I stepped aboard the chartered bus and sat in a comfortable reclining cloth seat with a pull-down footrest It looked no different than thousands of other Greyhound buses in the 1960’s

Four years ago I began writing about health care issues What I thought was a topic that rational people could discuss, became something filled with personal invectives

It’s December and I just got off the C train at 53rd and 5th, when I see his arms flailing above the thousands of people ascending the stairs He defiantly stands halfway up forcing everyone to move around him

It was the type of conversation we’ve all heard, and then thought, “I’d never do that” In a small restaurant north of San Francisco, I heard a woman loudly complaining to a friend about the ingratitude of a relative

As a bedside hospice volunteer in San Francisco, I always have the choice of whether or not to accept an assignment Some, I immediately know are right for me, such as sitting with a man my age who was estranged from his family and desperately wanted to reconnect with them

In the 19th century, the hermit Patrul Rinpoche wrote, Be like a cow Eat, defecate, and sleep

As someone who’s living with prostate cancer, I applauded Louis Gossett Jr’s testimony in Congress on the importance of prostate cancer research funding

How do we “know” something How do we know anything

I stepped aboard the chartered bus and sat in a comfortable reclining cloth seat with a pull-down footrest It looked no different than thousands of other Greyhound buses in the 1960’s

Yes, I’ve become stuck in my morning routine of making coffee, reading emails and puttering around the house When everything else in my life is falling apart, it’s good to do the same thing every day

Did you ever have a memory that rode into your consciousness on the back of a passing odor, object, or random word Something you desperately tried to forget

I’ve been a bedside volunteer for more than five years; sitting with dying patients and their families once or twice a week for up to four continuous hours Sometimes I stay with patients overnight

We often harshly judge behaviors we don't understand They can involve someone's ingratitude, anger, or actions we label as foolish