Archive

On the night of Thanksgiving 2015, our family got into a conversation about the nature of Grace and Mercy. Having written about these subjects recently, it occurred to me that it might be worth collecting the essays into a small booklet.

On silent retreat, a woman finds connection from PARABOLA, Vol. 37:2, Summer 2012: Alone and Together.

Tsunemasa, Attributed to Zeami Motokiyo / Japanese Noh. Retold by Kenneth E. Lawrence, translated by Edward Kai Lawrence. Art by Kumiko Lawrence

When I was young the silk
of my mind
hard as a peony head […]

The nature of wisdom is necessarily esoteric, because it subsists on a level which both transcends and is internal to, anything we can directly observe. …

Born in India in 1918, B.K.S. Iyengar has been teaching yoga since the age of seventeen. An innovative and exacting teacher for more than sixty years, he has guided the establishment of many centers of Iyengar Yoga worldwide. His message is “Yoga is for everyone.”

Welcoming the end of the journey

The science and spirit of awareness

An anonymous Hindu tale retold by Rama Devagupta.

Julian Nyca, Golden Temple, Amritsar, India, Wikimedia Commons The night Nimo, Jay, and I arrived in Amritsar, India, we made a cursory survey of the Sikh Golden Temple, wandering around the outer area and meditating at its river banks. The next morning, we woke up at 3:00 A.M. to get there…

What makes the Wizard of Oz an iconic American tale that has entered into the language? Some expressions are so well known they need no further explanation, as for example “You’re not in Kansas anymore”.

A poem by Walt Whitman in our issue, Happiness.

Jacob Needleman’s voice has been prominent in the conversation about man’s inner possibilities for some forty years.

A free PDF of our ALONE & TOGETHER issue from summer 2012 to read in these challenging times.

Looking back, I see my five years in India as the high-point of my diplomatic life, and my most memorable time in India as the four days in January of 1971 before Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s official visit to India. […]

Expressing our essential self

In the early 1980s, jazz pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane devoted herself to the Hindu tradition, adopting the name Swamini Turiyasangitananda and established the 48-acre Sai Anantam Ashram outside Los Angeles.

A universe of meaning in a small Parisian abode

Impressions from the land of Rumi

The fiery path from light to light

Cooking for the sage king

Laozi, Investiture of the Gods at Ping Sien Si, Pasir Panjang, Perak, Malaysia Photograph from the Ping Sien Si Temple in Perak, Malaysia taken by Anandajoti. My father had many good qualities; unfortunately, equanimity was not one of them. Known for a ferociously bad temper, he once threatened a one-armed theater…

This episode of Parabola’s free monthly podcast includes an excerpt from David Ulrich’s Zen Camera on the joys of mindful photography and drawing, as well as Alexandra Haven’s essay on the wonders of ancient Egypt […]

How can we find joy in this suffering world?

I was determined not to let dialysis take over my life. But it already had. […]

A lyrical song of love, nature, the sacred

A conversation with visionary philanthropist Nipun Mehta

Anonymous / Jewish Retold by Maia Zelkha

In my mid-thirties I found myself in Dante’s dark wood, where my way was entirely lost.  My marriage was falling apart.  My primary mentor, Reynolds Price, seemed to be dying of a weird spinal cancer that was slowly paralyzing him.  My visits to him brought up visits I’d paid to my father in the hospital…

The structure of traditional art

A haunted inn inspires deeper questions

Memorable encounters with an extraordinary being

How, indeed, could it be possible for a man, who is limited on six sides—by east, west, south, north, deep, and sky—to understand a matter which is above the skies, which is beneath the deep, which stretches beyond north and south, and which is present in every place, and fills all vacuity? —St. Gregory the…

One of some seven-hundred current members of Ready Willing & Able, the Doe Fund’s flagship training and sustaining organization, Joe will spend the next few months …

Therefore, Ananda, be islands unto yourselves, refuges unto yourselves….” As he lay dying, the Buddha gave this advice to his beloved cousin and disciple Ananda. I thought of it as I stood in a security line in the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, just after a male security guard gestured for me to…

Photograph by Lee van Laer Human  beings are peculiar creatures. We can think; and it sets us apart from other creatures, who can think some (consider the honeybee) but not much. Thinking, over the last 10,000 or so years (a rough estimate,) mankind has occupied himself, in the disciplines of science…

In the Middle Ages people were well aware of the inexhaustible power that arises simply from sitting still. After that time, knowledge of the purifying power of stillness and its practice was, in the West, largely lost.

