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Don’t Waste a Moment

8/28/2017

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Recently, the death of someone I knew brought home to me again the wisdom of living every day as though it were your last.  Not in the sense that many people would make of that … whooping it up, granting your wildest wishes … but in a Buddhist sense:  being at one with your heart, at peace, surrounded by people and things that nourish you.

Of course one can’t spend every moment of every day surrounded only by people and things that nourish you.  The world is after all the dysfunctional place it is and you don’t live in a bubble.  There are things you have to do each day, as part of your work or otherwise, that bring you into contact with that dysfunction and thus have the potential to disturb.

But you can each day through meditation and your spiritual practice ensure that you are one with your heart and at peace and happy, regardless what life throws your way.  With a positive energy flowing outward from you to yourself and everything around you, you can create a virtual forcefield that negativity cannot penetrate.  (See my post, “Changing Your Life by Changing the Direction of Its Energy Flow.”)

Critical to accomplishing this is being present and free of the control of your ego-mind for as many moments during the day as you can muster.  This is critical because unless you are free of your mind, you are ipso facto not at peace and happy, you are not one with your heart.  You cannot generate a positive energy flow.

To help maintain this positive ambience, in addition to maintaining a disciplined practice including daily meditation, make sure that at least when you’re in your home you’re surrounded by things that nourish you, that feed your soul.  Whether it’s artwork, music, good food, whatever.  (Hopefully no one in your home is an antagonist, who drains your strength from you.)  And when you’re not at home, seek out things whenever and wherever possible that nourish your heart, for example nature, which when you look for it can be found in the most unlikely places.

Living each moment as though it were your last is not a morbid thought, at least it shouldn’t be for a Buddhist.  It’s a prescription for life; it’s knowing how to live.  Knowing what’s important, and what’s not.

And as for death, we know that it’s a natural part of life and can come at any time.  Hopefully you’ve reached the point in your practice where one has no fear of death and is prepared and ready for it when it comes.  If not you should meditate on death.  See my post, “Death and Life.”

The point is that every moment we have is precious.  Make the most of it.  Don’t waste a moment.
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How to Love Yourself

8/20/2017

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I have often written that one of the greatest challenges we have in life, as well as in walking the path, is learning to love ourselves, unconditionally.  One would think that the ego-mind would support this.  But it doesn’t.

Instead, the ego-mind is trapped in all the negative labels that we have learned to apply to ourselves.  Even those who think that they are pretty great in various ways, have areas that they feel very negative about and it is those areas that loom large.  The same goes for people with big egos.   And so we all suffer because we all feel insecure and in important respects do not value ourselves.

Someone recently asked me how does one love oneself, unconditionally.  The question itself already indicates a point of confusion.  If you love yourself but only conditionally, then you don’t really love yourself.  It’s the same as when you feel someone loves you conditionally, you don’t really feel loved at all.  It’s either all or nothing.  It’s not that you don’t feel there is something about yourself that could benefit from growth or change, it’s that you love yourself unconditionally just as you are right now.

So the first part of the answer is understanding that you, meaning your ego-mind, is a product of your learned experience.  You have been programmed by that experience to act and think in certain ways, both regarding yourself and the world around you.  Your free will only operates within a very small range.  It’s not the broad free will that our legal and moral systems assume we have.  This does not absolve us of responsibility, but it does absolve us of guilt.  Because guilt assumes a choice, a control, and that just we don’t have.

Better put, we only have control if we are present, aware, and committed to freeing ourselves from the control of our ego-mind.  But even then, as I’ve often noted, all we can do is the best we can.  We are not saints.  Perfection, 24/7 awareness, is not the goal.  And the ego-mind is very strong.  As long as we are trying, as long as we are walking the path, there is never failure.

At this stage of your understanding, you learn to love yourself because you’re just the way your are.  It’s the same as looking at all the things that push your buttons and saying, it’s just the way it is.  You cannot change your ego-mind.  You have limited control over what you think, do, or say.  With that awareness, develop compassion for yourself.

