Archive

Previously unpublished commentary from Alan Watts, a pioneer of East-West spirituality.

The movement in my self from the mask to the face, from the personality to the person, from the performing actor to the ruler of the inner chamber, is the spiritual journey. […]

A lyrical song of love, nature, the sacred

Remembering the beloved poet

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;…

Four statements to transform your life

In the old days, no one ever stole. Those who were well off always shared what they had. […]

A faithful companion

Walking with an Inkling or two

A spiritual master on what it takes

A conversation with Sufi master Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

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…

The simplest and hardest thing to do each day is to be here–fully, completely, without turning away.

A Trappist monk’s sojourn at Thomas Merton’s hermitage

A great teacher meets his ultimate challenge

Many people may be surprised to learn that the surface of our brain is actually dark and that this darkness has consequences for our experience of consciousness and transformation itself, including our ultimate transformation at death. It also has consequences for the most subtle form of light we know, the light we associate with religious…

A haunted inn inspires deeper questions

Silas Hagerty was a young filmmaker in his twenties when I met him at a Servicespace retreat. […]

The way in, the way out

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”.

How the Golden Rule can be the Golden Path

Housework as spiritual practice, from a Sufi master

Meeting a horse to find peace, war, and the sea

A conversation with African healer and guide Baba Mandaza Augustine Kademwa

In Vesali, in ancient India, at the time of the Buddha, a baby girl was born spontaneously at the foot of a mango tree in the royal garden. She was given the name Ambapali.

Waken, Wala!
Wala! Awake!
From thy long sleep,
Slumberer, wake at my call! […]

To meet her destiny, she needed a miracle

When two ecologists and biologists, who have spent a year together exploring the wisdom hidden in ancient Egyptian temples, decide to share their discoveries about awakening higher consciousness […]

The greatest shocks can inspire the deepest wisdom

The gift of fear and awe from a beast cold as the earth

A Sufi king seeks a ring of great power.

Story Editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from PARABOLA’s forty-three year archive on the theme of remembering.

Reflections from a Death Row inmate; inspired thoughts from a Sikh guide

If you dream of finding a great Teacher, a Master, the operative advice is, “get real.” Great teachers may appear once in a hundred years. …

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

A conversation with wildlife photographer, author, and conservationist Staffan Widstrand

How can we find joy in this suffering world?

“SYMBOL OF DIVINE LIGHT: The Lamp in Islamic Culture and Other Traditions” by Nicholas Stone. Reviewed by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos.

Photograph by Peter Cunningham The rain was coming down in sheets as I drove down a wooded road in rural Montague, Massachusetts, towards the opening ceremony of the Maezumi Institute, the new training center of the Zen Peacemakers Order. “The End” by the Doors was playing on the car stereo. “The…

Eight traditional ways to wholeheartedness and authenticity

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.

THE BHAGAVAD GITA: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life by Ravi Ravindra. Reviewed by Vinita Kaushik Kapur.

Story Editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from the current issue of PARABOLA: The Wild.

Close encounters with a student of Gurdjieff

Mullah Nasr Eddin, or Hodja Nasr Eddin, is a legendary Turkish teller of tales, a sort of wise fool, to whom all sorts of exploits are attributed.

A guide to exploring, inner and outer

A review of Ellen Dooling Reynard’s “No Batteries Required”

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

Frederick Law Olmsted’s village in the woods

A mother and daughter trace their roots to the Vikings—and to those they conquered

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

During the Nazi Occupation of Paris, Gurdjieff and his students dared to meet late into the night….

“The Eternal Law: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Modern Physics and Ultimate Reality” by John Spencer. Reviewed by Ocean Malandra.

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.

Four Sacred Guardians

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

Story editor Betsy Cornwell explores our current issue, Generosity and Service, in Parabola‘s monthly twenty-minute podcast.

“We shall not cease from exploration,” wrote the Catholic poet T.S. Eliot. “And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

A leap of faith into an “intentional” community

Story editor Betsy Cornwell shares excerpts from the current issue of Parabola, “Hope,” in this episode of the magazine’s free monthly podcast.

Being “old” in Bali

Snow White. Heinrich Leutemann or Carl Offterdinger, late nineteenth century When I was three or four years old, I started to grow afraid that I was evil. That year I had the worst nightmare of my life thus far: intense, consuming, and hyper real in the way that only very young children’s nightmares…

Story Editor Betsy Cornwell reflects on the spiritual value of education in this new episode of Parabola’s free monthly podcast.

Kneading bread, baking a soul

The special power of classic films

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.

Understanding mercy as a force from on High

learning mindfulness and connection from a dog named George Lucas

Seeking the divine.

“We have been thrown into this world without knowing why or how. As people sometimes say, “I didn’t ask to be born.” And you didn’t (at least as far as you can remember). But you are here, and you have to deal with it.”

The trouble with goats

A visitation in the night

Tobias and the Angel, detail of painting by Raphael. National Gallery, London. From Peter Lamborn Wilson, Angels (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980). A Hebrew Myth, a potent element in the annals of the bees, tells us that when a child is born an angel takes it under his wing and recites…

“All the world’s a stage.”

Listening for an answer beyond words

After a three-month stint in the Bay Area, during which time I smoked a lot of weed, drank a lot of beer, and sat a total of twice at San Francisco Zen Center, I returned to Koko An in early October 1971 in order to participate in a seven-day sesshi […]

Despite a growing awareness of the Divine Feminine, women remain ineligible to head many major religious groups and institutions […]

A meditation teacher loses her voice—and finds her way

Among the tasks or “yogi jobs” a participant can volunteer for during silent retreats at the Insight Meditation Society, a Buddhist meditation center in rural Massachusetts, the most resonant in every sense is that of bell ringer.

The trickster, the shape shifter, the god–the coyote

To cherish the divine spark

Mindfulness and the roots of war

Four role models for all who seek the sacred

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…

Opening ceremonies, Cherokee pow-wow, North Carolina, 2011 Reading about Black Elk, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and countless other Indian tribal elders and chiefs made me regret that I would never know them. They had vanished and with them a way of relating to others we can call emotional intelligence. Not the intelligence…

Anonymous / Aboriginal

Remembering the sacred mother animal

In the autumn of 1971, John G. Bennett inaugurated the International Academy for Continuous Education at Sherborne House, Gloucestershire, England. …

Backpacking into deeper Reality

A conversation with visionary philanthropist Nipun Mehta

A review of John Teasdale’s “What Happens in Mindfulness” by Cynthia Bourgeault

Chatting with America’s favorite saint

Rafe Martin offers a retelling of a traditional Buddhist Jataka tale.

This episode shares excerpts from Parabola‘s current issue, “Mercy and Forgiveness.”

A celebrated composer hears celestial music

The language of life asks for our ears and calls for our souls.

One August day recently in northern California, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee sat down with Parabola to speak about free will and destiny.

Story editor Betsy Cornwell looks at our Summer 2014 Issue, EMBODIMENT, in Parabola Magazine’s monthly podcast.

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

An anonymous Buddhist tale translated from the Pali and retold by Margo McLoughlin