It doesn’t take any effort to fall in love. Suddenly the walls you’ve built around your heart crumble and you experience what you are at your core: alive with the bliss of the heart. Suddenly your ego has evaporated and all you can think of is how to make your beloved happy. Imagine a world [...]
The ego has two very positive aspects, the Ego of Aspiration and the Ego of the Sage. They must be used to overcome the third, the Ego of Suffering. The root cause of the ego of suffering is fundamental ignorance. It is the delusion that, “I am this body, this mortal personality. Happiness comes from [...]
I’m in the prime spot for Flamenco here in Miami, in a restaurant on Calle Ocho (that’s ‘8th Street’ for you gringos), right in the heart of Little Havana. The place is bubbling with excitement. Tonight there is a performance by Miami’s First Lady of Flamenco Clarita Filgueiras, and Natalia Merino, a famous dancer from [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
We were going to examine the thought “Something terrible is going to happen.” And please let me make clear that this is for those who want to find the truth. It’s certainly not for everyone. Most people want to believe what they believe, even though it causes them pain. So if you want to find [...]
It’s coming around again, this Saturday. Already many people are feeling it – a certain discomfort, anger, perhaps helplessness. And definitely fear. Since 9/11 the thought “Something terrible is going to happen” has become the inaudible but deafening mantra in the collective mind. How is it going to change? How are we/you going to feel [...]
We think of it as inevitable, but that is not true. Suffering arises in the unquestioned mind and spreads from there. It is an ingrained habit, no more. And we can change habits. Our thoughts run into the past and the future, imagining what was and could go wrong. Observe it. These regrets and worries [...]
We don’t want to suffer. So what do we need to do when it comes, small or big? Grin and bear it? Hope for a better world after we die? All that has been tried. I prefer to end suffering. Many voices that will tell you it’s impossible, that suffering is part of life. But [...]
“Suffering is voluntary and unnecessary. It is created by the mind” In days of old these insights would have been regarded as a secret teaching, accessible only to a select few. To even approach this knowledge you would first have to go through much training and many tests, and only if you were found worthy, [...]
