You are born. You die. In the middle some stuff happens. We have trouble with the middle stuff but really it’s simple once we see that it’s all awareness. Our basic state is awareness. Everything else pops up as points of view in awareness. The only essential question is:  Is there enough joy and lightness [...]

Notes to self. Get in the flow of Awakening: There is no end-game. It’s an ever-going process. However, there are thresholds, and with some practice, we can be in the flow of awakening, where it will continue to ebb and flow, go forward and recede, on its own, and the movement will be towards a [...]

When I recognized I was in a “spiritual depression”, I decided I would just let it be. Instead of running after the conventional self-help solutions, what if I just allowed, and continued to rest in awareness, and continued to release? What if I just allowed and watched? What might I learn? What I learned from [...]

“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 [...]

Letting go of the F-thing is really rather simple. Say Aloha. Hello and Good-bye. I picked up a The Sedona Method book a while back and I don’t know why because when I did I was interested in awakening, not self-development, and I had assumed, wrongly, that this book would be about another one of [...]

In the last few days, I’ve felt anger. Have you had this experience? It is non-specific annoyance, which left unobserved will find a target and intensify.  I don’t know if it’s anger or fear of both. I’m angry about not finding a job, about my investments gone south, about having to do all this marketing [...]

Finding Answers Last week I wrote about how adversity in my life brought me to awakening about three years ago, and not surprisingly, the article struck a chord with many. Most of us are rather too familiar with discontent. I’ve been through many cycles of examining my life-situation, as I’m sure you have too.  And [...]

“Observe the peculiar pleasure you derive from being unhappy. Observe the compulsion to talk or think about it.” -Eckhart Tolle Have you noticed? We want to be free of pain, but there is a part of us that which takes a peculiar pleasure from reveling in suffering. I had two decades of depression and anxiety [...]

The Struggle Two Zen monks were walking through the woods. Suddenly, one Zen monk turned to the other and slapped him. “Ouch! Why did you do that!” cried the slapped monk. The first said, “I’m Zen monk, I can get away with shit like that.” It is so very simple. And the ego loves to [...]

Awakening humbles me. A strange thing about awakening is frequently we feel we are very conscious, but then life throws something at us and we react in the same conditioned way we always did. It’s a humbling experience, and that’s the point of it. A year ago I had severe and debilitating anxiety. It was [...]