weary… Read more