Spirituality for Living

People speak of temptation when they experience instinct and they say it is a distraction. This nature. Why supposedly is this nature unholy? This instinct. Why supposedly is there no wisdom in it? I think that it is our clearest wisdom. Who needs a religious cannon? The bible itself says that the word of god [...]

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 [...]

What are the big attachments? Money is one and many find that no amount of money is enough. Is supposedly a good thing, but they make themselves miserable in the pursuit of money. Money isn’t evil but attachment to it is. Same is true of knowledge. Learning is a good thing, but there is a [...]

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. Is regrettable, but they [...]

Thinking gets you where you are and often gets you stuck and keeps you there. Do your passions arise from thinking?
Can you be angry and out of control and be aware that you are angry and out of control? If you are truly aware, then are you out of control? We are alive first, thinking [...]

With any facet of life, in the light of awareness there is a mirror image. For every truth, an equal and opposite truth. We often revile the negative as destructive. We say that is the opposite of what we want, when in fact it’s a mirror image of the thing desired. This is why attachment [...]

For any light you have a shadow. The truth of any spirit is found not in the object of the senses nor its opposite, but in between. But often we see only what we choose to. We declare one small facet of reality ‘truth’, and refuse to see it very deeply. People refuse to see [...]

The secret of conflict is that there is no conflict. We perceive ourselves to be in opposition. But the one who opposes you, do they oppose “you”? Or has their way run afoul of yours? They seek something in opposition.
Imagine an auto accident …is nothing about opposition, just nature interacting with nature. And adaptation is [...]

Can people have a healthy relationship with religion? Yes, they can. The word religion comes from the latin word “religio” meaning a body of practices. Religion is like meditation. It’s the social aspect of factionalism. It is false identification, to use a Buddhist concept, that is toxic. The interfaith movements are a powerful force for [...]

It is a commonly mistaken notion that Buddhists see the Buddha as especially divine. There is a school or two that does, but in fact the majority of Buddhist sects are almost agnostic as it regards deities. Zen would be one of these.
There are two branches of thought in Buddhism. One is that enlightenment is [...]

There are stories where the Zen master says something, and the student is said to be ‘enlightened’.  In that moment the words didn’t matter as much as the students thinking, and what will do that for any student differs. This is why you see the symbol of the dorje or lighting bolt in Buddhism, because [...]

It is safe to say that both mortification of the flesh and the stock market crash are manifestations of something. We learn by testing. We learn by trial, and in the past there have been trials of all kinds. Now we are putting our trade on trial. People want to feel safe and will create risk [...]

Yes, I have changed. I have reached a personal crisis, and it is here that I have had every idea or belief reduced to a bottom line. My instinct is fear.  Now I have transcended that fear and thus transcended my old self, but I didn’t get it from being a good boy and believing [...]

Jainist sects also have differing views of sex. Some seeing it as no sex outside of marriage, the other as no sex at all.  Why? Attachment. Sex can insure positive or negative karma
I find the idea that women can’t achieve liberation in that life questionable.  They teach tolerance of even seemingly perverse views as they [...]

You may seek surrender yet people don’t seem willing to let you, and they accuse you of not being responsible so you obey. But in obeying that, you disobey your spirit who needs the surrender to be whole. Where you may get confused, is you mistake surrender for obedience and discover you can’t do that.
What [...]

Buddhism isn’t what many perceive it to be. It is a very old “faith”, but doesn’t center on concepts of worship as most understand them today. It’s primarily concerned with a path of seeking, and a body of practices with a code of conduct. The code of conduct is referred to as the eight fold [...]

When I give my talks I tend to just go with the flow of inspiration, regrettably it means I sometimes “leave no trace”, even in my own mind.
I like the format of these discussions, going with the flow. It gives all a chance to talk and is more interactive. People learn by doing, not by [...]

Regarding emotions and attaching them to others, it seems in defining ourselves we will over exaggerate to the point of absurdity to see parts of ourselves that we have yet defined. For example, if you said to me that Jeff sure is a long winded dude, and I had not yet defined that within myself, [...]

Freedom is a pretty complicated topic, though it would seem simple. Freedom is often sought in name, but people call a lot of things freedom. Often if someone says “I need my freedom”, it’s because they are about to self destruct and feel entitled. We think of many things as freedom, mislabelling them like financial [...]

There is a difference between a ‘natural’ law and a connived one. The natural laws arise even without human doing, but include us, and they are a part of our natures. Contrived rules tend to create resistances, they rely on denial of select elements of reality.
We know instinctively? Yes we do, and the natural rules [...]