What is Consciousness? – part 1 of 3
I’ve been invited to contribute to the on-line magazine Science to Sage. It’s a graphically rich magazine that shares the works of a number current thinkers and artists. Each issue is themed and the March …
Category: Psychology
The Real News
If you read a typical newspaper or watch TV News, you’ll hear a litany of drama. What’s wrong and who’s to blame. So much of it is not even news at all but projection – …
Bad Habits?
One of the more ironic expectations of enlightenment is something like “enlightenment will fix it” or “enlightenment will fix me.” Now, loosing identification with the ego in awakening can be a big change. But in …
Why is there Suffering?
One of the questions we all face at some point in our life – and one that may also haunt us for a while – is the question of suffering. Why am I having these …
Expectations and Experience
Expectations can have a strong effect on our experience of life. If we have heavier feelings about life, we’ll tend to have lower or darker expectations. Because what we put our attention on grows stronger, …
Question Affirmations
During Nancy’s workshop, she made an interesting suggestion. She suggested you frame affirmations as a question, placing the future in the present. For example, “What will I need to accomplish X?” The question assumes it …
Gratitude for Self
I’ve spoken here a lot about the importance of gratitude. Being thankful for what’s in our lives helps culture an openness and allowing. It also helps enable support. But there’s a deeper aspect of gratitude …
Conscious Stories
Life doesn’t always make sense. When it doesn’t, our mind naturally tries to fill in the gaps, to explain why. The problem comes when we start to believe these stories. Nancy observes that they then …
Empty is OK
Nancy’s talk brought up a key point: People often fear what they don’t understand. In our culture, we’re taught to fear empty space. Children often have an experience of that expansive openness. But when not …
Meeting What You Need
I’ve spoken here a number of times about the importance of allowing, of letting ‘what is’ be there, of letting emotions arise and complete. When we resist the flow of energy, we don’t see what …
Presence
One of the key qualities of spiritual progress can be a growing sense of presence, of being in the moment rather than in the mind. The mind alone brings us anxiety about the future or …
Karma is the Blind Spot
In articles here, I’ve occasionally mentioned that karma comes with a blind spot. This causes us to walk into circumstances we otherwise wouldn’t and do things we may later regret. We may even ask ourselves …