You see, when the mind is totally aware of its conditioning, there is only the mind; there is no ‘you’ separate from the mind. But, when the mind is only partially aware of its conditioning, it divides itself, it dislikes its conditioning or says it is a good thing; and, as long as there is [...]

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” I used this quotation from cool-dude Dalai Lama about two years ago in an essay about unrequited love. It’s in one my books I think.  The quotation stuck with me because when I first saw it, I was in pain, from [...]

We sometimes have trouble understanding concepts like awareness, release, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, non-attachment, surrender and so on. I suppose these can be called ‘spiritual’ concepts but ‘spirituality’ is word that gets caught in my throat. It really doesn’t want to come out cleanly. It’s like God—it’s so filled up with assumptions that it’s a [...]