The Sacred Stays Sacred

I took this photo with a disposable camera – after accidentally frying the digital one I'd brought on the first day of the trip – and it's one of my all-time favorite shots. It's a reminder to me that holiness and human imperfection are inseparably tangled up together.

Daron LarsonNovember 9, 2017photography, Thailand, travel, Wat Umong, prayer, sacred, childhood, religion, Buddhism Comments

Change of Scenery

Birds lack the words to get tangled up in the whys.

Daron LarsonMay 12, 2017poetry, religion, spirituality, nature, freedom, liberation, language, changeComment

Get Caught Up in Minutiae or See the Texture

"When we get caught up in the minutiae, the details that make us all different, there's two ways of seeing that. You can see the texture of that person, the qualities that make them unique. Or you can go to war about it – say, That person is different from me, I don't like you, so let's battle."

~ Mahershala Ali

Daron LarsonJanuary 30, 2017film, actors, self/other, society, religion, war, conflict, Mahershala Ali, identity, family, connection, relationshipsComment

Enjoy the Contradiction

"I've come to believe that part of being who I am is being uncomfortable."

~ Claire Hoffman

Daron LarsonAugust 25, 2016Claire Hoffman, Transcendental Meditation, meditation, memoir, religion, belief, doubt, community, family, growing up, fundamentalismComment

Not Knowing What To Talk About

"Just this physical body right here, the energy in it, is equivalent to 30 hydrogen bombs I have right now. And that’s my only guarantee. I don’t know about tomorrow, but I have right now, and I’ve got this power. What am I going to do with it?"

~ Craig Minowa

Daron LarsonApril 18, 2016Cloud Cult, On Being, Craig Minowa, music, religion, spirituality, history, cultureComment

Riddled with Dilemmas

The dilemmas related to attentional fitness are similar to the more familiar dilemmas that make physical fitness easier to discuss than to turn into habits. A mindfulness teacher has to sell you on the possible outcomes, but also has to steer you back again and again to the slippery path that leads to them.

We Need Reminders

"The choice isn’t between religion and the secular world, as it is now — the challenge is to learn from religions so we can fill the secular world with replacements for the things we long ago made up religion to provide. The challenge begins here."

~ Alain de Botton

Practice in Life, MagnanimityDaron LarsonApril 29, 2015Alain de Botton, religion, The School of Life, culture, society, belief, prayer, beauty, wisdom, love, loneliness, awe, kindnessComment

Waking Up

Broadcaster, meditator, and author Dan Harris engaged mind scientist and renowned sceptic Sam Harris about his new exploration of spirituality recently released book, Waking Up.

Daron LarsonNovember 5, 2014waking up, paying attention, meditation, mindfulness, science, neuroscience, religion, Sam Harris, Dan HarrisComment

Born from Within

Daron LarsonMarch 10, 2014Lee van Laer, attention, intelligence, religion, sacred, technology, wisdomComment

Talking About The Indescribable

Daron LarsonJuly 18, 2013Christianity, God, Reza Aslan, history, mysticism, mythology, religion, self/otherComment

Love Kept Demanding More

Daron LarsonMay 23, 2013Christian Wiman, God, complete experience, poets, religion, spiritualityComment

How We Create Hell

"I thought, well, I'll be. That's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. That's where the pain comes from. We do that to each other, and we do it to ourselves. Then I saw emergency rooms. I saw divorce court. I saw jails and prisons. I saw how we create Hell on this planet for each other. And for the first time in my life, I did not see God as the inventor of Hell."

~ Carlton Pearson

Daron LarsonMarch 20, 2013Carlton Pearson, belief, fundamentalism, hell, religion, sufferingComment

To Get Back There

"It is probably the case that our very ancient ancestors—before the arising of civilization, when we were still in a tribal state—lived an awful lot of their lives in a meditative state just naturally.

And then, with the arising of civilization, that becomes lost and it's necessary to create conceptual frameworks and specific practice techniques to get back there."

~ Shinzen Young

Natural Community

Daron LarsonJanuary 18, 2013Buddhism, Sasaki Roshi, Stephen Schettini, belonging, community, constraints, fundamentalism, monastic, religion, vulnerabilityComment

How Can We Live Together?

"What we need to learn is how can we live together with people whose views we don't actually like very much? That's the far greater challenge, without attempting to convert them or dismissing them and denying their right to exist parallel to us. It's really about the stranger...It's basically saying we have a shared humanity even with people who don't seem to take the boxes that we have put in place in terms of recognizing what a good human is."

~ Alain de Botton