The four deep fears of the ego mean we fixate on objects to shore up solidity in our lives. But if objects don’t really make us happy then what does? The Buddha is offering us a present. To get the present we must come outside of the burning house of the ego and open the box. What we find inside is freedom.
Six Wisdoms for Going Beyond Yourself
To really be our best possible selves, there are six assets we can develop. These wisdoms (also called Pāramīs) are tools to help us overcome feelings of isolation, while developing engagement, creativity and joy.
Spiritual Energy Traders: On Giving and Receiving
If we consider spiritual welfare as one of the most precious “commodities” on the planet, next only to environmental health, one might imagine that true spiritual teachers would be rewarded highly. In both the East and the West, there tends to be an unspoken expectation that our religious leaders should demonstrate their virtue through remaining relatively poor.
The Challenges: For Lightning-Fast Spiritual Progress
So what would happen if we turned the “me” thing upside down? That is if we acted out “not-me” in order to free ourselves from our habitual identity. We call this action “the Challenges!” It’s a way to determine our own karma.
Karma Yoga: A Vehicle for Dharma Training
by Lisa Feder As I am getting ready to leave Clear Sky Retreat Center after being part of the Karma Yoga team, Cata and Sensei discuss with me some of the biggest challenges to maintaining an ongoing practice of Karma Yoga, or meditation in action through service. Their teaching addresses: Why Do Karma Yoga; Why […]
Spiritual Healing
The ongoing, mapped process of awakening is the ultimate spiritual healing. With awakening, the self is transcended, and thus the troubles of the self, of “me,” “my troubles,” are healed. Though any organism is inherently subject to decay and death, the process of awakening also includes actual physical healing. The agent of the healing is […]
Kyoto Journal Interview: Moving Into the Stream
An Interview with Dharma Teacher Achariya Doug Duncan on Exploring, Transcending, Surrendering & Awakening. Article by Brendan Joseph Ries, as Published in the Kyoto Journal Online Magazine, February 2014. Click to download Moving into the stream. Thanks to the wonderful Kyoto Journal for permission to use the article.
Awakening: Beyond the Illusion of Self
Quantum physics as well as tradition Buddhist philosophy teach us that nothing in the universe remains the same for even a second. Thus we know that everything we hold and cherish will also pass on and out of our lives, if only at death. This may feel frightening initially, but acceptance allows us to enter […]
Awakening and What’s in the Mirror
I dream, I hope, I work, I love, I play, I dream, I eat. These verbs are all about me. Working, hoping, dreaming, loving, eating all continue, even when there is no ‘me’. Who is this ‘me’? Or is it a what? Is ‘me’ a person, a thing, an idea, a feeling? It’s all of […]
Waking Within the Dream
When you wake up in the morning you leave behind one world — the dreaming world — and find yourself in another world — waking life. These two worlds or states share similarities. In Tibetan Buddhism they’re two of six states termed ‘bardos’, or ‘in-between states’. Sensing, emotion and thoughts exist in both. When we […]