https://awakin.org/read/ iJourney passages are a weekly email service that delivers a little bit of wisdom. It all started with couple folks getting together on Wednesdays in the Silicon Valley. en Fri, 04 Sep 2026 22:12:42 -0700 ServiceSpace iJourney passages are a weekly email service that delivers a little bit of wisdom. It all started with couple folks getting together on Wednesdays in the Silicon Valley. ServiceSpace tow@charityfocus.org no tow@charityfocus.org (ServiceSpace) https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2816 A real apology asks us to surrender our attachment to innocence, to see ourselves clearly as people capable of causing harm and capable of changing. Accountability asks not only, what did I do? but what made this possible? What did I benefit from not seeing? What have I learned to consider normal? The work of apology requires listening without defending our intentions, understanding that impact matters even when harm was not intended, and recognizing that remorse without change can become another form of avoidance. At its deepest level, apology is an act of love. The kind of love that is willing to tell the truth because the relationship matters. It asks us to move beyond the binary of guilt and innocence and into the much more difficult territory of responsibility. It asks what we are willing to repair, what we are willing to relinquish, and who we are willing to become. We need the imagination to believe that accountability does not have to end in shame. It can lead somewhere. Perhaps the opposite of fragmentation is not agreement, but our capacity to stay in relationship while telling the truth about what happened. Perhaps liberation begins when we no longer have to choose between accountability and love. tow-2816 Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0700 A real apology asks us to surrender our attachment to innocence, to see ourselves clearly as people capable of causing harm and capable of changing. Accountability asks not only, what did I do? but what made this possible? What did I benefit from not seeing? What have I learned to consider normal? The work of apology requires listening without defending our intentions, understanding that impact matters even when harm was not intended, and recognizing that remorse without change can become another form of avoidance. At its deepest level, apology is an act of love. The kind of love that is willing to tell the truth because the relationship matters. It asks us to move beyond the binary of guilt and innocence and into the much more difficult territory of responsibility. It asks what we are willing to repair, what we are willing to relinquish, and who we are willing to become. We need the imagination to believe that accountability does not have to end in shame. It can lead somewhere. Perhaps the opposite of fragmentation is not agreement, but our capacity to stay in relationship while telling the truth about what happened. Perhaps liberation begins when we no longer have to choose between accountability and love. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2813 Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be betterTo paint a picture, or write a letter,Bake a cake, or plant a seed;Ponder the difference between want and need?Dust if you must, but there's not much time,With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;Music to hear, and books to read;Friends to cherish, and life to lead.Dust if you must, but the world's out thereWith the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,This day will not come around again.Dust if you must, but bear in mind,Old age will come and it's not kind.And when you go (and go you must)You, yourself, will make more dust. tow-2813 Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be betterTo paint a picture, or write a letter,Bake a cake, or plant a seed;Ponder the difference between want and need?Dust if you must, but there's not much time,With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;Music to hear, and books to read;Friends to cherish, and life to lead.Dust if you must, but the world's out thereWith the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,This day will not come around again.Dust if you must, but bear in mind,Old age will come and it's not kind.And when you go (and go you must)You, yourself, will make more dust. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2814   Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to each other's stories once again. Most of the stories we are told now are written by novelists and screenwriters, acted out by actors and actresses, stories that have beginnings and endings, stories that are not real. The stories we can tell each other have no beginning and ending. They are a front-row seat to the real experience. Even though they may have happened in a different time or place they have a familiar feel. In some way they are about us, too. Real stories take time. We stopped telling stories when we started to lose that sort of time, pausing time, reflecting time, wondering time. Life rushes us along and few people are strong enough to stop on their own. Most often, something unforeseen stops us and it is only then we have the time to take a seat at life's kitchen table. To know our own story and tell it. To listen to other people's stories. To remember that the real world is made of just such stories. Until we stop ourselves or, more often, have been stopped, we hope to put certain of life's events 'behind us' and get on with our living. After we stop we see that certain of life's issues will be with us for as long as we live. We will pass through them again and again, each time with a new story, each time with a greater understanding, until they become indistinguishable from our blessings and our wisdom. It's the way life teaches us how to live. When we