Paradox is vital. There is truth in paradox and it is what transcends us above duality and brings us to the third point.
“The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can’t have it. The minute you don’t want power, you’ll have more than you ever dreamed possible.” Ram Dass
What can be said about paradox? Literally everything. That is the essence of paradox. It is why seeking one truth, proclaiming there to be only one right path… Well, it just never really works. There have been atheists who are more altruistic than the more religious types. Very materialist types that espouse a spiritual paradigm for their life. Look at Tony Robins. There is a reason that old saying holds to this day, that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. The Heyoka shamans followed a path of paradox exclusively to counterbalance the tendency of the tribe to loose… Seek More
What are the big attachments? Money is one and many find that no amount of money is enough. This is supposedly a good thing, but they make themselves miserable in the pursuit of money. Money isn’t evil but attachment to it is. The same is true of knowledge. Learning is a good thing, but there is a reason they say the more you learn the less you know. Those who call themselves educated tend to be mentally fossilized, and thus they learn themselves into a deep ignorance. Romance. It is a blessing to be in love, but fixation on the… Seek More
One paradox is that expectations are an interference with genuine practice, like meditation. One quote is, “A true practitioner has an absence of expectation and doubt.” Lama Dodjum Dorjee. So we have this paradox. We are attempting to do something difficult, bring some clarity to the overactive mind, but we need to have that intention and consistency without expectation. There is a resolution. A Taoist saying is, “All day long I sell water by a river and my efforts are totally worthless.” Practice is doing you. You don’t do practice. You learn tools and techniques and they are useful. Your… Seek More
In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, they speak of death as a journey. One of the signs on that path is a mirror. The path is a mirror. You grow in the way you are, not in the way you are told you are. Many dogmas stunt people, trap them. This is regrettable, but they never really leave the path if they got on it. They just depart those practices. Has anyone experienced this? But they say you can’t go backwards. You can’t unsee the road ahead. Dogma is attachment in the Buddhist sense. Whatever you focus on gets… Seek More
Balance, the middle way, we hope to list toward it. At times, it seems that we do not. Often because we fear we are wrong. Like fumbling for a needed object in the dark, we go too far one way or too far another and we think it’s all very hard. We really make it harder by resisting error. This is why I chose paradox as a topic. The truth is seen in error. We learn from our mistakes, hopefully. If I were to speak the worlds greatest most earth shattering truth to one who was not ready for it,… Seek More
I live in America. A stronghold of religious weirdness, and quite feral about it. I hear India has cows. Poor people who break and deform their own bodies to get daily bread. We do it here also, just not for faith and with more refined methods. We should be proud of ourselves. Advanced self destruction. They aren’t unlike us. Their attitudes are just more obvious. The holy men nod their heads sagely or argue like fishmongers wives. The unthinking do what they were raised to believe they should do, and the cranks abuse everyone. Ours is full of rationality! The… Seek More
