The Juice of Transformation

lies in the heart of chaos … Are you wondering whether you should leave your spiritual practices and spend your time resisting the harm being done? Are you trying to decide if you should quit spending so much time on your own baggage and instead, help to allay the suffering of others? Your wondering is …

Ripples of Infinite Aliveness

Years back, my favorite expression was, “What about this can’t you love?” It kind of still is, but I understand it totally differently and probably would use another word besides love, although love when understood for what it actually is, works beautifully. This. Just this. Only this. This alone. This this. Yeah. Life exactly as …

Boom! What Aren’t You Appreciating?

After a morning without power, I’m snugged up in my cushy chair watching the snow fall … and accumulate. It is putting it down right now. Wow. I awoke this morning to the sound of a transformer blowing – bang. No that’s too high, this one boomed, snapped and grumbled. Not a sound you expect …

This Sucks

It’s so easy to get sucked into the insanity, but ask yourself, who or what gets sucked? That part of you who believes you’re right and that what’s happening is wrong gets sucked into the void of crazy town, not the present moment awareness in which that sucking sound appears, but the idea, the concept, …

Is it possible to thrive in an era of radicalization?

Radicalization is fascinating to me. The word applies to religions, politics, social norms, personal expression, even our self-talk and the way we respond to one another. It’s an all-purpose term. The more radicalization worms into the mind, gut and heart, the greater the inflexibility is. Radicalization is another word for intolerance, for judgement, for knowing …

The Self: Mind’s Masterpiece

There’s an infinitesimal tipping point, a razor’s edge of sorts, where the individuated mind assumes control, or seems to, but of course, it doesn’t really. It’s that breath where the pause between thoughts, the spaciousness of beingness, is stealthily overwritten by identity. It’s a spellbinding miracle, that nothing creates something out of nothing, or the …

Question: Do you think reality is benevolent?

A friend sent me this question: Do you think reality is benevolent? My response may be of interest to many of you. From observation, I tend to experience it as benevolent, that it trends organically towards harmony. When life is left alone, let be as it is, it quite naturally wholes itself. That ‘leave it …

All That’s Left is Paradox

It’s easy to get sucked into non-duality, to think it is the answer. It’s true, well as true as anything is true. It’s the closest to describing what this is that I have found. I don’t argue that at all. Do you hear that sucking sound?I get it! That’s right. It makes sense. Hell no! …

Why Would Anyone Want to Wake Up?

Arguing with life, stressing out over what’s here and what’s not, makes you and everyone around you miserable. Most of us look for ways to make life better, but what if there is no way? How many years have you been at it, trying to win the unwinnable game? You win one and lose two. …

Ode to Sleeplessness

I sleep well most nights. This is something relatively new for me. For many years, I was a raging insomniac. I didn’t sleep well last night and found myself meditating around 4am, not so much to get to sleep but for something to pass the time. Sitting there, my pillow tucked behind my back, and …

Run, Rusty, Run!

A friend once told me that my practice was a type of self-soothing. It pissed me off. To my mind, the deep shadow work, the search for truth was anything but soothing. I wasn’t trying to feel better, or so I thought, I was after the big prize: Truth with a capital T. I’d sat …

Life Doesn’t Have to Hurt So Bad

There is only one insight worth the trouble, but that is the one that finds you, not one you can find. Anything short of that realization will ultimately be unsatisfying regardless of how awesome it feels in the moment of recognition. All but one insight dims. Most make room for the next, opening up the …

Door Number One or Door Number Two?

There are some things we simply know, even though we squirm a bit putting that knowing into words. It feels more accurate to say what it isn’t but even that is filled with potholes … deep potholes, lose your car in them, deep.   It seems to me that reality is so much more than …

You Don’t Want This

You don’t want this, and when it finds you anyway, you won’t have needed me, or anyone, to show you how to get it. You say you want IT, but you don’t. You want a better life, a sweeter deal, not this. No one in their right mind wants this. It’s beautifully simple, and minds …