haven't the time to listen to each other's stories we seek out experts to tell us how to live. The less time we send together at the kitchen table, the more how-to books appear in the stores and on our bookshelves. But reading such books is a very different thing than listening to someone's lived experience. Because we have stopped listening to each other we may even have forgotten how to listen, stopped learning how to recognize meaning and fill ourselves from the ordinary events of our lives. We have become solitary; readers and watchers rather than shares and participants. The kitchen table is a level playing field. Everyone's story matter. The wisdom in the story of the most educated and powerful person is often not greater than the wisdom in the story of a child, and the life of a child can teach us as much as the life of a sage. Most parents know the importance of telling children their own story, over and over again, so that they come to know in the telling who they are and to whom they belong. At the kitchen table we do this for each other. Hidden in all stories in the One story. The more we listen, the clearer that Story becomes. Our true identity, who we are, why we are here, what sustains us, is in this story. The stories at every kitchen table are about the same things, stories of owning, having and losing, stories of sex, of power, of pain, of wounding, of courage, hope, and healing, of loneliness and the end of loneliness. Stories about God. In telling them, we are telling each other the human story. Stories that touch us in this place of common humanness awaken us and weave us together as a family once again. tow-2814 Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0700   Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to each other's stories once again. Most of the stories we are told now are written by novelists and screenwriters, acted out by actors and actresses, stories that have beginnings and endings, stories that are not real. The stories we can tell each other have no beginning and ending. They are a front-row seat to the real experience. Even though they may have happened in a different time or place they have a familiar feel. In some way they are about us, too. Real stories take time. We stopped telling stories when we started to lose that sort of time, pausing time, reflecting time, wondering time. Life rushes us along and few people are strong enough to stop on their own. Most often, something unforeseen stops us and it is only then we have the time to take a seat at life's kitchen table. To know our own story and tell it. To listen to other people's stories. To remember that the real world is made of just such stories. Until we stop ourselves or, more often, have been stopped, we hope to put certain of life's events 'behind us' and get on with our living. After we stop we see that certain of life's issues will be with us for as long as we live. We will pass through them again and again, each time with a new story, each time with a greater understanding, until they become indistinguishable from our blessings and our wisdom. It's the way life teaches us how to live. When we haven't the time to listen to each other's stories we seek out experts to tell us how to live. The less time we send together at the kitchen table, the more how-to books appear in the stores and on our bookshelves. But reading such books is a very different thing than listening to someone's lived experience. Because we have stopped listening to each other we may even have forgotten how to listen, stopped learning how to recognize meaning and fill ourselves from the ordinary events of our lives. We have become solitary; readers and watchers rather than shares and participants. The kitchen table is a level playing field. Everyone's story matter. The wisdom in the story of the most educated and powerful person is often not greater than the wisdom in the story of a child, and the life of a child can teach us as much as the life of a sage. Most parents know the importance of telling children their own story, over and over again, so that they come to know in the telling who they are and to whom they belong. At the kitchen table we do this for each other. Hidden in all stories in the One story. The more we listen, the clearer that Story becomes. Our true identity, who we are, why we are here, what sustains us, is in this story. The stories at every kitchen table are about the same things, stories of owning, having and losing, stories of sex, of power, of pain, of wounding, of courage, hope, and healing, of loneliness and the end of loneliness. Stories about God. In telling them, we are telling each other the human story. Stories that touch us in this place of common humanness awaken us and weave us together as a family once again. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2811 Our mind is not our enemy. It is a sacred gift. It helps us think, question, imagine, and understand the world. But the mind is not the place where life reaches its deepest fulfillment. It is the path that gently leads us to the heart. The mind seeks answers.The heart becomes the answer. The mind can gather endless knowledge, but only the heart can transform knowledge into wisdom. The mind can plan a life of success, but only the heart can awaken a life of meaning. When the mind walks alone, it often seeks certainty, control, and achievement. When it walks with the heart, those same abilities become instruments of compassion, courage, and service. Our greatest wealth is not found in what we know, own, or accomplish. It is found in the qualities that quietly blossom when the mind bows to the heart—gratitude that asks for nothing, kindness that expects nothing in return, love that includes everyone, and generosity that flows naturally. The journey from the mind to the heart is not a journey of distance but of