So just do it!  Love yourself!  Even if you’ve done terrible things or think you are a failure, love yourself.  And have the intent to act in a more spiritually appropriate way in the future.

The second part is becoming aware that the person that you don’t love, the image that you don’t love, is a hologram of your ego-mind.  It is not your true self.  Your true self is your Buddha nature, your heart.  And it has none of the qualities or labels that cause you to not love yourself.  It is indeed the polar opposite.  It would never harm someone and would never label you a failure.  What is there not to love?

None of this gainsays your actual talents or weaknesses, or the nature of your physicality.  What I am saying is that when you connect with your heart you stop applying labels, whether positive or negative, to yourself.  You realize you are just as you are.  And love yourself as you are.

“But if my heart is my true self, why do I keep doing harmful things or thinking negative thoughts about myself?” the reader may well ask.  This is a common question.  Whether you’re just starting your practice or whether you’ve been doing it for years as I have, the ego-mind does not give us a rest.   It keeps rising.  Even though as our practice goes deeper, it rises less frequently and when it does it is not as strong.

And so it is very common for people to feel discouraged, to feel that they are weak, not committed enough.  You get the idea.  And actually the more committed we are to our practice, the more common it is to get down about these “failures.”

But we must always remember that the ego-mind is very strong and its roots go very deep.  We have fed our ego mind throughout our lives.  Whereas our true self has until now sort of been orphaned; it has not been nourished and so is weak compared to the ego-mind.  It’s roots don’t go deep.

The point is that these aren’t failures.  That is the ego-mind talking.  This is just the way life is and we do the best we can in walking the path.  Always with the intent of trying to be present and aware more moments of the day and so not fall under our ego-mind’s control.

When you understand that, then one is free to be one with your heart and to love yourself unconditionally … to embrace all aspects of your being and experience.
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There Is Nothing Wrong with You

8/11/2017

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The Sufi have developed a chart of nine personality types (the enneagram) and the “false core beliefs” that underlie each of the nine. These beliefs reflect the conclusions about ourselves we came to as the result of our early childhood traumas or experiences.

When I read the nine false core beliefs (all nine are listed at the end of the post), I knew which one was mine, “There must be something wrong with me.”   In one way, this was not a revelation to me because I have been aware for many years that this belief had a major negative impact on my childhood. But it was a revelation in that I now understood why I did not feel happy despite all the progress I had made on the path, why my face has been in a perpetual frown.  I had not “connected the dots.”

This false core belief was so deeply embedded in my ego-mind that no matter how far my spiritual practice had come, this belief still controlled the overall ambiance of my persona. Thus I always felt there was some grayness surrounding me.

When I was fighting my perpetual frown and trying to rid myself of it, it only made this false core belief stronger. As the ancient Chinese poem "Affirming Faith in Mind" says, "seek rest and no rest comes instead."

But after I read of this false core belief, knowing it was mine, and opened up my heart to embrace all aspects of my being, my heart took this aspect of my psyche which was so deep it was in my bones and removed all internal struggle. It sort of smothered this negative feeling with love. I was made whole.

Now I have added the following to my morning mantras: “I am aware of the suffering caused by feeling that there is something wrong with me, and yet I know that feeling is just a product of my mind.  And so I say to it, ‘Not me!’  And in truth I know that there is nothing wrong with me.  I am a normal human being with my weaknesses and strengths, getting through life as best I can.”

When I say these words it is cathartic.  I feel a burden is being lifted from me.  For the most part, I no longer feel grayness enveloping me; my face is not in a perpetual frown.  Instead I feel the joyfulness of my true Buddha nature, the well-spring of loving kindness, flow outward from my heart to myself and all those around me.  And when I’m not in that space, I usually sense it very quickly and return to it.

The nine false core beliefs:
1. There must be something wrong with me.
2. I am worthless.
3. I have an inability to do …
4. I’m inadequate.
5. I don’t exist.
6. I’m alone.
7. I’m incomplete, there is something missing.
8. I am powerless.
9. There is no love - it’s a loveless world.
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Teaching Only Points the Way

8/4/2017

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Many people walking the Buddhist path are disappointed, sometimes frustrated, because despite going to temple, reading, and meditating with some regularity, they just don’t seem to be making much progress in reducing, let alone ending, their suffering.  They are still pulled by their ego-mind, their buttons are still pushed, as they have been in the past.  They have a greater sense of calm, but they still suffer.

