If you are insistent or even desirous of keeping your life exactly as it is then it’s probably best not to embark on the spiritual path. Better to just sit tight and tolerate your afflictive mind than to “give it all to God” or “surrender everything to the Self”. Because that’s what’s required, a single-minded…
Loving the gap. When thoughts drop away, leave them there. Enjoy the gap, the silent space of being. Non-grasping, aconceptual aware presence. Just go with your flow, remain unattached. If there’s frustration there’s expectation and desire. Wanting something that isn’t usually leads to suffering if grasping and thirsting are also present. If something “must (or…
Sometimes it’s hard to remain unattached. The secret is to release as you notice it and keep doing it. Patiently, repeatedly, endlessly if necessary. It’s that willingness to let go when you see you’re grasping, contracting, resisting. The practice is notice and release or notice and return. Or even notice and allow. There’s no…
Make no promises or predictionsJust take each step as it comes Notice the effects of notions and ideasOn your moment-to-moment sense of well-beingIt’s like you can keep noticing and rooting outThose notions that lie about the nature of realityAnd sometimes it’s not so obviousBecause the false ideas are part and parcelOf the consensus paradigm Making…
Let it in, let it all in. Let in your regret. All the feelings around that, let them in. All the shoulds and shouldn’ts about it, let them in. All the shame and the doubt, let it all in. The discomfort, let it in. Your reactions, the plans and strategies, let it in. Let it…
Wanting, craving, thirsting, clinging. This is the way of non-acceptance, the way of misery. And so the opposite is true: Desirelessness, non-grasping, non-attachment, openness. This is the way of acceptance, the way of joy and peace.
Whenever desire or dissatisfaction shows up our first instinct is to try to get or change something. We’re trained to leap up and run after our impulses like show-dogs. Desire says “jump” and we say “how high?!” And since these thoughts and feelings and wants keep popping up, large and small, we’re endlessly running around,…
It’s worth remembering that when we deal with the Devil he honours his side of the bargain and we do actually get what we wanted, or so the stories tell. We want to be rich and powerful; done. We want to be a great blues guitarist; done. The problem isn’t that he doesn’t deliver, it’s…
Awakening is an ongoing unfoldment of potentials and nothing in particular is guaranteed to stop or go away, even though some things might. It’s the ongoing acceptance, patience, and forgiveness of whatever arises or happens that marks healthful embodiment. But also the true and deep acceptance that anything CAN happen and that nothing that DOES…