surrender. We do not arrive there by becoming smarter. We arrive by becoming softer. Every moment of deep listening, every act of forgiveness, every humble offering, and every silent expression of compassion gently opens the door. As the heart unfolds, something beautiful happens. The mind does not disappear—it becomes illuminated. Thought begins to serve love. Intelligence begins to serve humanity. Success begins to serve the well-being of all. Perhaps this is what it means to be truly rich: not to have more, but to need less; not to stand above others, but to belong with them; not to collect more for ourselves, but to become a channel through which love, compassion, and generosity quietly flow into the world. Our mind is not our enemy. It is our beloved friend. And when it humbly walks hand in hand with the heart, it carries us to the greatest treasure we will ever discover—the boundless richness of a heart awake to love. tow-2811 Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Our mind is not our enemy. It is a sacred gift. It helps us think, question, imagine, and understand the world. But the mind is not the place where life reaches its deepest fulfillment. It is the path that gently leads us to the heart. The mind seeks answers.The heart becomes the answer. The mind can gather endless knowledge, but only the heart can transform knowledge into wisdom. The mind can plan a life of success, but only the heart can awaken a life of meaning. When the mind walks alone, it often seeks certainty, control, and achievement. When it walks with the heart, those same abilities become instruments of compassion, courage, and service. Our greatest wealth is not found in what we know, own, or accomplish. It is found in the qualities that quietly blossom when the mind bows to the heart—gratitude that asks for nothing, kindness that expects nothing in return, love that includes everyone, and generosity that flows naturally. The journey from the mind to the heart is not a journey of distance but of surrender. We do not arrive there by becoming smarter. We arrive by becoming softer. Every moment of deep listening, every act of forgiveness, every humble offering, and every silent expression of compassion gently opens the door. As the heart unfolds, something beautiful happens. The mind does not disappear—it becomes illuminated. Thought begins to serve love. Intelligence begins to serve humanity. Success begins to serve the well-being of all. Perhaps this is what it means to be truly rich: not to have more, but to need less; not to stand above others, but to belong with them; not to collect more for ourselves, but to become a channel through which love, compassion, and generosity quietly flow into the world. Our mind is not our enemy. It is our beloved friend. And when it humbly walks hand in hand with the heart, it carries us to the greatest treasure we will ever discover—the boundless richness of a heart awake to love. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2802 Many of us, for whatever reason, have some kind of inborn desire to help others, to make the world a better place. It seems pretty clear that what we have now in our world is a result of the efforts of “mind.” We see that “mind” can never be truly creative, can never be truly new. It is always coming from the past. All thinking is based on the past and so can never create anything that is not based on the past. It cannot create anything that is a jump into the vertical. It is always linear, horizontal. We can see that if we truly want to “make the world a better place,” then we have to help others discover life “beyond mind,” outside of the prison of the past. And it follows that the only way we can help others discover life beyond mind is to make that discovery for ourselves. It is not enough to talk about it; but we have to be transformed by it. We have to allow it to absorb every vestige of the “me” in order to make room for life in now, in creativity, and in real love. The next question is surely how to proceed? How do we come out of the prison of the mind? How do we make that discovery of life “beyond mind”? How do we live in “now”? There may be many answers to these questions. But I can only speak from my own experience of one, and that is meditation. And by meditation, I mean simply turning our attention onto the activity of the mind. Seeing the workings of the mind without interfering, without judging, without jumping into the duality of the mind, without getting involved in the yes-no. And it is this watching, this witnessing of the mind in its totality that liberates us from its clutches. And the irony is that often what is keeping us from allowing that transformation in ourselves is our engaging in the activities of trying to make the world a better place. Our time may be consumed in social causes. We may be active in political movements. We may be trying to heal others. But all the while, we are ignoring the one glaring fact that we have not allowed our own transformation. We have been propping up the “me” through all this activity and so are still living through the mind. So let those of us who have been blessed or cursed with the disease of wanting to make the world a better place get down to the real work that will pay those dividends. Let us move “in” with a great earnestness, with a tremendous longing. And perhaps, we can actualize, we can realize that which we have been seeking: an Earth populated by beings in touch with existence; an Earth which is populated with whole, sensitive, creative beings who are not acting out of conditioning but out of the intelligence of the whole. tow-2802 Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Many of us, for whatever reason, have some kind of inborn desire to help others, to make the world a better place. It seems pretty clear that what we have now in our world is a