There are several reasons why this experience is not uncommon.  The first is, most people read spiritual books or listen to teaching without then stopping and thinking about what they’ve read/heard, wrapping their heads around it, and applying it to their lives.  They don’t engage what they’ve been taught.  Without such introspection there can be no progress.  Without truly understanding what it is that we’ve been taught and applying it to our lives, the teaching just goes in one ear and out the other.

The second reason is, most people do not have a disciplined practice, in that they do not meditate on a daily basis.  When I have brought this up in sangha discussions, people have come up with all sorts of reasons, weak excuses, for why they don’t meditate daily … they’re tired, or something comes up, or they meditated twice already that week.  People just don’t get the importance of a disciplined practice.  (See my post, “Discipline - It’s Essential.”)  Believe it or not, I was even admonished once by a senior sangha member for talking about this aspiration because, I was told, most people wouldn’t be able to do it and so would feel bad about themselves.  Nonsense!

Finally, without a disciplined practice in which one is able to sit quietly and go deep within oneself, and without the deep faith that is part of that practice, one is probably not going to come to know the truths of Buddhism from within oneself.  It’s very beneficial receiving good teaching and then learning, engaging, and believing in the various truths.  That can take one far along the path.  But without knowing them from within one doesn’t have the ability to go to the next stage and consistently be free of the ego-mind’s control.  (See my post, “Proof of the Nature of Mind - Fear, Ego, and Buddha Mind.”)

When going to temple or reading a book, I have rarely encountered the lessons contained in this post.  I truly think that most religious teachers underestimate the potential of their sangha members (as opposed to their personal “serious” students) and so they don’t challenge the sangha as part of dharma talks.  Many temples don’t even have dharma talks.  Only the Vietnamese Zen monks I encountered in Michigan constantly challenged all members of the sangha.  It was rough for many, but I think that most benefited from this.

Many teachers say that no one should just adopt the structure or concepts they teach.  That would just replace one external structure (our learned experience) with another, and conflict inevitably results, as indicated above.  Krishnamurti states this more emphatically then perhaps any other teacher I’ve encountered (see his book, Freedom From the Known.)  He says that we have to have an internal revolution to truly transform our lives and end our suffering, to be free from the known.  And this internal revolution comes from knowing the truths from within, because the truths are the polar opposite of everything we’ve been taught.

