But when does the year begin? Pick a date. It is closer to the Zen heart to say, “No beginning and no end.” So how can there be a Buddhist New Year? Actually, there are several. In America, you can take your pick among the differing Asian calendars of the immigrant communities and teachers who brought Buddhism to America. They’re not my calendars, so what do I do? I’ve never been happy with January 1. Where did that come from? Apparently, Julius Caesar picked the date. I re

No. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that you can’t make peace if you’re neutral. You may be able to play a role in the peace process, you may be able to bring the warring parties together to talk, but only the parties to the hostilities can make peace. What’s required is not neutrality. It’s openness. To be a peacemaker requires an open heart and an open mind but not an empty mind. This insight is prompting me to relook at a wonderful Zen story. A university professor visit

I went to Svalbard this summer because Morri wanted to go there – she was in Norway for five weeks on a writing grant, finishing a rewrite of the novel that she began during her year in the Boston University MFA program in creative writing, and we went to visit. I always wanted to see the midnight sun. Svalbard was an experience, a three-hour flight north from Oslo. A sign at the entrance to the hotel bar announces, “Northernmost bar in the world.” Outside Longyearbyen – it