result of the efforts of “mind.” We see that “mind” can never be truly creative, can never be truly new. It is always coming from the past. All thinking is based on the past and so can never create anything that is not based on the past. It cannot create anything that is a jump into the vertical. It is always linear, horizontal. We can see that if we truly want to “make the world a better place,” then we have to help others discover life “beyond mind,” outside of the prison of the past. And it follows that the only way we can help others discover life beyond mind is to make that discovery for ourselves. It is not enough to talk about it; but we have to be transformed by it. We have to allow it to absorb every vestige of the “me” in order to make room for life in now, in creativity, and in real love. The next question is surely how to proceed? How do we come out of the prison of the mind? How do we make that discovery of life “beyond mind”? How do we live in “now”? There may be many answers to these questions. But I can only speak from my own experience of one, and that is meditation. And by meditation, I mean simply turning our attention onto the activity of the mind. Seeing the workings of the mind without interfering, without judging, without jumping into the duality of the mind, without getting involved in the yes-no. And it is this watching, this witnessing of the mind in its totality that liberates us from its clutches. And the irony is that often what is keeping us from allowing that transformation in ourselves is our engaging in the activities of trying to make the world a better place. Our time may be consumed in social causes. We may be active in political movements. We may be trying to heal others. But all the while, we are ignoring the one glaring fact that we have not allowed our own transformation. We have been propping up the “me” through all this activity and so are still living through the mind. So let those of us who have been blessed or cursed with the disease of wanting to make the world a better place get down to the real work that will pay those dividends. Let us move “in” with a great earnestness, with a tremendous longing. And perhaps, we can actualize, we can realize that which we have been seeking: an Earth populated by beings in touch with existence; an Earth which is populated with whole, sensitive, creative beings who are not acting out of conditioning but out of the intelligence of the whole. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2795 A meditation student once went to the mountains, hoping to find silence. He rented a small cabin near a stream, thinking the sound of water would be soothing. At first, it was. The stream sang and shimmered over the rocks, and he sat down to meditate with great expectation. But soon his mind began to interfere. Instead of hearing the stream as simple water, he heard patterns. The sounds became a tune. The tune became annoying. Before long, the stream sounded to him like a marching band that would not stop playing. He tried to ignore it. He tried to meditate through it. But irritation grew. Finally, he got up, walked into the stream, and began moving the rocks. If the water flowed differently, he thought, surely the sound would change. Surely then he could meditate. For a while, it seemed to work. Then another rhythm appeared. Again, the sound became unbearable. Again, he moved the rocks. This went on until he realized something both simple and humbling: the problem was not the stream. The problem was the mind that could not leave the stream alone. So much of spiritual life begins this way. We believe peace will come when the conditions are rearranged. If the room were quieter, if the people around us were kinder, if our work were less demanding, if our bodies were less troublesome, if our families were more understanding — then we could be free. Of course, outer conditions matter. There are times to fix what can be fixed, to protect what needs protection, to make wise changes. But there is also a deeper training: to see how often we keep moving the rocks because we do not know how to sit beside the stream. Practice asks a different question. Not “How do I make life finally stop disturbing me?” but “Can I meet this moment without making war against it?” The dripping faucet, the crying child, the ache in the body, the person who does not behave as we wish — each reveals the same possibility. Freedom is not found by perfecting the sound of the stream. It is found when the heart stops demanding that the stream sound different before it can be at peace. tow-2795 Mon, 27 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700 A meditation student once went to the mountains, hoping to find silence. He rented a small cabin near a stream, thinking the sound of water would be soothing. At first, it was. The stream sang and shimmered over the rocks, and he sat down to meditate with great expectation. But soon his mind began to interfere. Instead of hearing the stream as simple water, he heard patterns. The sounds became a tune. The tune became annoying. Before long, the stream sounded to him like a marching band that would not stop playing. He tried to ignore it. He tried to meditate through it. But irritation grew. Finally, he got up, walked into the stream, and began moving the rocks. If the water flowed differently, he thought, surely the sound would change. Surely then he could meditate. For a while, it seemed to work. Then another rhythm appeared. Again, the sound became unbearable. Again, he moved the rocks. This went on until he realized something both simple and humbling: the problem was not the stream. The problem was the mind that could not leave the stream alone. So much of spiritual life begins this way. We believe peace will come when the conditions are rearranged. If the room were quieter, if the people around us were kinder, if our work were less demanding, if our bodies were less troublesome, if our families were more understanding — then we could be free. Of course, outer conditions matter. There are times to fix what can be fixed, to protect what needs protection, to make wise changes. But there is also a deeper training: to see how often we keep moving the rocks because we do not know how to sit beside the stream. Practice asks a different question. Not “How do I make life finally stop disturbing me?” but “Can I meet this moment without making war against it?” The dripping faucet, the crying child, the ache in the body, the person who does not behave as we wish — each reveals the same possibility. Freedom is not found by perfecting the sound of the stream. It is found when the heart stops demanding that the stream sound different before it can be at peace. