For Jane it’s her weight. George thinks he is not a good enough provider for his family. Since the kids teased her in school, Carol believes she is not pretty. This is how we carry our hidden pain with us like a snail carries its house. And every so often we withdraw right into it, [...]
In the light of 9-11 and the killing of Osama bin Laden we understand the reactions of revenge and of hatred. Their expression was easy enough to see in the outburst of joy at his death in many parts of the US. It made some of us rather uncomfortable. That we are staging the equivalent [...]
There are countless levels of consciousness. No one lives on one level permanently, it shifts and moves, but more or less we have most of our experiences on a stage of awareness to which we are most habituated. Within this stage we strive to be happy and to avoid suffering. And we also strive to [...]
Is there a better option to psychology? Are there alternatives to psychiatry and taking pills? The following explores how you can not only feel better for a while but free yourself of the very roots of suffering, of repeating the patterns of negative karma. ~ Ann (not her real name) was a dental hygienist out [...]
We’ve all heard of the predictions of change and we do see an enormous amount and speed of change all around us, from technical innovations to natural calamities and man-made disasters, to political revolutions, to religious fanaticism and more. The transformation predicted for our age is in full swing but what does it lead to? [...]
I sit with a new client and every time our conversation becomes interesting she says, “I know that.” And I fall silent. Half knowledge is difficult, it provides a haven for insecurity and pride and it shuts down new possibilities. “Oh I know that!” How often this thought runs through our minds and we immediately [...]
Today Japan was hit by the biggest earthquake and tsunami of its history. The images of devastation are enormous and no one knows yet the extent of the human and financial toll of the event. At such a moment we instinctively pause and hold our collective breath, as we realize once more the reality of [...]
Question: “Sometimes it is hard for me to feel my Heart. What can I do?” Ram Giri: The mind has a tendency to run after distractions. This is caused by the subtle desires of the unconscious mind. It is an addiction that keeps the mind agitated and focused outward, away from the Heart. It is [...]
“One can’t believe impossible things,” Alice said. “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”[1] We’re all Alice. We can’t believe what we cannot yet believe. [...]
From a Buddhist perspective, busying ourselves with worldly activities is a form of laziness, because we’re lax in self-cultivation. Our lives are so busy in modern society: Our appointment books are completely full and we’re always running here and there. We often complain there isn’t enough time for the Dharma. However, whenever we have a [...]
The prominent futurist Ray Kurzweil says that in 2045 computers will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today! So what will the most important functions for human beings be if thinking is so much more effectively done by machines, knowledge is readily available and we have come to the end of [...]
I like checking the Skills for Awakening against a variety of other wisdom traditions. What I find, time and again, is that this thoroughly contemporary approach is really the pure practical essence of what the wisdom traditions teach. It represents the practice of the liberation from suffering without all the trappings of foreign cultures and [...]
“As the pace of our lives continues to be accelerated by a host of forces seemingly beyond our control, more and more of us are finding ourselves drawn to engage in meditation, in this radical act of being., this radical act of love, astonishing as that may seem given the materialistic ‘can do’, speed-obsessed, progress-obsessed, [...]
“We are here to receive peace and happiness in our mind by avoiding suffering, but first we have to recognize the cause of happiness. We have to understand what brings us happiness and what brings us suffering. This is extremely important to understand, or there is no way to prevent suffering and receive happiness in [...]
People harm others only when they are unhappy. No one wakes up in the morning and says, “I feel so great today! I think I’ll go out and harm someone!” When we can allow ourselves to know the depth of the pain and confusion felt by those who have harmed us, compassion–the wish that they [...]
