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Orientation 2

Naikan In Four Movements

This four-part Naikan series grew out of a course I offered at Baltimore Dharma Group in Spring 2025. While Naikan is often framed as a tool for self-reflection, I came to see it as something more relational: not a system of correction, but a practice of returning—again and again—to what holds us, what flows through us, what we leave behind, and what we remain with.
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Orientation 3

Threshold to Threadwork

Introduction: There are two doors into this work. The one below meets the moment. It is written in accessible language—for those seeking clarity about autistic experience, and especially about how it differs in rhythm, in structure, and in the invisible labor it asks of those who must translate themselves to be understood. But this isn’t the only way in. There is another door—quieter, less translated, more interior. If you're looking not just for insight, but for shape—if you’ve ever sensed that what goes unspoken is sometimes the most coherent thing there is—you may find yourself at home there.
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Orientation 4

Holding Vow Sutra: An Introduction

Introduction and Intention:  This is a sutra, but not a sutra in the traditional sense. It is not part of the Buddhist canon, nor is it offered from a seat of transmission or formal authority. It is, rather, a thread — woven from lived practice, shaped by fidelity, and rooted in a vow that did not begin with me and does not end with me.
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The Autistic Mode: A Way Of Thinking

We all have moments of deep concentration—those times when we are so absorbed in something that the world recedes. A musician practicing alone, refining a passage with exquisite focus. A philosopher turning an argument over in their mind, testing its weight from every angle. A scientist working through the layers of an equation, adjusting variables, refining the logic until it holds. In these moments, the noise of the world fades, and what remains is a kind of clarity, a steady presence of thought moving toward resolution.

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Musings from the Meta-Verse: Tip of the Iceberg Cosmologies

Before you begin: please take a moment, settle in, enjoy the image above—of me holding my baby daughter as a first-time dad, tune into the frequency of restful wonder. Now allow your mind to wander outward from the edges of that image: to the room, to the street outside, to the vast sky beyond the vast sky. Further—past the solar system, past the galaxy’s edge, past everything known—to the edge of the cosmos. And then…

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Woven

I never stopped making art. I just didn’t always call it that. What I made with you, my loves — in those days we shared — was the most embodied form of relational creation. Art was us — there was no interruption. Something Luu Li and and I talked about yesterday landed deeply. She said, “Wow Papa, 54 years! I'm so glad you’re starting to do art again.” And I told her — honestly — it’s never left me. But after that, I found myself thinking: when I was homeschooling Luu Li and CT, I wasn’t just not doing art — I was expressing my creativity through my life with them.
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Canaries in the coal mine or signs of life? Retail in Baltimore and the coming of Starbucks and Target.

        For the record, I don't like Starbucks. They just don't make coffee as well as good, dedicated local cafes do. I got my coffee chops going to Berkeley's storied cafes. When Starbucks was a new company, they opened a store in Berkeley and were received with indifference. 15 years later, I have to admit that a city's desirability and popularity for further retail investment seems to require the imprimatur of Starbucks.
        By my reckoning, in 2004, when I first moved to Baltimore, there were 5 stores in Baltimore City (1 in Mt. Washington, 2 in the Inner Harbor, 1 in downtown, 1 in Canton). Apparently, seven more have sprouted in the last three years within 5 miles of the city center. Compared to Washington, D.C.'s 86 within a 5 mile radius, this is a drop in the bucket. I can imagine that visitors to Baltimore, used to name-brand experiences, would have found this dearth of Starbucks bothersome. To me and, I hope, to other Baltimore residents, it was a boon, since we get to have home-grown cafes that actually promote a sense of place. There are three fantastic cafes within a 15 minute walk from my house, Metropolitan, Spoons, and Koba Cafe, all owned and operated by local entrepreneurs who provide a great service to their neighborhoods. This claim can be made by many of Baltimore's neighborhoods.
        In the 50s and earlier, Baltimore's downtown was a bustling shopping district with grand department stores on what is now a ruined stretch of Howard Street. Suburban flight and the rise of shopping malls pretty much killed retail in the core city. Not until these last couple of years has Baltimore seen downtown openings of well-known national chains such as Barnes & Noble, Best Buy and SuperFresh. In other parts of Baltimore, Safeways and Whole Foods openings signal neighborhood gentrification. But to me, one of the most interesting prospects is the commitment by Target to open up a store in the Mondawmin shopping mall near Druid Hill Park. This Target will serve a largely African American community in a part of town that isn't actually gentrifying as far as I can tell[1]. The immediate neighborhood, Mondawmin, is described by the Live Baltimore web-site as "perhaps the most diverse square mile in Baltimore...of young professionals, retirees and just good hard working folks, where each block has its own character."
        If access to high quality goods and services is a social benefit, then these retail developments are positive. As to the first part of the title of this post, "Canaries in the coal mine", I worry a bit for the health of locally-owned stores. But I'd like to think they will be able to thrive quite well against the likes of Starbucks, because of the long-standing relationships they've built with their neighbors. The second part of the title, "signs of life", refers to the prospect that the long period of disinvestment from Baltimore is finally coming to an end. Whether retail leads to repopulation and economic revitalization, or follows it, it remains an indicator of the direction of change worth paying attention to.


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You can see a comparison of Starbucks densities amongst different cities here.


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[1] Look here for a diagram of housing values and Target store locations relative to Mondawmin.
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