Non-dualism
Matter and Acceptance
Matter and the world is an abstraction. What we actually know, directly, is awareness, consciousness, Being, whatever you want to call the nameless formless we Are: what every thing appears in; the continuity behind the change, the solid ground behind the appearance of a body, mind and world. Physicists haven’t been able to find matter…
Read MoreThe Four Seals and Buddhism in a Nutshell
A while ago I wrote an article about the lyrics to a song I loved, Ott’s Jack’s Cheese and Bread Snack. I didn’t know it at the time, but the lyrics are known as the “Four Seals of Buddhism”, or “The Four Dharma Seals”. I’m not a Buddhist, not a Christian, not an Advaitan, I’m…
Read MoreOn Beyond Thinking – How To Be Present
How to be more loving and happy and at peace? Be more present. To what is real. How to be present? Quiet down the thinking, the mind, without introducing the doer. Don’t try and stop thinking. Just observe benevolently (with curiosity if it’s there). The doer can’t squelch (forcefully silence or suppress) the doer –…
Read MoreOn Beyond Social Media Duality
Introduction I see social media platforms like Facebook (the main platform I sometimes use and enjoy) as a place to share the love of some topic, or an event, sale, or service, and have fun conversations, or gather information or quotes. However they can be very addicting, as you may have noticed. And, they can…
Read MoreNon-Duality in Action: Compassionate Response
Non-dual teachings sometimes give people license to behave badly or not work on themselves: they can become arrogant or rude, or use it as an excuse to use drugs or do other self-centered things, saying “it doesn’t matter what we do” or “I don’t exist” and “it’s all predetermined” etc. Or they may not look…
Read MoreHow To Stop Thinking
“When you enter the silence you enter a profound peace, bliss consciousness, pure awareness. That’s what the silence is. It’s not being quiet. It’s beyond that. It’s not just quieting your mind, like I say all the time. It’s understanding that there’s no mind to quiet. When you realize there’s no mind, you automatically become…
Read MoreIs Being an Embodied Being a Fall from Grace?
I was cleaning the living room windows this morning, and noticed I could never get them perfect. They always had some kind of streaks or fog when the sunlight hit them, no matter how much I wiped them. It occurred to me the windows were metaphors of the limits of expression of clarity and the…
Read MoreOn Beyond Two Sides of Existence
The picture we are seeing here—knowing it’s just a picture (a map)—is of two sides of existence: one, the appearance, the phenomenal, the apparent material world, the mortal dream, Body, Mind, and World (BMW) which arise simultaneously to play Maya, or spacetime and matter; and two, “outside” of this world as it were, the spiritual,…
Read MoreWhy Spiritual Teachings Can Seem Contradictory (But Really Aren’t)
“We have two eyes to see two sides of things, but there must be a third eye which will see everything at the same time and yet not see anything. That is to understand Zen.” D.T. Suzuki Preface This essay starts with the assumption that there is one Truth, which I see as a true…
Read MoreBeginning and Advanced Meditation: Meditating on Meditation
Now, I’m a nobody (not a famous teacher, and don’t want to teach at all: writing is my “teaching”), but this is how I see the “game board” of meditation: We could say there are roughly three stages of meditation, three squares on the field of “spiritual progress” (it’s just a map, and they can…
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