Overcome Physical Problems through Open Attention We all know of the intimate correlation between mind, emotions and physical illness. Can resolving emotional stress help you overcome physical pain? And if so, how is it done? Jane’s hip was hurting a great deal. She had gone to the chiropractor with little results and in the middle [...]
How to Rise Above the Pain of Attachment to Find Love, and Why only a Clear Mind is Capable of True Affection and Caring The most surprising Aha! moments come when we realize that something we have been absolutely sure about is completely untrue. Like a sudden ray of light into darkness we realize a [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
You would never do this to yourself consciously. You, like everyone else, do not like to suffer. And yet, you, like everybody else, are sometimes subjected to the hidden force of self-sabotage. Committing yourself to a practice to awaken to your higher potential and to end the pain in your life is a sure way [...]
Dear friends, I want to share with you this interview I was invited to attend couple of days ago. I’m very grateful to ‘Wisdom’s Soft Whisper’ radio show team, for your kindness and love. Please click on: RamGiri09272010.mp3 If the above link does not work, you can paste the following address into your browser: https://rcpt.yousendit.com/958760073/0bd75d0021a3e4694841c73b9cd35874 [...]
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 [...]
Life is full of pain sometimes, where do we turn to find some relief? Look at your fear, depression, anxiety, worry. They are all about the past and the future, are they not? Now bring your attention to the present moment. Not ‘sort of,’ but really come into the now. Get focused on the breath. [...]
Now it has come again, this sad day. We hear great waves of disturbance around us, as though a stone was thrown into a pond and the ripples are spreading. Intolerance, fear, prejudice and confusion, one follows the other. We see the disturbance in the world and what can we do? How can we not [...]
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 [...]
“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, [...]
Here is an entry from my friend Jai Uttals’ blog at http://jaiuttal.com/blog/: The “Bhakti Movement” in the US these days is kind of strange to me. Wonderful, but also, weird. Wonderful because more and more people are experiencing the incredibly passionate joy of singing God’s names; and weird because, as Americans, we seem to feel [...]
Most of us cannot even relate to this language – ‘Self-Love,’ it sounds like narcissism, like self-indulgence, somehow over the top and too much. And yet, when we look at its pure manifestation, it is the most important quality we can develop. In truth most of us are rather removed from loving ourselves much of [...]
