Journeying into the Present
A Zen Master, Hakuin, was accused of getting the teenage daughter of a neighbor pregnant. The village was shocked, the Master lost his reputation and no-one came to see him anymore. When the baby was born, the parents demanded he look after it, which he did for a year. The daughter finally confessed who the…
Judgment begins with naming things. First we name and then we assign values. The world then becomes how things are, have been and should be, according to mind. Eckhart Tolle talks of taking a walk in nature, looking at the trees and flowers and practicing not naming them – just seeing them, experiencing them. The…
When we are attached – to thinking, people, places, situations, things, health, money, status, to name just a few attachments – we end up believing that our happiness depends on the having of those things and the not-having becomes a cause of suffering and unhappiness. (Or the reverse). There are 3 tenets of Buddhism that when…
Have you ever thought of your hands as an entry point into the present moment? Recently reading Russel Williams in Not I, Not Other than I: The Life and Teachings of Russell Williams, brought this truth to my conscious awareness. He is answering a question about evolving gradually towards a spiritual state as opposed to…
Trying to make something happen originates in the mind; allowing something to happen originates in Presence, in the Present Moment – the Universe expressing its magnificence through you. In trying to make something happen, there’s an element of needing to control events, situations and people. There may be intense effort, frustration when things don’t turn…
Remember when you were a kid and on a car trip that seemed to take forever, and you just couldn’t wait to be there? Remember that feeling of frustration and impatience? Are we there yet? was the question of the moment. The now, in that car, mile after boring mile peeling away under those trusty…
How likes and dislikes color our days, our decisions and our peace of mind. I travel a lot throughout the USA in a motor home and have done so for many years. It’s a 34 ft (10.5 m) motor home and I tow a car – so while it’s not a big rig as we…
Without commitment, dreams fall by the wayside into the dust of a barren land, never to come to the realization of their fullest potential. Enthusiasm for a new idea is not commitment. Learning, researching, talking about an idea – all of which are valuable at some stage of making a dream come true – are…
Eastern philosophy and teachings describe the endless chatter of the mind as the monkey mind – it just won’t get off your back. The non-stop commentary can become very tiresome as you start to become more aware of the fact you aren’t your mind – which is simply an aspect of your personality built from…
Are you willing to stop mid-flight in the busyness of your days and create space for Presence / Life Itself to flow, even just for a moment or two, a minute or two? It takes time and commitment to free yourself from the noisy mind that controls our day-to-day living through our learned brain tracks.…
Brain tracks run our lives. They support us in living a passionate and fulfilled life, they cause to live a life of ‘quiet desperation’ – or somewhere in the middle. What IS a brain track and why do I need to be aware of or even care about knowing what my brain tracks are? Most…
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there’s a field. I’ll meet you there” – Rumi There’s a place – beyond your thinking and emotions, beyond your beliefs, suppositions and habits -where you can go to find whatever it is in life that you seek. There are no answers or solutions in the so-called ‘outside…
Happy 2018 is the traditional welcome to a new year. I hope all your wishes and dreams come true. I experienced a New Year of an entirely different kind last night at Mickey Singer‘s Temple of the Universe. Our focus was on all that we were conscious of inside us that wasn’t working in our…
An enormous depth in my understanding and awareness of the Present Moment has been opening up recently for me. Michael Singer‘s online course “Living From a Place of Surrender” is responsible for this opening. I absolutely love his description of how life from the big bang on has invested 35.8 billion years in the making…
Today I heard a friend describe how she wasn’t deserving of a special love relationship in her life and had decided therefore that being in such a relationship wasn’t her ‘lesson’. My immediate RE-action was to say that was her ego mind talking, and what did ‘who she really was’ have to say about that.…
… that is butterfly kiss fragile. It exists between longing/wishing/hoping/wanting more because we see our lives as lacking, and guilt/anger/despair/hopelessness – all of which is the endless story telling of the mind. In between this array of hope and despair is a gossamer thin line, an entryway into infinite wisdom, joy, love and laughter. In…
It’s funny where inspiration comes from. Here I am having committed to an 8 week boot camp with a program called Bright Line Eating, which is about healing addictions to flour and sugar and creating a healthy, thin and free lifestyle and I find myself diving into new depths of understanding how integrity works or…
I have become a rat catcher! It’s absolutely awesome. Who would have thought rat catching could be such fun? Recently I was engrossed in a project and I made a mistake. I suddenly heard in my head “You ALWAYS do that. What is the matter with you? Dummy!” “Gottcha!” I yelled. Luckily there was only…
Recently I met a new friend! Meeting new friends is always energizing and fun as you explore each other’s worlds and get to know one another. We have a lot in common; a lot of life experiences in common, a lot of life perspectives in common, and a love of the written word in common.…
Did you ever consider that since you are an expression of the Universe, a child of God, a wave in the ocean of consciousness, that the actions you take in your life contribute to evolution? That as you awaken and become aware of yourself as an eternal being having a physical life experience, so too…