“Listen, my friend! I am a sinner and you are a sinner, but someday the sinner will be Brahma again, will someday attain Nirvana, will someday become Buddha.  Now this ‘someday’ is an illusion; it is only a comparison.  The sinner is not on the way to a Buddha-like state; he is not evolving, although our thinking cannot conceive things otherwise.  No, the potential Buddha already exists in the sinner; his future is already there.  The potential Buddha must be recognized in him, in you, in everybody.  The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection.  No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it.”  – Hermann Hesse

Hi everyone. I’m looking forward to talking books and with all of you over the summer.  I want to use this blog site as a forum to talk about the books as we read.  For the writing workshop element of this group, if you have something you want to share please email it to me and I’ll post it so we can read it before we meet.  (If you are like me and the thought of your draft becoming public gives you night sweats, let me know and I can restrict this webpage to our group members and delete it afterwards.)