How do you get people to trust life? You have to trick them. They won’t jump into the water, so you have to throw them in.Alan Watts, “How to Reach Where You Already Are” Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from Parabola Magazine’s “The Search for Meaning” issue, which is available as a free PDF…

The long encounter of Thomas Merton and his Abbott, James Fox.

The acclaimed actor, now Zen teacher, remembers

Cezanne, Fruit and Jug on Table, Detail (1890-94). “Before she could speak, my daughter taught me the language of silent things: fruits, flowers, an oaken chair. I came to understand, through my relationship to this small being, why the word adult forms the root of adulteration and adultery. Watching her, it became…

Photograph courtesy of Monastero di Bose “There must be monasticism in the twenty-first century!” So said a friend not long ago. Both his implicit protest and his conviction make sense. The landscape of the spirit in the West would be torn and lacking if the monastic way vanished in our time….

Announcing the publication of Senior Editor, Lee van Laer’s new book on symbolism in the artwork of Hieronymus Bosch. […]

In the Summer of 1987, Parabola sat down for an exchange with Marion Woodman on the subject of addiction.

A trail toward a Golden Rule, a Land Ethic, and real magic

A hopeful report from the 2021 Parliament of the World’s Religions

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from Parabola Magazine’s new issue, “The Miraculous,” including three new poems by beloved author Jane Yolen.

A fisherman, a celestial maiden: a fateful decision

The soul, like the moon,
is new, and always new again. …

The extraordinary inner life of a great public figure.

JFK, Ram Dass, and the mystery of Being

Hope not as destination, but as the line we draw along the way.

These are challenging times for all of us. We at Parabola are offering a free PDF of our “The Search for Meaning” issue from Spring 2017 to anyone who would like one, and we hope you will find comfort in its pages. Click here to access your free PDF. You can also purchase a print…

“The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation” by Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell. Reviewed by Patty de Llosa

Transforming repetition into renewal

THE STILLNESS OF THE LIVING FOREST: A Year of Listening and Learning by John Harvey. Reviewed by Jan Cheripko

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from the Spring 2021 issue of Parabola, Wellness, including an exploration of the world’s healing water goddesses and a practical guide to awakening awareness. Your thoughts about yourself, experiences, and perceptions continually arise and change, come and go, but awareness remains. Don’t try to grasp or understand awareness; notice…

How deeply we fear being nobody. One way to think of the ego is as a defense against pain, particularly the pain of being no one.

Anonymous, “Krishna and Radha,” retold with commentary by Laura Simms

Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, The Prado, Madrid I think we tend to create inward forms of our own — adopted, that is, from things we encounter outwardly — and then stalk each other with them. This process is writ large on the social and political landscape;…

“At the very outset of the journey inwards, there is a crossroads. Signs point in both directions, and I am pulled both ways. I find that I am double. I want something and at the same time I don’t want it; I love and hate the same person. I am light and dark; I aspire…

In the darkness, the Buddha found light

Listening to the Yao

The Very Rev. James Parks Morton (1930-2020). Photo: stjohndivine.org Parabola regrets the passing of James Parks Morton. He served for many years on the Board of the Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition, which publishes the magazine, and so was a great friend to us as well as to the…

Verity climbed down from the scaffold and stood with me, looking up at his work. I murmured something about how otherworldly the statue looked. “I look for something other when I carve them,” he said. “They’re not connected to this world. They’re in another place, in their heavenly robes.” I was wearing the clothes of…

A spiritual master on what it takes

We urgently need your help to carry on. Parabola is a nonprofit, independent, reader-supported publication. In order to publish each issue, we depend directly upon the generosity of readers like you. Without your support, there would be no Parabola. Parabola brings timeless wisdom to troubled times. As a longtime reader of the magazine has written,…

