Notes from Around the Block- The task at hand in San Francisco
- Literary Criticism at LAX
- Simplify at the Getty
- Downtown L.A. and the Grand Central Market
- Olallieberry Odyssey
- Does Sir Thomas More live a real life?
- Does Jane Smiley’s Bob Miller live a real life?
- Does Ivan Ilych live a “real” life?
- How to live a real life
- Lowfat or nonfat Yoga
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Tag Archives: mindfulness
Does Ivan Ilych live a “real” life?
by cheri block Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych is worth the read. In my paper, How to Live a Real Life, I evaluate Judge Ilych’s life (which is really a death) and his death (which is really a life). … Continue reading
Posted in Education, On fiction, Writing and Teaching
Tagged a real life, mindfulness, Tolstoy
20 Comments
How to live a real life
by cheri block sabraw For the first forty years of my life, I operated on automatic. Whatever needed to be accomplished, I did. Serious problems–financial ruin, death, divorce, betrayal, disease–only occurred in the rich literature I was teaching to my … Continue reading
Posted in Life, People
Tagged 1st person, Criteria for living a meaningful life, ego, mindfulness, Mrs. Sabraw
65 Comments
The Meaning of Life: Can we find it in great literature?
by cheri block sabraw Last year, I visited the marvelous San Francisco Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. Along with a shockingly gorgeous white crocodile and a room full of butterflies, was a human skull time line, illustrating the … Continue reading
Posted in Education, On fiction
Tagged literature, mindfulness, Scotty McLennan, Stanford
44 Comments
My Fifth Yoga Class
by cheri block I left my yoga class Tuesday evening shaking my head. While the class had been satisfying as I stretched new muscles into forms my body has never experienced before, there had been an annoying interruption. Let me … Continue reading
On Seizing the Day
by cheri block I sit in a hard plastic lounge chair reading Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day but find myself distracted by the enormous cactus growing out of the red rock that lines my mother’s Arizona patio home. Its ribbed … Continue reading
On The Death of Ivan Ilych
by cheri block My class this semester is entitled The Meaning of Life: Moral and Spiritual Inquiry Through Literature. Part of the requirements is to submit a one page reflection after reading the short story, play, or novel assigned each … Continue reading
The Mystery of a Spider Web
by cheri block Every year at this time, I become pensive. The end of summer’s promise signals the beginning of fall’s reminder. Those of us who continue to seek deep meaning in our existence must put our cushions away until … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Life, My photography
Tagged Charlotte's Web, description, God, mindfulness, voice
41 Comments
A Daily Meditation courtesy of Sogyal Rinpoche
by cheri block I’m reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. In the early chapters, he reminds us to meditate and shares his methods. First, he asks you to bring your mind home. Then, you are … Continue reading
Savoring a Sentence
by cheri block Consider this sentence only. Let me give you some context before you do. Before I give you the context, how much time do you have? If you are stopping by for six seconds in hopes of being … Continue reading
Thoreau, the loon, and David Letterman
by cheri block Luckily, I am married to a rock solid man–Judge Blah–who has principles and values, a man whom I admire. But not every woman is as fortunate as I am to be married to such a guy. Some … Continue reading