These revelations or epiphanies can occur during meditation, they can occur when you wake up in the morning, or they can just come at you out of the blue.  The point is that if you’ve been disciplined in your practice and if you’ve truly engaged the teaching you’ve received, you will come to the truths from within.  You cannot force it; it happens when it happens.  It may take years; that certainly was my experience.  But that takes nothing away from your practice and your progress.
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    All
    1. The Goal Of Buddhism
    2. End Of Suffering Cheat Sheet
    3. 12 Steps On The Buddhist Path
    4. The Choice Is Yours
    5. You Have A Self But It's Not The Ego
    A Buddhist Trinity - Amended
    A Buddhist Trinity - Further Support
    A Buddhist Trinity - The Core Path To Peace And Happiness.
    A Carefree Day And Life
    Acceptance Courage And Wisdom
    Accepting The Life Of Those Around You
    Acknowledgement Of The Cause Of Suffering Is Key
    Allow Nothing To Disturb Your Peace And Happiness
    An Open Letter To President-elect Trump And All Americans
    Antagonist Or Challenge?
    A Path To Compassion And Loving Kindness
    Approaching The Other Shore
    Are You Reading And Willing To Let Your Cravings Go?
    As A Buddhist How Do You Plan - Revisited Again - Relying On Your Buddha Nature
    As A Buddhist How Do You Think About The Future?
    As A Buddhist … Revisited Again - Do We Need To Know Where We’re Headed?
    As A Buddhist ... Revisited - Planning Without Thinking
    As A Buddhist … Revisited Yet Again - How Do You Implement Moving Forward Without Having A Destination Point?
    A Simpler Path To Experiencing Joy
    Attachment To Self
    Avatars - Their Usefulness
    Back To Basics
    Be A Light Unto Yourself And Others
    Be Aware When Reading - Yearn To Please Or To Offer Joy?
    Be Careful The Monk/Teacher You Choose
    Befriend Yourself
    Being Aware Of Abundance
    Being Good To Yourself
    Being - Not Being
    Being One With Your True Buddha Self
    Being Present Is Being Flexible
    Being Present Is The Key To Peace And Contentment
    Being Present - No What If’s Or Imagining The Future
    Being Present - Part 2
    Being Present Requires Faith
    Being There For Someone
    Belief In You Buddha Nature - The Beginning And The End
    Be One With Your Divine Essence
    Be Sustained By The Love Of Buddha Within You
    Be The Eye Of The Hurricane
    Beware Complacency
    Beyond Acceptance
    Beyond Awareness
    Beyond Dispassion - The Next Step
    Boredom
    Boundaries
    Buddha Mind - Child Mind
    Buddha Mind Free Of Thought
    Buddha Nature Gentle And Serene
    Buddhism And The Divine
    Burying Your Old Identity
    Can't Find Your Buddha Nature - Look In The Mirror
    Change Your Life By Changing The Direction Of Its Energy Flow
    Changing The Direction Of Your Energy Flow - II - Manifesting
    Changing Your Reactions
    Chicken Or Egg ?
    Co-existence Of Buddha Nature And Ego-Mind
    Compassion
    Control
    Craving "Survival" Condemns You To Suffering
    Crying - An Understanding
    Darkness Before Light
    Death And Life
    Death And Life - Part 2
    Death Heaven And Hell
    Deflating The Ego
    Dependence
    Desire - The Gerbil Trap
    Desperate For Love And Acknowledgment?
    Discipline - It’s Essential
    Dislike - An Insidious Obstruction
    Dispassion Does Not Mean Wtihout Feeling
    Dispassion - Enter The State Of By Becoming Aware Of The Emptiness Of Our Ego-mind
    Dispassion - Obstacles And Options To Achieve It
    Dispassion - Unlocking The Doors
    Don't Just Say No To Your Mind
    Don’t Waste A Moment
    Don’t Waste A Moment
    Do We Suffer Or Not? - The Choice Is Ours
    Do You Really Want To Be At Peace And Content
    Ego - Changing Your Relationship With It
    Embrace The Moment Not Merely Accept
    Emptiness - What Does It Mean?
    Emptying Myself Of Myself - The Divine's Will Not Mine
    Enter Your Buddha Mind
