There is a place we can go, when we allow our minds to go silent, a place full of delight and joy.  I have glimpsed it before, mostly walking in nature.  But in this case, residing for four days in the foothills of the Sierras, it comes to me in spades.  Because here, beneath cobalt blue skies and between bosomy hills draped in dry yellow grasses and peppered with pines and manzanitas, is where my Zen retreat is taking place.

I soon learn this state of joy can happen anywhere, even facing a blank white wall.  For there is an essential joy residing in our natures as well as in nature herself.  That joy is waiting patiently beneath...