Rose Ung

There is a famous Zen parable about two monks—an older mentor and a younger student—who were traveling back to their monastery. It had been raining heavily, and the roads were thick with mud. As they reached a bend in the river, they saw a young woman standing at the edge, unable to cross the swirling water without ruining her silk robes. Without a word, the older monk walked over, picked her up onto his shoulders, carried her across, and set her down gently on the dry bank. They continued...

The other day, I was walking along the river promenade with my husband and our dog. The sun was setting behind the high apartment towers, casting a brilliant "golden light" that reflected off the mirror-like water. It looked exactly like a painting. I looked around and saw dozens of people pulling out their phones to capture it. I instinctively reached for mine, too, before I stopped myself. I realized I already have hundreds of sunset photos on my camera roll. What I really needed in that...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood... We all know the famous Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken . We usually interpret it as a battle cry for the bold—a call to be different, take risks, and forge our own path. But we often ignore the title. Frost didn't call it "The Road Less Traveled." He called it The Road Not Taken . When I studied this poem back in high school, I didn't realize that it is fundamentally a poem...