    Equanimity But Feel Someone’s Pain
    Everything That Disturbs Us Is A Product Of Suffering
    Everything You Need To Be Happy
    Evil - How Should A Buddhist Respond?
    Expectations? - Not If You Want To End Suffering
    Experiencing The Fullness Of The Present
    Facing My Insecurity
    Faith And Mind Not Separate
    Faith And Mind Not Separate - 2
    Faith And Reason
    Faith Even When You Are Dependent On Others
    Faith: The Essential Element Of Spiritual Practice
    Faith: What Is It And Why Is It Essential?
    Fear And Anxiety - There's More
    Fear Anxiety And Craving - Chicken Or Egg #2
    Fear Arises From Our Desire To Control
    Fearlessness
    Fear's Destructive Impact
    Fear V Common Sense
    Fear V Faith
    Feeling Lack - A Most Insidious Perception
    Feeling Off? - Adjust Your Attitude
    Finding Happiness In Each Moment
    Forgiveness - A Different Take
    Freedom From The Future
    Freedom From The Known
    Freedom - What Does It Mean?
    Freeing Yourself From Anger And Resentment
    Freeing Yourself From Attachments
    Freeing Yourself From Fear
    Freeing Yourself From Fear II
    Freeing Yourself From Suffering - The Prerequisite Step
    Free Of Thought - Important Clarification
    Frustration ... Our Canary In The Mine
    Get Over Yourself
    Getting To Know Your True Buddha Self
    Give Yourself A Choice
    Going Through Life With Blinders - The Obstruction Of Labels
    Good Guys Finish Last?
    Go Slow
    Grateful For Being Alive
    Guilt
    Guilt And The Defensive Beast
    Happenstance
    Happenstance - Part II - You Your Buddha Nature And The Universe
    Happiness Is Elusive
    Happiness - What You Need To Be Happy
    Happy New Year 2017?
    Have Directions Not Goals
    Have Faith In The Process
    Have You Heard Of Narcs - The Final Answer To Why I Was Frowning
    Healing Your Inner Child - Healing Your Wounded Heart
    Healing Your Inner Child - Update
    Hell Is Just Resistance To Life
    How I Failed Myself
    How The Ego-Mind Tries To Destroy Faith
    How To Desire Yet Not Crave?
    How To Find Faith?
    How To Find Your True Self Your Heart
    How To Free Yourself From The Control Of Your Ego-Mind
    How To Live In Our World
    How To Love Yourself
    How To Observe Through The Eyes Of Your True Buddha Self
    How To Offer Others Joy
    How To Protect Yourself Against Psychic Attack
    How To Respond To Acts Of Aggression
    How To Spiritually Respond To The Election?
    How To Start The Day
    How To Surrender Your Ego Or Turn Your Will And Your Life Over To The Care Of Your True Buddha Nature
    Humbling Myself
    Humility
    Humility: The Truth About "My" Good Accomplishments
    I Am Being Reborn
    I Am Therefore I Am
    If Nothing Offends All Internal Struggle Ceases
    If This Is Practical Buddhism Why The Pastoral Setting
    "If You Love Someone You Will Suffer"
    Imagining In Meditation
    I’m Grateful To Be A Jubu
    Inner Happiness - Outer Happiness
    Innocence Or Ignorance?
    Insecurity - Nurture Not Nature
    Instead Of Forgiveness Show Compassion
    It Doesn’t Have To Be
    It's All About Survival - Or Is It?
    It's A Sin -The Harm We Inflict On Ourselves
    It’s Just The Way It Is
    It’s Just The Way It Is And It’s All OK
    It’s No Crime To Think About Oneself!
    Joy - A Hopefully Final Take
    Joy - At Last Real Understanding
    Joy - Experience It Now
    Joyful Dispassion - Excited Non-attachment
    Joyful Dispassion - Update
    Joy/Happiness - A Choice We Make
    Joy - One More Take
    Joy - Yet Another Take
    Knowing Best?
    Know Thyself - The Power Of Awareness
    Lack V Abundance
    Let Go - Let God
    Letting Go
    Letting Others Go Their Way
    Liberate Yourself From Thinking
    Likes And Dislikes - A Potential Trap Examined
    Listening - Why Is It So Difficult?
    Love At First Sight - NOT
    Love/Loving-Kindness - Defined In The Buddhist Context
    Love Yourself Unconditionally
    Make It Your Own - An Extension Of “The Heart’s Embrace”
