Does it matter if life is illusory or real, if this a material world like most everyone thinks or a dream? It looks and feels real, it offers sensations and feelings that attest to its realness. Discovering what this is only matters to the ones attempting to escape their reality, and even that is not …
Tag Archives: pain
Fear: A Muscle You’ve Built Out of Nothing
Do this; do that. Say this; don’t say that. Wear this; don’t wear that. Buy this; oh my God, don’t buy that. Eat this; whatever you do, don’t eat that. Everyone’s got something to say, especially when they are selling something to go with it, but it’s shelled out for free too. Consummate salespeople that …
Laughing Buddha
Life is so strange. One moment I am fascinated with this crazy, unnameable Isness, in awe of this unreasonable aliveness, fractured to my very soul, unwilling and literally unable to even try to comprehend why there is anything here at all … and the next moment I am sighing, laughing, crying, feeling my humanity, adoring …
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
Life’s basic building block is consciousness, or at the least, that is as much as this appearance in consciousness at present is able to grok. Consciousness, a word, not unlike every word, can only point to that which is inconceivable since it is as deep or shallow as its perceiver. What we perceive is a …
This Dark Beauty
The idea of death is for the living. Death has no meaning for the one no longer in form. Death is felt by the ones left behind, or it is glossed over with polite triteness, watchful escapism: It’s okay, she’s gone to a better place, he is flying with the angels, they’ve gone home to …
Maybe There is No Definition and No Way
Real or not real? That is the question, and it seems to be much discussed these days. What is enlightenment? Listen to me … this is what it is. No … it’s not that, it’s this. If we can’t even agree on a definition of what it is, how in the world would we ever …
The Cost of Awakening … It’s Not What You Think
What Does Awakening Cost? It’s not what the seeker expects. Somewhere along the yellow brick road, the seeker’s path, the path that is supposed to make your life better, take away the discomfort, reveal the inherent abundance and recognize your true identity, it dawns on you that just perhaps, you’d have been better off on …
Stay and Play, or Run
“Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 percent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself—and there isn’t one.” ― Wei Wu Wei You want to be happy, to not feel foolish, to feel included and loved. It is only natural to feel that way. What isn’t organic is not feeling what …
Emphasis
Emphasis is divine, as is the entirety of this dance. Often, it seems like all mystics teachers gurus no-it-alls contradict themselves, or at least the ones we are currently paying attention to. It can drive one crazy. They point to the expressionless and leave the expression — you and me, the bloody squirming writhing human …
Does Love Always Win?
It’s a common phrase amongst spiritual folk – Love always wins. Does it? It doesn’t seem like love always wins. It doesn’t even feel like love always wins. So … is it true? Does love win in the long run? If yes, how long a run? In my lifetime? In the lifetime of my children …
Origami Swan
Or so it was for me … Energetically, I had mastered the trick of folding my body in upon itself and wasn’t aware of my mastery. It happens at the energetic level even if it doesn’t manifest in the physical appearance. I folded myself up, tipping the crown chakra energy down towards my little Buddha …
Fully Human
Being fully human is a lot trickier than riding the awakening train. Awakening, ascending as some call it, is the ticket out, the great escape, the demise of attachment and aversion, of judgment and craving. It’s the end of life as we know it, and in that way, when you are in pain, when your …
Rome is Burning
I’ve been feeling into this for a few days now. Well, actually this one’s been around a long time in different forms. I quit asking for answers to it in meditation because I heard the same answer time and time again. Can’t say I liked it. Many of you know I have written about this …
Right Back Here Again
We pack up their lunch, make sure they have their gym clothes and books, and bundle them into the car or out to the bus stop, take a deep breath and begin our day. School’s kind of a free period for parenting, or at least for a lot of parents. Do kids think about yesterday’s …
Fairy Tale Lives
The external appearance of life cannot demonstrate awakening. Life appears in all its shapes and sizes, forms and fascinations. It does its dance, sings its song, appears as all appearances: disasters and blessings, joy and sorrow, illness and health, poverty and wealth, regardless of one’s understanding. The thinking mind, the compare and contrast mechanism, says …
Amaya Gayle 