Overcoming the Terrible Master
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest." - Confucius When author David Foster Wallace gave his now-famous 2005 commencement address to Kenyon College, he suggested that "the real value of an education has nothing to [...]
What Trees Can Teach Us
Some of my earliest memories are of my brother and I clambering high up into trees - clinging to the uppermost branches and letting the wind and our weight carry us to and fro, the busy-buzzing world below altogether unaware of our presence. Even to the mind of a child the trees exemplified strength, stability - [...]
Death of the Ultimate Sales Job
"Nearly all mankind is more or less unhappy because nearly all do not know the true Self. Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one's Self is to be blissful always." - Ramana Maharshi Waiting one morning for my car to be serviced, I work from the local coffee shop. [...]
Save the Children: Examine Your Life
"All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer One of the things you should expect if you genuinely begin to embrace nonduality is the growing habit of questioning everything. I mean everything. Little blips of truth start to [...]
The Mystic Series: Robert Adams & Silence of the Heart
To the human mind it is easier to pay homage to (or await the return of) a dead mystic than pay heed to one who may actually walk amongst us. This is the first in what will be an occasional series on more contemporary mystics. We start with my favorite, a collection of talks given [...]
To Lose the Mind is to Find Happiness
"To expound and propagate concepts is simple. To drop all concepts is difficult and rare." - Nisargadatta Maharaj Some of the 'smartest' people I know, the ones with all the acronyms and letters after their names and the framed, institutional placards on their walls, are the souls who suffer the most. Suffering does that. The [...]
A Confession. Then a Caution.
"That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something. - Meredith Monk First a Confession. I've lost my way with this thing. What started as an honest exploration into suffering and, ostensibly, an exit out, [...]
Lessons Learned
It's been roughly three years since the launch of this blog and if I had to sum up everything I've learned over that stretch of time it would boil down to something like this: 1. Let go Suffering cannot be healed so long as we work so hard to protect the source of that suffering. [...]
To Know Thyself: Conclusion
“The entire spiritual dilemma, you know, boils down to only one problem — denial. Denial that everything which is born will die. Denial that everything I want to keep — identity, possessions, friends, family, lovers, health, life — will be lost. That denial, that continual avoidance of this simple, basic, undeniable truth, obscures my true [...]
To Know Thyself: Part 2
“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.” – Marcel Proust One morning not [...]
Overcoming the Terrible Master
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest." - Confucius When author David Foster Wallace gave his now-famous 2005 commencement address to Kenyon College, he suggested that "the real value of an education has nothing to [...]
What Trees Can Teach Us
Some of my earliest memories are of my brother and I clambering high up into trees - clinging to the uppermost branches and letting the wind and our weight carry us to and fro, the busy-buzzing world below altogether unaware of our presence. Even to the mind of a child the trees exemplified strength, stability - [...]
Death of the Ultimate Sales Job
"Nearly all mankind is more or less unhappy because nearly all do not know the true Self. Real happiness abides in Self-knowledge alone. All else is fleeting. To know one's Self is to be blissful always." - Ramana Maharshi Waiting one morning for my car to be serviced, I work from the local coffee shop. [...]
Save the Children: Examine Your Life
"All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer One of the things you should expect if you genuinely begin to embrace nonduality is the growing habit of questioning everything. I mean everything. Little blips of truth start to [...]
The Mystic Series: Robert Adams & Silence of the Heart
To the human mind it is easier to pay homage to (or await the return of) a dead mystic than pay heed to one who may actually walk amongst us. This is the first in what will be an occasional series on more contemporary mystics. We start with my favorite, a collection of talks given [...]
To Lose the Mind is to Find Happiness
"To expound and propagate concepts is simple. To drop all concepts is difficult and rare." - Nisargadatta Maharaj Some of the 'smartest' people I know, the ones with all the acronyms and letters after their names and the framed, institutional placards on their walls, are the souls who suffer the most. Suffering does that. The [...]
A Confession. Then a Caution.
"That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something. - Meredith Monk First a Confession. I've lost my way with this thing. What started as an honest exploration into suffering and, ostensibly, an exit out, [...]
Lessons Learned
It's been roughly three years since the launch of this blog and if I had to sum up everything I've learned over that stretch of time it would boil down to something like this: 1. Let go Suffering cannot be healed so long as we work so hard to protect the source of that suffering. [...]
To Know Thyself: Conclusion
“The entire spiritual dilemma, you know, boils down to only one problem — denial. Denial that everything which is born will die. Denial that everything I want to keep — identity, possessions, friends, family, lovers, health, life — will be lost. That denial, that continual avoidance of this simple, basic, undeniable truth, obscures my true [...]
To Know Thyself: Part 2
“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.” – Marcel Proust One morning not [...]