Hi Everyone 👋 Here's what I've been turning over in my head...... No god ever wrote a book. Not one........ The Torah, the Bible, the Quran, the Vedas, the Tripitaka, the Tao Te Ching, all written down by humans. Mostly men. Mostly years or centuries after the fact.... That doesn't make them less sacred to me. If anything, it makes me wonder: what were those humans feeling when they finally put the words down? Were they scared? Hopeful? Did they argue with each other over the right phrase? I don't know. Nobody does. But here's my ask. And it's tiny..... I just want to hear your voice, not a perfect answer. If you could ask one question....just one.....to the person who first wrote down your favourite teaching, what would you ask them? It doesn't have to be religious. Could be a line from a poem, something your grandmother said, a lyric that kept you alive. Mine would be: "Were you afraid people wouldn't believe you?" That's it. One sentence. Reply with your question. Doesn't need to be long. Doesn't need to be wise. Just real..... I'll read every single one. With a hopeful heart that you will take 2 minutes out of your day to add your question ❤️ With Love ❤️ Always Mark

Hi Everyone 👋 I've been sitting with something....A follow-on from my post yesterday...'What the old wisdom seems to agree on' All these religions we look to for answers....Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen. Beautiful traditions. Millions of lives shaped by them. Mine included. But here's the thing that gets me. Not one of those original gods, deities, or awakened ones ever wrote a single word down. Not one. Moses got tablets, sure, but who wrote that story down? People. Later. The words of Jesus? Not written by him. Disciples, decades after. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, recited, but the Quran was compiled after he died, by human hands making human decisions. The Buddha's teachings? Passed down orally for hundreds of years before anyone scratched them onto palm leaves. Lao Tzu? Maybe one person, maybe many. No one really knows. And the Vedas? "Heard" by ancient sages. Written down so much later. So here I am, a Buddhist and Taoist leaning person in 2026, reading words that someone told me came from something beyond human. But the ink was held by a man. With a stomach. With moods. With a mother who annoyed him probably. That doesn't make the words untrue. For me, it makes them more incredible. Because if ordinary, hungry, tired, scared, ego-driven humans managed to pass down something that still makes people kinder, still stops someone from hitting their child, still makes a stranger feed a stranger...then maybe the divine isn't in the perfection of the text. Maybe the divine is in the passing down. The fact that you and I are here, thousands of years later, arguing about compassion instead of just being cruel. That's not because the words are magic. It's because enough flawed people chose to remember them. To copy them by candlelight. To argue about them. To kill over them, sadly, but also to cry over them. To sit in monasteries and caves and basements and just try to live them. So when I read the Bible or the Dhammapada or Rumi or the Tao Te Ching now, I don't ask "Did God write this?"

The door is right there. And you can't open it. Yesterday we talked about the long lonely hours. Today I want to talk about the other part nobody mentions. The anxiety. You want to go out. You really do. You RSVP'd yes three days ago when you felt brave. But now the thing is two hours away, and your chest is tight, and your brain is spinning through every worst-case scenario. What if I have nothing to say? What if they see how weird I am? What if I go and still feel alone, just in a different room? So you don't go. You text a lame excuse. You stay home. And then you hate yourself for staying home. And the loneliness gets heavier because now you're also disappointed in yourself. I know that loop. I've lived that loop. Here's what I want you to sit with today, no pressure... What if you went anyway? Not to be popular. Not to have deep conversations. Just to prove to yourself that the dread doesn't get to make every decision. Or what if you didn't go, and that was fine too. And you just didn't add the self-hatred on top. If anxiety has kept you inside this week, just say "here." No story needed. I just want to know how many of us are fighting the same door. With Love ❤️ Always Mark

Hi Everyone 👋 Please help me welcome @Micah Gale to our lovely community 🙏

Hi Everyone 👋 Please help me welcome @Qi Embrace and @Ursula Priggs to our wonderful community 🙏