Blog

The blogs featured here deal with “unfiltered writing,” writing that digs to the deepest center of your soul. Spirituality and meditation inhabit them, too.

The Brain, The Mind, and The Grand Biocentric Design

Haven’t we all wondered from time to time about the relationship between the brain and the mind? It’s an intriguing question on so many...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 27, 20202 min read

Biocentrism, Life, and Consciousness

There’s nothing like the study of quantum physics to get the blood stirring. You know what I mean? So here’s what happened. A friend of...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 23, 20202 min read

Have You Ever Tried to Calm a Crying Child?

I ran across Swampland Flowers, the letters of twelfth-century Zen Master Ta Hui, while I was researching a book on contemporary medical...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 21, 20202 min read

Wendell Berry and The Given Life

I’ve been a fan of Wendell Berry for quite a few years now since one of my daughters gave me a copy of his novel Jayber Crow for Father’s...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 19, 20201 min read

Should We Have a Sense of Urgency about This?

The real stuff is always the best. We live in a multi-generational home: my wife and I, two daughters, and one seven-year-old...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 18, 20202 min read

Things You Learn as You Grow Old

OK, so I know the saying, “Getting old is not for sissies.” But yesterday as I was reading the section on Buddhism in Huston Smith’s...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 15, 20201 min read

Is a keyboard the enemy of unfiltered writing in a journal?

I had an interesting comment on one of my blog posts the other day about the issue of hand-writing journal entries versus entering words...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 13, 20202 min read

Just as I am?

Any kid who grew up in a Southern Baptist church in the 1950s and ’60s knew at least one song by heart. Just as I am. That was the song...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 11, 20202 min read

Would you Rather have Money or Love?

The featured image today comes from a journal of mine that dates back to around early 2003. As I read the entries, I wonder what prompted...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 8, 20202 min read

Do We Learn to Trust Ourselves by Learning to Trust Others?

I came across a revolutionary thought today about the nature of trust. In Stacey Lindsay’s article in Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper,...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 6, 20202 min read

Why wait to engage the moment?

In the last few days I’ve had conversations with several people who have lost loved ones recently. Their stories serve as a stark...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 5, 20201 min read

Neuroplasticity, Cochlear Implants, Meditation, and Journaling

I watched a fascinating show last night about neuroplasticity, the malleability of the brain, its amazing power to learn and adapt. The...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 4, 20201 min read

Thomas Merton, Zen, and the Deep End of the Pool

I have to admit that for reasons known only to the hidden part of my soul I have dodged the writings of Thomas Merton my whole life. I...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 2, 20202 min read

Is anything as it appears?

I’m a fan of the writing of the late Jim Thompson, pulp fiction author of the 1940s and ’50s. Probably his most famous quote is along...

Stephen Woodfin

Dec 1, 20202 min read

Meditation, a Chair, a Wall, Zazen

I can’t really explain how it has all come together, but for a while now I have felt a yearning to quiet my mind, to slow down and...

Stephen Woodfin

Nov 29, 20202 min read

COVID-19 and Black Friday ’20

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and today I woke up almost unable to talk. Laryngitis, or was it COVID-19 come calling? As I type these words,...

Stephen Woodfin

Nov 27, 20201 min read

What’s the Best Thing for Your Soul: A Journal or a Diary?

It’s not really an either/or choice, but there is a difference between journaling and keeping a diary. A diary is where you keep a day by...

Stephen Woodfin

Nov 26, 20202 min read

On Speaking or Writing When You Have Nothing to Say

An attorney friend of mine told me once that the hardest thing a lawyer has to do is to learn how to keep talking while he is figuring...

Stephen Woodfin

Nov 25, 20201 min read

Journaling and the Practice of Gratitude

It’s funny that when you focus on a thing, you begin to see it everywhere. So it is with journaling, the focus of so many of our blog...

Stephen Woodfin

Nov 24, 20202 min read

Justice Now or Later?

Reading is a pernicious habit because it has a way of catching you off-guard and challenging your hide-bound set of life rules. When you...

Stephen Woodfin

Nov 23, 20202 min read