Spirituality for Living

For everything that exists, there is a thing or set of things that must also exist for it to be present. There was a set of factors that let you come into existence, and they have persisted and will persist after the event that is you transforms beyond its currently recognizable state. We mistakenly localize the self around a center that in and of itself doesn’t exist.

A person is not a pattern. They express patterns. The events in their life are the by-product of the disposition of the person’s awareness. We are a unique voice in a grand chorus, having a depth and range that is powerful enough to echo throughout infinity itself.

“Whoever sees the Dharma sees Dependent Origination, and whoever sees Dependent Origination sees the Dharma.” Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

Originating Factors

Today we are discussing dependant origination. It’s a concept that can be stated simply but isn’t as simple to explore. The concept is basically this. For everything that exists, there is a thing or set of things that must also exist for it to be present, like desire having to have an object, and communication having to have a subject. A different set for different things? Oh, the number of possible sets is countless, but any given originating force can serve as an originating factor for a wide variety of things. Happiness can originate both compassion and foolishness. Insensitivity can… Seek More

Center is the Omnipresent Sea

Each individual arises not from the exact same set of causes repeating itself, because, perhaps like a flowing river, causative factors can never remain static. The human gene pool at any given time, and in different eras, has been definably different than it is now. Add in environmental and epigenetic factors that will alter gene transcription, and you can never reproduce that situation that lead specifically to the reproductive event that gave rise to you. How do we know ourselves? How do we know who we are? I am a unique snowflake. Indeed, but there was a set of factors… Seek More

Have and Eat the Cake

What are you now? Energy. Anything expressed or only potential? Expressed. Pattern. Do you know yourself outside of expression? I don’t. Your consciousness can transcend this pattern? It can transcend the pattern and it caused the pattern. What elements incorporate themselves into your pattern? What colors are there in your aura or spirit? You could apply any sensory descriptor, they would all have the same meaning. Remember earlier, I spoke of coincidence? The third factor that arises between any two causes? When you have cake and want to eat it, can you have your cake and eat it too? I lose… Seek More

Unique Voice in the Grand Chorus

We redefine or recombine originating forces or seeds of potential. Sort of primal forces that come together to manifest as actual events. Well, our conventional thinking doesn’t inform us on how to perceive the relationship between these seeds clearly. Desires and feelings and impulses that by themselves seem harmless, even innocent, when combined with the right set of other factors will reliably produce bad outcomes no matter how pure the original intention might have been. Compassion is one seed, but compassion combined with other attitudes that lead to forbearance can leave a violent person to feed a pattern of violent… Seek More

Cause Is and Isn’t There

How do we switch our state into problem solving? We’re heavily taught more to problem solve then to create. You switch your state into problem solving with the realization of a condition in which that event, whatever it is, is permitted. It can be a useful practice to deliberately imagine problems. Practice that. It might get uncomfortable though, as you will come to the realization that any problem you perceive is imagined. You lose the perception of a difference between the so called real problem and an imagined one, but that mindset is still too narrow. It is an attempt to break things… Seek More

Be Aware of Our Footprint

Perhaps a metaphor is in order. Let’s say you go walking, and whenever you go walking you take a fall. Each and every time you go walking you fall. That would be upsetting, no? Now could you understand this falling problem by looking at the event of falling, and understanding falling in an abstract sense? Can understanding falling like it’s a law help you figure out your falling problem? You have to be aware of the circumstances that have been permitting your personal falling, because the reason you fall down is not the reason someone else is necessarily. For me, falling… Seek More

Occupy All the Things!

Most things I read on dependent origination use it to explain emptiness. Do you have time to go into that? I do. How do we know when something is empty? In tai chi, an empty step is one that does not bear your full weight. Yes. Leaves it light, and free, and open. In Taoism, they say that something is valuable for what it is, but useful for what it isn’t. You are valuable for what you are, and you are able to take action, make choices, and explore your self expression for what you are not, and what you… Seek More