Befriending your fears

THE seventy-something speaker was a clinical psychologist-turned Buddhist meditator.He was going to address a group of 100 meditation students.But suddenly he blanked out.

He forgot what he w.. Read full story

The depth of property rites

There's something very sad and self-defeating about possessing things. Take land.
Forget the bigger picture about how we’re all going to die and take nothing with us — definitely not.. Read full story

Red tooth and claw

Kurt Vonnegut was a prisoner of war in an underground slaughterhouse during World War II. Later, he wrote a fable to make sense of his own memories of the strategically unnecessary Allied air raid on .. Read full story

'Beware' of bear hug

Billy Pilgrim is a soldier ‘unstuck in time’ in Kurt Vonnegut’s classic Slaughterhouse-Five. As a result he experiences events past and future in a repetitive, non-linear manner with.. Read full story

Of peace in the deep heart

In his poem, The Peace of Wild Things, the American man of letters, farmer and poet Wendell Berry writes: “When despair for the world grows in me/ and I wake in the night at the least sound/ in .. Read full story

Be in harmony, thus in control

It is a common experience of most that when they are organised, relaxed and in harmony with things within and without, they are able to better regulate not only their temper and reactions, but also th.. Read full story

All change not good

SELF-HELP gurus tell the story of Max the tailor,who won a lottery after following a routine that hadnt changed for 45 years.Every morning hed put on his threadbare clothes and set off for his shop wi.. Read full story

Who's responsible for evil?

One of the deepest concerns of theology is the problem of evil. That is, why is there such a lot of wrongdoing in the world when there exists a God who, besides being omnipresent and omniscient, is al.. Read full story

No country for living

At 81,Milan Kundera is way past mid-life and his latest essay,Encounters,bears ample signs of his remarkable odyssey.As with the rest of his oeuvre,the book is marked by ruminations about humankinds u.. Read full story

Curb your foresight

At three in the morning in a small hotel in Paris, Richard Schaub had his first panic attack. The New Yorkbased psychotherapist was supposed to fly home with his wife and colleague, Bonney, who had a .. Read full story