Spirituality for Living

If you are denying some aspect of yourself and behaving for a reason that has no root in your heart, are you burned out yet? Tired yet? Self denial isn’t peace. Self conflict isn’t sanity.
Sometimes we must compromise to survive? Ah, and even compromise can be internally motivated. You can desire to accommodate another. That [...]

With regular meditation practice, insight just comes. It isn’t from thinking, but it is hard to ‘understand’ with the thinking mind that insight can come from elsewhere. You’re using the ‘thinking’ to understand ‘not thinking‘, and this is why the spiritual practices advocate meditation to get out of the thinking to understand ‘not thinking’. There [...]

Centering is one of those so simple it seems impossible sort of things, but in fact centering is as simple as forgetting to breath. People tend to have breathing trouble not because they forget to breath, but because they are over concerned with it or their emotions (which differs from feelings).
Everyone can tell you what [...]

We have alot of interferences in our thought. People try to do thinking, and it makes the mind grind against itself. I think all the time, and I don’t do anything about it. The thoughts I share with you occur as I just sit. I don’t do them. Sometimes they occur as I’m paying attention to [...]

Trust isn’t foolishness. Trust isn’t being a martyr or a sucker. Those come about when you don’t trust. When you perceive and then rationalize; “Well, maybe I’m wrong“, “Well, maybe they have changed“. Oh, the list of rationalizations is endless. If you trust you give place to the truth. You allow it to show itself [...]

What if we seek comfort from food or substance as a way of dealing with worry even though we know we shouldn’t? That is a mixed worry response. Your instincts are still in a sense good, but we sit and brood. If you are busy in self expression or engagement with life, make that your [...]

I am often surprised at how dualistic peoples minds are; love this, hate that, this is good, that is bad, this is spiritual, that is dirty. There are creeds today that though they profess to espouse unity, encourage us to deny/ignore/reject parts of our being.
A lot gets lumped in under ego, but ego is a [...]

We begin with generosity to ourselves. Generosity is forgiving. Forgiving is powerful generosity, but it’s also in a sense greed.  Because when you allow yourself to see, you realize that whatever you are forgiving isn’t something “personal”. You won’t forgive the person for being who they are, and where they are. You realize it wasn’t [...]

It’s not just words. Nothing you do or say is “just” anything. The energy in you to act wasn’t created by you. As it leaves you it imprints the world, and the world is a diary. Well, what have we written? What have we wrought? And why did we? The bards said “I have been [...]

Sometimes the power of science can cut through myth? Sometimes the power of science creates its own myths. Scientific egotism really needs a reality check. A big piece of our medical knowledge is actually recycled shamanism, but not the profit motive.
But the point is, any observation regardless of ascription, looks at the universe and our [...]

Meditation is intimacy with self. That is what meditation is in essence. You are stopping and opening your awareness to “death” in the moment. Death, because you aren’t controlling anything. You are becoming aware that you are, even outside of doing and thinking.
Can anyone name the primary cause of divorce? It’s sex. Sexual issues. Lack [...]

I heard a talk by someone who has become hated in the medical industry. Through freedom of information act he uncovered that anti-depressants are as useful as placebos, and they have the tests to show it.
Is there such a thing as a poison placebo, like if somebody thinks a vile of water would kill [...]

You know the healing power of a baby!? It is big! Yes, babies are examples of human nature in its pure form. Taoism says this. Buddhism says this though less bluntly. Many of the pagan faiths have the divine child symbolism, which was also taken up by Christianity, and many see the “Christ child” as [...]

What is the way to self experience? This nature that people distrust, the nature that people disrespect because it’s amoral, unfeeling, unkind, these are all human judgements that denote a human understanding of nature, and we have to make it “better” for us.
This reminds me of a Buddhist talk I heard. He asked people who [...]

Each day comes and goes, and when it goes, it really goes. Where does all that energy we expend on any given day go to?
It seems we can’t really control what sort of impact our day’s activity will have, because everyone else is having the same sort of day. Together, we strut, and fret, [...]

Destruction is sometimes the way to get the wall out of the way of a creative person, or destroy the philosophers principles so they can find better ones. The person whose calling is destruction, brings the gift of strength. The person whose calling is fundamentally creative, brings the gift of possibilities and hope, but avocation [...]

We all have one question. It’s really pretty easy to identify this one question. This question is about life. The question isn’t about ourselves.  A very young human being just sort of accepts that they are here and things are around them. They don’t go much farther than that as far as purpose goes.
The question is [...]

If your life seems repetitive, don’t sweat it. It’s just your soul trying to give you a message. If you are out of connection with your avocation, life will seem very stagnant. Fake. This applies to everyone, because for you it’s true. You aren’t in touch with your own reality, so how can you be [...]

What is this me?  There is a simple practice of inquiry that can lead to very deep insight. What is this me, and who is asking?
It’s me. Yes, but we often still get caught up in life, even if we understand this inquiry it just seems easier. We get distressed and just go on auto-pilot, [...]

Not being a part of the system of judgements, which you didn’t yourself create anyway, goes a long way to helping you see the issue of obligation clearly. Ignoring your obligations all together is no more wise than subscribing to everyone anyone passes to you, because other people have held obligations to you as well. [...]