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2621 Having gone through too many airports and terminals on my way to destinations around the world, I recently began to think about my experiences: in particular, the ways these monumental facilities shape us, discipline us and use us. Think of the specific ways airports arrange human bodies; how the stanchions and the velvet queue line ropes make us walk in absurd zigzagging formations; how we are made to assume specific postures to convey that we can be trusted; how our bodies are bombarded, penetrated, scanned, detected, rendered intelligible, and modified by anxious x-rays, and then fed into screens that either green-light access or flag us as suspicious entities; and, how certain desires and needs are instigated by the luxury consumer section - gratuitously delayed until after the ordeal of immigration lines. [...] In a sense, one does not go 'through' the airport; one BECOMES the airport. Airports perform embodiment and manufacture the body - all kinds of bodies. We are part of its furniture - those of us that travel. We become 'aerodrome bodies', part of an ecosystem that racializes access and emphasizes security as a survival value. Part of the text of its more-than-human arrangement. We feel rewarded when we join the queue, and then guard the queue's integrity by politely reminding intrusive others that "there is a line, you know?" We know the signage and the symbols - the fonts and the stylized blunt edge arrows that point us to Gate 54B. Our senses are well trained by the smoothness of the concourse flooring, by the blinking lights announcing 'Boarding' in a different language. And when we pass through the gates, an unvoiced sigh often escapes our lips: the initiation is complete. We can claim our seats in the metal bird that bends time and space. We become the gut bacteria of the mighty eagle - cleaning its stomach, soiling the seats, performing flight. I wonder about the other ways airports - transient though they are to occasional travelers - shape, penetrate, re/modify and perform 'us'. Are certain modes of knowing possible for the 'aerodrome-human' body that are impossible for other kinds of bodies? Perhaps, more pressingly, what other systems are we already a part of? And how are we being performed as furniture in larger political, geological, hydrological assemblages? How do we answer the question ("who are you?") when identity is always queered, 'disorganized', postponed, relational and yet-to-come? tow-2621 Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Having gone through too many airports and terminals on my way to destinations around the world, I recently began to think about my experiences: in particular, the ways these monumental facilities shape us, discipline us and use us. Think of the specific ways airports arrange human bodies; how the stanchions and the velvet queue line ropes make us walk in absurd zigzagging formations; how we are made to assume specific postures to convey that we can be trusted; how our bodies are bombarded, penetrated, scanned, detected, rendered intelligible, and modified by anxious x-rays, and then fed into screens that either green-light access or flag us as suspicious entities; and, how certain desires and needs are instigated by the luxury consumer section - gratuitously delayed until after the ordeal of immigration lines. [...] In a sense, one does not go 'through' the airport; one BECOMES the airport. Airports perform embodiment and manufacture the body - all kinds of bodies. We are part of its furniture - those of us that travel. We become 'aerodrome bodies', part of an ecosystem that racializes access and emphasizes security as a survival value. Part of the text of its more-than-human arrangement. We feel rewarded when we join the queue, and then guard the queue's integrity by politely reminding intrusive others that "there is a line, you know?" We know the signage and the symbols - the fonts and the stylized blunt edge arrows that point us to Gate 54B. Our senses are well trained by the smoothness of the concourse flooring, by the blinking lights announcing 'Boarding' in a different language. And when we pass through the gates, an unvoiced sigh often escapes our lips: the initiation is complete. We can claim our seats in the metal bird that bends time and space. We become the gut bacteria of the mighty eagle - cleaning its stomach, soiling the seats, performing flight. I wonder about the other ways airports - transient though they are to occasional travelers - shape, penetrate, re/modify and perform 'us'. Are certain modes of knowing possible for the 'aerodrome-human' body that are impossible for other kinds of bodies? Perhaps, more pressingly, what other systems are we already a part of? And how are we being performed as furniture in larger political, geological, hydrological assemblages? How do we answer the question ("who are you?") when identity is always queered, 'disorganized', postponed, relational and yet-to-come?