Maybe we also think that some day we will have gained perfect maturity from the lessons of our lives. We expect to be wise old sages like Yoda, not realizing that maturity is just another aspect of decay.Subconsciously we are lured by the expectation that we will reach a stage where we don’t have to... Continue Reading →
“When we become completely aware in the moment, we are completely attentive to what is happening in the moment. In this way we become centered in the moment. And that moment is all we ever really have. Our whole life is made up of moment after moment. If we miss these moments through thinking about... Continue Reading →
The Tibetan word bar do literally means “between two.” Popularly it is taken to refer to the after-death state. However, its principal meaning is the nowness in every moment of time, the continually moving point between past and future. Thus, bardo occurs at every moment of time, and to understand it is to understand the... Continue Reading →
“Let’s say we look at a mountain with normal awareness. Our mind is facing out and following our eyes to the mountain, and perhaps we’re thinking about the last time we saw this mountain, or any mountain, and who we were with at that time, or if the climate or time of day for seeing... Continue Reading →
"Our habitual way of living is to take things so much for granted. We always think there’s gonna be another day. We always think there’s gonna be another chance. In some sense, we think it's gonna go on forever. And therefore, we don’t pay attention. This moment only happens once, in all of eternity. We... Continue Reading →
Subconsciously we are lured by the expectation that we will reach a stage where we don’t have to fix anything ever again. One day we will reach “happily ever after.” We are convinced of the notion of “resolution.” It’s as if everything that we’ve experienced up until now, our whole lives to this moment, was... Continue Reading →
Most of the time we are trying to make the good things last, or we are thinking about replacing them with something even better in the future, or we are sunk in the past, reminiscing about happier times. Ironically, we never truly appreciated the experience for which we are nostalgic because we were too busy... Continue Reading →
Life can become so complicated and filled by preferences and plans that we miss the actual experience of things as they are. We can go for a hike on a beautiful trail in the mountains and spend three-quarters of our time thinking about what we're going to do when we get back. We are so... Continue Reading →
Consider that everything you possess at this moment is, by its very nature, guaranteed not to be yours. Sooner or later, every relationship you have is guaranteed to dissolve. Everything that lives will die; everything that is created eventually will be destroyed. If impermanence is the true nature of reality, this is all the more... Continue Reading →
The challenge of warriorship is to live fully in the world as it is and to find within this world, with all its paradoxes, the essence of nowness. If we open our eyes, open our minds, if we open our hearts, we will find that this world is a magical place. It is not magical... Continue Reading →
We call it a dot because it occurs very abruptly in the situation, on the spotIt is just a dot, which always occurs. The dot occurs when we are uncertain. If you are driving quite fast and you see an intersection up ahead and you are uncertain which way to turn, at that point, there... Continue Reading →
Discursive thinking is basically a set of memories that we are now recycling as “us.” That’s why it’s such a problem. It’s coming from the past. We’ve picked it up from here, there, and everywhere. The only thing that is truly ours is the life that’s in our body that wants to unfold. Everything that... Continue Reading →
One day some people came to the master and asked: How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness or death? The master held up a glass and said: Someone gave me this glass; It holds my water admirably and it glistens in... Continue Reading →