    Making Lists - Objectifying Your Fears The Things That Push Your Buttons
    Making Peace With The Outside; Making Peace With The Inside
    Making The Most Of Every Day
    Manifestation - DANGER DANGER!
    Manifesting
    Manifesting In The Moment
    Meditation - Coming Home Releasing And Being At Peace
    Meditation - The Importance Of Daily Practice
    Memory - Don’t Trust It
    Mental Obstructions
    Mind Resting Undisturbed
    Mirror Mirror On The Wall - A Revelation
    Money And Spirituality
    My Daily Task
    My Daily Task - 2
    My Ego's Sneak Attack
    My Life - A Being Dichotomized
    My Meditation Isn't Working!
    My Mind Trapped Me
    My Road To Peace
    My True Buddha Self And Me
    Nature Of Mind Revealed - A Transformation
    Never Stop Going Deeper
    Newly Discovered Trauma
    Nirvana - It's Right Before Your Eyes
    No Expectations No Hope?
    No One’s Life Is Ordinary
    No Reason To Be Defensive
    No Self - Not!
    No Spiritual Force Can Protect You From Yourself Your Mind
    Not Engaging Your Thoughts
    Nothing To Prove
    Not Me - Peeling Off The Layers Of Our Ego-Mind
    Observe
    Offering Others Joy - From The Heart
    Offer Joy Experience Joy
    Offer Myself Joy!
    Oneness Does Not Mean Sameness
    Opening The Door To Being Present
    Our Over-sexed Culture And Lives
    Pain - A Cry For Help
    Paradise Lost
    Peace And Happiness Is Your Birthright
    Personal Boundaries As Part Of A Buddhist Life
    Preparing A Child For Life
    Pride Is A Function Of The Devil
    Problem - NOT!
    Proof Of The Nature Of Mind - Fear Ego And Buddha Mind
    Prosperity And Abundance
    Protecting Yourself From The Elements
    Psychiatry Needs To Incorporate Buddhist Teaching
    Putting Spirituality Into Practice 24/7
    Que Sera Sera - Whatever Will Be Will Be
    Real Clarity V The Delusion Of Clarity
    Reality Is Not What We Experience
    Receiving The Love Of Your Buddha Nature
    Reciting Affirmations
    Reclaiming The Narrative Of My Life - II
    Reclaiming The “Story” Of Your Life
    Reflecting On 75 Years
    Reincarnation - An Unorthodox Take
    Rejoice And Be Happy
    Rejoice And Be Happy - II
    Releasing All Desire
    Releasing All Desire - II
    Releasing Negative Energy
    Renouncing What You Have Always Depended On
    Replacing Weakness With Strength
    Reprogram Your Mind To End Your Suffering
    Returning Home - Returning To Your True Buddha Nature
    Right Attitude
    Ritual Burning Of The Past
    Safety Defined
    Saying Grace
    Saying “No” To Negative Thought
    Seeing The Light
    Seeing Through The Eyes Of Your True Buddha Self
    Seek And You Shall Find
    Seeking Guidance From Buddha Mind Not Ego Mind
    See Things Through Your Heart Not Your Mind
    See Yourslef And The World Through Different Eyes
    Self Re-examined
    Self-Responsibility During The Pandemic
    Sex - Misused And Abused - A Different Perspective
    Shall We Dance? - An Invitation To The Dance Of Death
    Shame
    Soul’s Yearning Distorted By The Ego-Mind
    Soul -True Self - And Ego-Mind
    Speaking The Truth
    Speaking To Your Buddha Nature/Divinity/Heart
    Speak The Truth But Beware
    Starving The Ego
    Step #10: Continued To Be Mindful Of The Arising Of Cravings And Desires And When They Arose Did Not Attach To Them And Allowed Them To Subside.
    Step #11: Sought Through Meditation To Constantly Improve Our Conscious Contact With Our True Buddha Nature
    Step #1: Admitted Our Cravings Cause Us Suffering And That We Are Powerless Over Them
    Step #2: Came To Believe That Our True Buddha Nature Could Restore Us To Peace And Created A Platform Of Serenity
    Step #3: Committed Ourselves To The Path By Practicing The Five Precepts And The Six Paramitas
    Step #4 Came To Believe That All Our Perceptions Are Learned - That They Are Just A Product Of Our Ego-mind - And That Our Ego-mind Is Not Our True Self - Instead We Knew That Our True Self Is Our Heart.
