The Heart Of Compassion

An Interview With Ram Dass

So there’s a part of me that’s perfectly allowing of suffering. And then there’s the human heart that hurts like hell. And it’s that balancing that’s such a beautiful art form. The deepest line I work with, personally and in my lectures, is, “Out of emptiness arises compassion.” That’s the one. Getting to the place where you do what you do. And you’re not milking it for righteousness, and you’re not trying to change the world.

A New Astonishment

Notes On Television Watching

In the context of my pessimism, the problem with television is that it can serve as a propaganda device for the most cynical people in our society. Television is not just another neutral household object with a function disconnected from the affairs of our democracy. We may playfully call it the boob-tube, but that is only because the television industry promotes its own silly image, like a clown working the crowd while his partner picks your pocket.

Enemies

Further Ruminations On The Great Peace March

Toward the end of the Great Peace March For Global Nuclear Disarmament, we all anticipated that we would finally be getting plenty of national media attention. It was what most of us wanted all along, but in fact there is something surreal about being a media item. No matter how sympathetic or even accurate the stories about us were, I always felt, “That’s not us.”

Liberating Horses

She had her favorite already. He was the one who had implored her most beseechingly to get him out where he could run and play, and he was the one who was happiest to be out, munching the tender green grass, running this way and that, jumping and kicking.

Selected Poems

Selected Poems