When I lead people through a body relaxation, I tend to spend a lot of time on the face. I am not sure why I started to do this, I just found myself talking more and more about softening and relaxing in the face. Perhaps it is because this is where we often see tension. It is the most public area of our bodies, where we are on display to the world.

We have a lot of control over our faces. We try to present a certain face to the world, and we are careful in case our facial expression gives us away. It is not only poker players who learn to control their …

How useful are books, really, in stimulating spiritual realization, when such realization must be grounded in experience? Paramananda takes a skeptical — yet appreciative — look at a new book attempting to pointing the way to non-duality.

It seems a little ironic that I find myself in two minds about Genoud’s book — ironic because this slim volume is all about “being” in one mind. It is not that I in anyway disagree with what Genoud is trying to point the reader towards, which is the essential non-dual nature of reality. It is more that I am just a little skeptical that such “pointings” are of much use when they …

It is 10am on a Tuesday morning. I am standing on the steps of an elegant Victorian house on Page Street in San Francisco. Tod is taking longer than normal to answer the doorbell. Just up the street on the opposite side of the road stands an impressive two-storey brick building. The majority of buildings around here are constructed from wood, so this one stands out. If you look closely you can see the Star of David in the wrought-ironwork of the balcony railings. This is the famous San Francisco Zen Center, which in former years was a hostel for young Jewish women. It is famous partly because of its founder Shunryu Suzuki, whose wonderful …