There was a time when birthdays were about cakes, balloons, grainy photographs of toothless children. A while later, birthdays were about friends, campfires, beer-soaked nights at bars. With the passing years, birthdays become more subdued, more in keeping with the mundane circuit of life. Youthful celebration gives way to pensive reflection. Birthdays are signposts on […]
Each Day I Begin Again Read More »
One of the challenges of growing older is dealing with the panic that comes with time’s passing. The days might be long, but the weeks are short. The years are merciless. The slip of vanishing days catches us in terror. We realize that this march of mortality is indifferent to our protest, oblivious to our
Faith without Belief: How to Face the Terror of Living Read More »
A man reaches middle age. Half his life is behind him. The slip of vanishing days catch him in panic. Not long ago a young graduate who beamed at the promise of his future, the man finds himself staring at his mortality, which looms large on his horizon. Each decade is briefer than the previous.
Boys, Toys, and the Middle Passage Read More »
Hirayama is not a hero. He is not an allegorical figure who represents the plight of everyman. He is a plain individual, singular in his simplicity, ordinary by all measures. Yet in living his mundane life, we see the quiet dignity of someone who marvels at the splendour of each day. Wim Wenders, (Paris, Texas
Living Our Perfect Days Read More »
Thomas Merton once wrote: “I love beer, and, by that very fact, the world.” This statement is at once whimsical and puzzling. How does a fondness for pale ale stray into a confession of love for the world? Perhaps Merton suggests a fundamental relationship between the mundane and the sublime, the miniscule and the cosmical. Ask a brewer
I Love Coffee, and By That Very Fact, The World Read More »
I meet clients who come to therapy when they are hanging by a thread. Their careers are unforgiving, academic pressures unrelenting. Parents are walloped by the rigours of child-rearing; others are worn thin caring for aging parents. Responsibilities multiply, but the hours remain few. Despite a profusion of duties, they are weighed down by expectations that
Simplicity: Sanity in Mad Times Read More »
I am standing by the harbour, peering past the sailboats and skycrapers into the mountains in the distance. A bar of sunlight lifts the hillside, cold and deep. Clouds curl into flakes and break over waters glistening with the starkness of light. The nip of winter air, sharp and bristling. Black mountaintops dotted with snow. The city
Nature and Mental Health: The Call to Come Home Read More »
Every meditator experiences ebbs and flows in practice. There are times when awareness arrests us, engulfing us in crystalline stillness. Other times we brace against squalls of the anxiety. Sometimes our discipline is sharp and square; we practice without waver. Other times we are reluctant to drag ourselves to the sitting cushion, depleted by the
Can’t Sit Still? What To Do With Restlessness in Meditation Read More »
The bamboo forest appeared surreal and fantastical. The vertical, segmented columns rose into feathered tops that swayed in the wind, the path covered by long, papery leaves. I hiked the forest in astonishment. In my imagination, bamboo forests are places of old Eastern legends, the backdrop of martial arts movies and ancient Chinese fairytales. Yet,
On the Pilgrim’s Path: Walking as a Metaphor for Life Read More »
For many living in western societies, modernity brings with it the blight of busyness. Stress weighs us down; the onerous demands of studies, career and family can leave our bodies neglected and minds frazzled. Hives of self-help advice tend to underscore the importance of balance. Here, balance serves as a central metaphor for that harmonious
In Search of Elusive Balance Read More »
David Chang Counselling is gratefully located on the territories of the the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. David supports and celebrates diversity in race, gender, sexual orientation, language, culture, and neurological composition.
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