Spirituality for Living

It’s my experience that even away from organized religion, people still have very strong feelings about ‘belief’. I think I will start with what belief ultimately is.
It’s a feeling of certainty and it does not require logical support. It does require experiential support and it is necessary to human function. It is a part of [...]

Does anyone have a strong belief that seems contradicted by life? Say you believe in the law of attraction. Really invested in the idea of the law of attraction, but you perceive that it doesn’t seem to work?
I’m not so sure that life contradicts what I believe rather than most people’s perceptions – the ‘common’ view – [...]

What can we focus our attention on? Really we don’t actually ever focus it on objects, is too abstract. The brain always processes any sensory data well before we are even aware of the object. It is how it is supposed to function. Matter isn’t a valid choice for awareness focus.
So seems we are in [...]

Life direction seems to be a growing concern and it seems conventional values seem to exasperate the situation rather than help it. Do you agree?
The internet has blessed us with information, and cursed us with better informed opposing opinions. Making the struggle the same, but more worldly. But the internet has given us too much [...]

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 [...]

Taoism is one of those world religions that sort of isn’t one. Many popular Chinese concepts are connected to Taoism and actually in many ways it’s like the Egyptian faith. The basic principle is acceptance of and living with the natural way. Lao-Tzu was its unofficial founder and one of the immortals that are venerated, [...]

There are many allegories in Taoism and much like Greek Gnosticism it is heavily experience based, though there are a body of philosophers referred to as sages who are viewed as having deep insight into the Tao, like Chuang-Tzu and other students of Lao Tzu.
Does Taoism have monks and nuns like Buddhism? No, and in [...]

A lot is said about humour in a limited way, but in fact humour like beauty is truth. We can find humour in all things, because in fact there is truth and beauty in all things. Just some might not be to our personal taste. In fact, when we call something ugly all we are [...]

Any great truth, the most powerful truths, are in fact very simple and often even a child shows an understanding of them. They make us laugh and say ‘aw, how cute‘, and often we ignore them also. This is regrettable to my mind.
Children can find joy in the simplest things, why supposedly do we not? [...]

When you sleep some people think of it as a low energy state, but in fact it’s a high energy state. And the body behaves as it does because it doesn’t exactly have a tolerance for such intense energy. As you slumber your memory of the day does play out, as that is one of [...]

Here are a few questions that I have received in some of my talks. Maybe you’ve wondered as well. 
If our ancestors and family who have passed over are supposed to be watching over us, what exactly are they doing?  They engage in spiritual affairs and are concerned with your spiritual state. But they can’t control [...]

The subject is the power of the word. It isn’t the word of any doctrine or belief, but that factor of belief is a part of it. It is the creative power of speech, of articulating thought in words. Many traditions use chant in one form or another, but modern cultures seem to have lost [...]

Ever see Zen art? They use simple ink and they refuse to draw from memory. They seek to trap the sense impression, so the images seem very impressionistic. Suggesting the image of say a bird, because in fact as we move about in our normal consciousness how vividly does anything register on us? Usually not very. [...]

We are overconfident of human independence. Even modern psychological research suggest that it’s a half truth at best.  Then you could delve rationalistically into why that is and why we have what subconscious influences that we do. Does that invalidate spiritual experience and make the ancients foolish?  Maybe they were more expedient and direct in some ways. [...]

Literacy is interesting. Previously the only sanctioned literacy was of the priesthood, and only of the sacred texts. The word “talisman” was a reference to magicians marks, or to make marks like a magician. Tally was to make marks on a stick. The Norse did it to count sheep.  They made more complex marks than numbers, [...]

There were two broad schools of thought in Chinese belief; naturalistic and legalistic. The Taoists were an example of the naturalistic school using nature and allegorical stories to focus on observations of the way the world works in general. Confucianism was more humanistic. Confucius focused on ethics and human concerns with the basic premise that [...]

What were some of the fundamentals about his thoughts or ideas? The analects of Confucius are a collection of works of his basic socio-political doctrines, and his teaching on social justice and compassion. He spoke of the need for loyalty and centralized authority, but not blind obedience. This is why his teachings would later result [...]

It would likely be very helpful for westerners to study Confucianism, but many western thinkers decry the eastern fusion of intuition and logic. To the western mind logic is good, but intuition is bad.  To my observation, logic being given primacy has created some down right deranged policies and beliefs.
It’s too bad the Greeks made this [...]

Alchemy uses a series of beliefs that I myself practice. Both intuitive and literal observations of matter and the natural world, but it is more focused on artifice. It even had a doctrine that doesn’t really defy common sense; That nature doesn’t create finished products. This is why alchemy had an almost moral agenda to [...]

We have questioning minds because we have roving eyes. Does each lead or follow at different times? Does mind exist only in the wads of meat in our skulls?  I would argue the mind doesn’t follow the eye and this can be backed up in science. The eye follows the mind.
Native tribes exposed to new things [...]