Category Archives: Awakening

Yet ask: if stability is a “user-generated illusion that is helpful,” then what is stillness? After all, I have said and not retracted this: The you you think that you are – this body, this personality, this history – isn’t God. Rather, the stillness inside us – the deep center from which all peace springsContinue reading “A Non-Illusory Stillness”

Let’s say – more or less adopting Humberto Maturana’s phrasing – that love is the consensual coordination of doings among observers, each of whom could be the other. On this view, love is basically the embodied enacted agreement, tacit or otherwise, to cooperate with one another in the activities that are our living and giveContinue reading “Loving the One and the Other”

Stability and durability are user-generated illusions that are helpful. They facilitate happiness and happiness – like attention – can be our spiritual teacher if we want. What do I mean when I say that “stability and durability are user-generated illusions that are helpful?” Well, I don’t perceive the back stairs as clouds of atoms whichContinue reading “Letting Happiness be Our Spiritual Teacher”

I am moved by these lines from Matthew’s Gospel: You shall love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second commandment is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.Continue reading “Loving God Means Loving Others”

Say that we go to Boston, you and I. Everybody wants to go to Boston. Boston is fun and interesting and once you’ve been there, you’re a changed person. Boston goes with you. It becomes a way of life. Say, too, that we have heard stories about a certain Boston experience – a way theContinue reading “Transcending Even Awakening: A Haibun”

I say sometimes to my students: “take what you learn and act in the world with it. Do something.” And when they ask what they should do, I tell them to help somebody in a way that makes both parties happier than they were before the encounter started. Related to this – especially when itContinue reading “Being Homo Amans: Happiness as a Spiritual Practice”