“Once upon a time, once under a time, before digital time, beyond any time at all….” So we begin, as consummate storyteller Michael Meade puts it.

For this issue we have asked Buddhist teachers and storytellers to tell us their tales and to discuss the role of storytelling in dharma transmission. Adding different flavors to the mix, we have included Hasidic tales, contemporary fiction, and a Poetry Page full of questions.

Through reflections from the Zen Hospice Project, we have looked at how telling life stories can be important both for the dying and for those who love them. We have juxtaposed our interviews and stories with works by artists and photographers engaged in Buddhist practice. Statements by the artists accompany their pictures.

So join us. We invite you to enter the terrain of the stories themselves.

About the cover:

Artist Gordon Onslow-Ford gave us the following statement:

“Art comes from the inside out. Art doesn’t come from trying to depict something out there. It’s what the mind awakens. If you pay full attention to what you are doing, to what is happening, you will find something new. It is only when you are tired or thinking about something else that you do what you already know. Creation happens in an instant.” 

A note about what is and is not available here today…

For budgetary reasons, we’ve focused on archiving Inquiring Mind’s original articles, interviews and poetry. We are not including pieces that were adapted or excerpted from books.

For that reason, the following pieces from this issue are NOT in the archive:

“Eukaryotes” by Briane Swimme and Thomas Berry, excerpted from The Universe Story (HarperSanFrancisco, 1992)

“XXXV” and “XXXVI” by Pablo Neruda, excerpted from The Book of Questions (Copper Canyon Press, 1991)