I’ve been pretty shaken since I learned last night about the death of a friend of mine, Phil Aranow. Phil was a beloved, deep, psychotherapist in Cambridge who wrote and taught about the integration of Buddhist theory into Western psychotherapy practice. I’d known Phil for almost thirty years since his younger brother and I became fast friends, and later roommates, the first day of college. His brother’s violent murder several years after college took me down for a closer look with Phil. Although we were in and out of each other’s lives, his marriage a decade later to one of my colleagues and friends at the hospital, and the birth of their first son around the same time my wife and I had our son, kept us pleasantly intertwined in spirit. I, who had found and lost my way with Buddhist teachings, was drawn to his even and mindful integration of Buddhist practice into this life. He was at the core of a group of psychotherapists, all practitioners of meditation, with whom my paths have crossed professionally in various ways in succeeding years. In recent times, as my work took me away from Cambridge and we were both busy with our families, we never got around to continuing to have lunch together as we had been doing. Phil and his family were driving to the airport last Friday night in Florida, returning from a working vacation and giving a workshop, when they were apparently hit head-on by a pickup truck. Thankfully, their two young boys are intact, but Phil succombed and his wife’s condition is uncertain after surgery today. I’ll be praying for her, for their children, and for the tragedy-stricken Aranow family. Phil, you’ll remain on my heart….

Calligraphy: Heaven and Earth by Daigu Ryokan (1757-1831)