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identity
Immersion
[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…
'Stress is just your thinking…’… so why can’t I change the thoughts?
An enormous liberation occurs the moment it is realised that reality is not an objective truth. That it changes in appearance, meaning, association, import with the perceiver.
This is huge.
Because up until that point it was believed that the world was exactly how it appeared. There was no space. Life was just a continual attempt to control, manage or deal with an objectively fixed reality. Until one day, a teacher speaks in such a way that their words create a crack in the concrete and, through …
This is huge.
Because up until that point it was believed that the world was exactly how it appeared. There was no space. Life was just a continual attempt to control, manage or deal with an objectively fixed reality. Until one day, a teacher speaks in such a way that their words create a crack in the concrete and, through …
Stress: approaching as simply as possible. But not too simply…
Today we begin our month long on-line course 'STRESS, getting real with challenge'. The challenge for me is how to do justice to such a multi-layered, enormous topic in 30 days.
Because understanding stress isn't as simple as telling ourselves 'it's just my thinking'.
There are stressors that are humanity-wide (eg. violence, poverty, captivity, discrimination...). There are variables that which, when not right for the individual, can also create stress (eg. noise, temperature, stimulation, slee…
Healing
‘Spiritual bypass’ is perhaps the biggest risk as we explore what is true about ourselves and about the world.
It is a term coined by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist and refers to the ‘tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks’.
And it raises the question,
How do we understand the two aspects of what we are: the pure intelligence, presence and beingness of life …
It is a term coined by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist and refers to the ‘tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks’.
And it raises the question,
How do we understand the two aspects of what we are: the pure intelligence, presence and beingness of life …
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…