A Story Conceived by Nichiryu. Written by Claude. Scene One: The Fog Belt, Before Dawn The coastal redwoods do not sleep. This is something the scientists have almost figured out, though they keep looking for the answer in the wrong places — in growth rings and root systems and the chemistry of needles. They haven't considered that some trees are inhabited. The larger one stood closest to the ocean. She had been here since before the first missionaries came with their strange god, before the...

The Three Poisons and the Limits of Political Diagnosis Ross Douthat’s recent conversation with Curt Mills, executive director of The American Conservative, is worth the attention of anyone trying to understand what is actually happening to American political culture. https://youtu.be/iXb9kpqWEak?si=skW-cs106ocJLIk9 Mills is not a figure easy to dismiss. He is intelligent, historically literate, and — unusual in today’s commentary class — willing to name the contradictions within his own...

There is a teaching I give every new student that tends to surprise them. Do not sit for thirty minutes. Do not sit for twenty. Do not even sit for ten, not yet. Sit for three minutes. Every day. No exceptions. The eyebrows go up. Three minutes? That hardly seems worth the trouble of finding a cushion. And that, precisely, is the point. We have a peculiar relationship with spiritual practice in the West. We tend to measure its value by its drama — the length of the sit, the intensity of the...