Roland W. Reed, Alone With the Past, The Life and Photographic Art of Roland W. Reed, Afton, MN: Afton Press. In terms of interconnections, a dominant theme in all Native American cultures is that of relationship, or a series of relationships that are always reaching further and further out; relationships within…

Despite acclaim, even adulation, garnered from his theater and film work, including such classic films as The Holy Mountain and El Topo, the author found himself in a state of doubt—of spiritual questioning. …

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares editorial director Tracy Cochran’s “Fusterlandia” and Elizabeth Napp’s “An Education in Peace,” as well as some wise words on leadership from Octavia Butler, in this episode of Parabola Magazine’s free monthly podcast.

Part of an Ancient Story: A Conversation with Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Searching for her place in God’s house

Giving and receiving in a Bolivian marketplace

Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), Tea house at Koishikawa. The morning after a snowfall We sit on our heels on the tatami, the Japanese woman and myself, telling the stories of our lives. One can do this with a stranger. Too near, and the perspective is lost. Only the far can be near….

Elie Wiesel died Saturday, July 2, 2016 at his home in Manhattan. The Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner was 87. In May of 1985, we interviewed Elie Wiesel for our “Exile” Issue.

A podcast from Parabola Editor, Tracy Cochran’s mindfulness meditation talk at the Rubin Museum of Art on January 6th, 2016.

Exploring the “hidden face of God”

Guidance for our time from three wise men

“Here we have the ground zero cafe,” says Bart Ives, gesturing toward a white frame building standing in the open center courtyard of the Pentagon.

Betsy Cornwell shares Josh Boettiger’s essay on King David and Leonard Cohen, “The Poet and the Shepherd,” and Susan McCaslin’s meditation on spiritual journeys, “Guidance,” in this episode.

Within the chaos, a door to “the inexhaustible Now”

Previously unpublished commentary from Alan Watts, a pioneer of East-West spirituality.

Rare wisdom on “how to see.”

Hammarskjöld, Havel, Mandela, Thunberg

Story editor Betsy Cornwell explores our current issue, “Ways of Healing,” in PARABOLA Magazine’s podcast. Learn more about this issue or become a subscriber at parabola.org. This episode also includes Kenneth Lawrence’s retelling of the Japanese tale “Kiyotsune.” Please consider supporting this podcast and Parabola Magazine by purchasing a back issue or becoming a subscriber. This…

The Unknown — our beautiful An­glo-Saxon word, intimate, reverberant, profound, not so much to be understood but stood under while it rains upon us — that is something I could well live with and, indeed, have revered, cherished, and tried to serve for many a year and day.P.L. Travers, “The Interviewer,” from Vol. 13 No….

A conversation with wildlife educator Steve Karlin

Yeshua said: Whoever lives the interpretation of these words shall no longer taste death.

The mystical heart of silence

Love and compassion are qualities essential to our stature as true human beings, and jointly might be considered the capacities that most distinguish us from the animals, except that animals sometimes display more kindness towards one another—and towards people—than we do.

Being “old” in Bali

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares PL Travers’ stunning essay “Walking the Maze” and William Segal’s wise poem “The Middle Ground” in this episode of Parabola Magazine’s free podcast.

A young woman navigates the roads outside—and within

James George is a retired Canadian diplomat who served with distinction as High Commissioner to India, and Ambassador to Nepal and Iran. Chögyam Trungpa called him “a wise and benevolent man, an ideal statesman,” and the Dalai Lama refers to him as an “old friend.” He has known many important spiritual teachers of the twentieth…

A conversation with former prisoner and Buddhist practitioner Edwin Paragas

Story Editor Betsy Cornwell shares Jim White’s moving essay “The Esoteric Shakespeare” and Scottish and Chinese fairy tales, as well as wise advice from Rainer Maria Rilke, in this episode of Parabola magazine’s free monthly podcast.

Seeing the light when it is darkest

Listening for an answer beyond words

The Sufi master on meeting the inner and outer challenges of our time