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[extract from SANE, getting real with reality]
Who we are is not limited to this body and mind. In fact, the body and mind is an experience of perception, in the infinite field of awareness that we really are. With this understanding, the idea of an objective self becomes less and less believable. As we realise we are the space in which all appears, separation between self and other, between other and other begins to fade.
Hearing this can send us into a spin. After all, our entire lives so far ha…
Who we are is not limited to this body and mind. In fact, the body and mind is an experience of perception, in the infinite field of awareness that we really are. With this understanding, the idea of an objective self becomes less and less believable. As we realise we are the space in which all appears, separation between self and other, between other and other begins to fade.
Hearing this can send us into a spin. After all, our entire lives so far ha…
Learning the mind
The four stages of learning can be applied to any skill, task or competence. You might be familiar with them:
1. Unconscious incompetenc…
- Unconscious incompetence - we don’t know that we don’t know
- Conscious incompetence - we know that we don’t know
- Conscious competence - we work at what we don’t know
- Unconscious competence - we don’t have to think about knowing it
1. Unconscious incompetenc…
Troubled Genius
Creative prowess, towering intellect, the link with suffering and what to do about it…?
Pythagorus, Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Newton, Judy Garland, Robert Schumann, Lord Byron, Michelangelo, Winston Churchill, Sylvia Plath, Francis Crick….
The list of troubled geniuses goes on and on. And these are just the few who have made it through the suffering to expression and creating in recognised form… Far greater numbers, as we well know, are…
Pythagorus, Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Newton, Judy Garland, Robert Schumann, Lord Byron, Michelangelo, Winston Churchill, Sylvia Plath, Francis Crick….
The list of troubled geniuses goes on and on. And these are just the few who have made it through the suffering to expression and creating in recognised form… Far greater numbers, as we well know, are…
Glass of poison anyone…? Anyone…?
It’s a well worn expression and attributed to pretty much every sage in the quotations book… ‘Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting our enemy to die.’
Dr Gabor Maté in his book, ‘When the Body Says No’ takes it a stage further with research showing again and again that resentment and the stress it causes are major factors in the occurrence of a wide range of diseases and of the toll those diseases take on the body.
The danger of this finding, as Dr Maté takes great care to point out is …
Dr Gabor Maté in his book, ‘When the Body Says No’ takes it a stage further with research showing again and again that resentment and the stress it causes are major factors in the occurrence of a wide range of diseases and of the toll those diseases take on the body.
The danger of this finding, as Dr Maté takes great care to point out is …
The Secret to .....
At first, everything is an adventure.
There is so much to explore and see and listen to and do and make and learn and take apart and experience. You reach and crawl and pull yourself up and toddle, investigating your world, awed by the miracles of light and sound and texture around you.
Sometimes you cry and sometimes you laugh. Sometimes you are cross and sometimes you are not. Sometimes you are tired and you sleep and sometimes you are wide awake and ready for adventure. All of life is in you. T…
There is so much to explore and see and listen to and do and make and learn and take apart and experience. You reach and crawl and pull yourself up and toddle, investigating your world, awed by the miracles of light and sound and texture around you.
Sometimes you cry and sometimes you laugh. Sometimes you are cross and sometimes you are not. Sometimes you are tired and you sleep and sometimes you are wide awake and ready for adventure. All of life is in you. T…
The Game Of Life
There are two games taking place.
In the first game, the surface game, let's call it 'Drama', all the twists and turns of the game, all the other characters and events that provide such tension and excitement for the character only serve to make the character more absorbed in The Game.
In the second, hidden game (let's call this Realisation), the same characters and events have an entirely different function: to show that the character is not real, that The Game is not as it appears to be.
Like the…
In the first game, the surface game, let's call it 'Drama', all the twists and turns of the game, all the other characters and events that provide such tension and excitement for the character only serve to make the character more absorbed in The Game.
In the second, hidden game (let's call this Realisation), the same characters and events have an entirely different function: to show that the character is not real, that The Game is not as it appears to be.
Like the…
I'm terrified. How awful / amazing / neutral.
On Monday evening, I'll be giving a talk on what I have learned about how people can easily start living the joyful, peaceful, creative and loving life they are designed to live.The simple fact that I am giving a talk is all the evidence I need of how this works.
For decades I had an abject fear of public speaking. Even the mention of a presentation at work made me feel sick and faint. I couldn't even ask a question in a meeting. I tried everything to get rid of that terrible anxiety: courses, de…
What do you believe?
"Beyond our own galaxy lies a vast expanse of galaxies. The deeper we see into space, the more galaxies we discover. There are billions of galaxies, the most distant of which are so far away that the light arriving from them on Earth today set out from the galaxies billions of years ago. So we see them not as they are today, but as they looked long before there was any life on Earth.” www.nasa.gov
Are we experiments in a cosmic Truman Show? A version of the matrix? A creation by an omnipotent God…
Are we experiments in a cosmic Truman Show? A version of the matrix? A creation by an omnipotent God…
Stillness or change?
I was teaching yoga to a group of beginners in Amsterdam and about four weeks into the course I introduced a 10 minute meditation session. For all of them, it was the first time they had ever done any meditation. At the end of the lesson we discussed what it had been like. A couple of people said that is was the first time they could remember not having constant mental chatter going on in their minds. This silence only lasted a minute or so of the ten minute session but it was a revelation that …
Teaching children who is in charge
When I was at the school the other day, a little boy was crying outside his classroom. His teacher was with him but the boy could not talk he was so distraught. The teacher hugged him tightly, then looked him right in the eyes and said very firmly,
‘Who is in charge of your mind?’
The boy was startled out of his sobs. He didn’t know what to say at first. And then cautiously said,
‘I am?’
She nodded. ‘Yes you are.’
Her question had taken him away from what ever had upset him and brought him right into…
‘Who is in charge of your mind?’
The boy was startled out of his sobs. He didn’t know what to say at first. And then cautiously said,
‘I am?’
She nodded. ‘Yes you are.’
Her question had taken him away from what ever had upset him and brought him right into…