    Step #5: Were Ready And Willing And Made A Decision To Surrender Our Ego And Turn Our Will And Our Lives Over To The Care Of Our True Buddha Nature Opening Our Heart To Embrace All Aspects Of Our Being.
    Step #6: Came To Believe That We Have Everything We Need Within Ourselves To Be At Peace And Happy
    Step #7: Came To Be Free Of Our Cravings
    Step #8: Were Entirely Ready To Love Ourselves Unconditionally And Have Compassion For Ourselves And To Accept Ourselves And The World Around Us As Being The Way They Are Because It's Just The Way It Is.
    Step #9: Made A List Of Persons We Had Harmed And Made Amends To Them
    Stopping Self-Sabotage
    Strength Not Courage
    Suffering Is Universal - But Why?
    Survival - The Force That Controls Our Life
    Taking Pleasure In Each Passing Moment
    Taking Refuge In Yourself
    Taking Responsibility Is Not Blame
    Teaching Only Points The Way
    Test The Wisdom Of What You’re Doing Or Thinking Of Doing
    The 3-legged Stool Of Spirituality
    The Art Of Self-Nurturing
    The Challenge Of Staying Aware
    The Coexistence Of Ego And Buddha Nature
    The Devil Is Alive And Well
    The Distinction Between Pain And Suffering
    The Divine And Man
    The Ego As Saboteur
    The Emptiness Of Intrinsic Existence And Its Relevance To Global Warming
    The Felt Need For Acknowledgment
    The Five Precepts
    The Four Bodhisattva Vows
    The Fourfold Path To Freedom
    The Four Noble Truths
    The Freedom Of Focusing On Someone Or Something Outside Yourself
    The Heart/Mind Divide
    The Heart’s Embrace - More On Freeing Ourselves
    The Heart's Embrace - Updated
    The Hurt Of Rejection - Its Enduring Impact
    The Illusion Of Control
    The Imperative Of Self-Preservation
    The Lessons Of Siddhartha
    The Light Within You
    The Limits Of Rational Thought
    The Meaning And Power Of Selflessness
    The Middle Way - A Way Back From The Breach
    The Mind And The Wounded Inner Child
    The Mind And Your Inner Child - II
    The Mind Is Sneaky - Surrender It
    The Mind's Deep State
    The Mind - Suffering Connection
    The Miracle That Is You
    The Misleading Teaching Of No Self
    The Missing Noble Truth
    The Myanmar Situation
    The Mystery Of The Ego - An Answer
    The New Me - I Not I
    The Noble Eightfold Path
    The Original Trauma - Birth
    The Parable Of The Raft
    The Path As Tightrope
    The Path From Peace To Joy
    The Path Is Never-Ending
    The Power Of Affirmations - Use Carefully
    The Power Of Giving Voice To Thoughts
    The Present Beyond Us
    The Purpose Of Life
    The Purpose Of Meditation
    The Push/Pull Of Ego-Mind
    The Question Is Not Whether The Glass Is Half Empty Or Half Full
    There Are No Bad Persons
    There Is Nothing Wrong With You
    The Remnants Of The Ego
    The Serenity Prayer
    The Soul’s Yearning And How Best To Fulfill It
    The Stages Of Acceptance
    The Stages Of Man’s Spirit
    The Subconscious
    The Three Stages Of Embrace
    The Truth – Seeing It And Speaking It
    The Unaware Consumer
    The Wisdom Of Chickens
    The Wisdom Of Now
    This Is Not Me This Is Not My Self
    Thought Objects
    To Free Yourself From Cravings You Must Free Yourself Of Fear
    To Love Unconditionally = Loving-Kindness
    Tonglen - How To Approach Its Practice
    To Observe Free Of Mind - To Experience Joy
    To See Opportunity You Must Be Free Of Fear
    To Thine Own Self Be True
    Trauma
    Trauma Begets Trauma
    Trauma Denied No Longer
    Trauma - Healing It Is Critical
    Trauma - It’s Release
    Turning Your Will Over To Your True Buddha Nature
    Waking Up
    Walking Away From Modernity
    Walking On The Beach
    Walking The Path - It’s A Lot Of Work But It’s Well Worth It
    Wealth Poverty And Buddhism
    We Are All One
    We Are Not Meant To Suffer
    We Have Everything We Need To Be At Peace And Happy Inside Ourselves
    We Have Lost Our Sense Of Place
    We Make Our Own Mental Environment
    We Never Stop Healing
    What Activates The Ego-Mind?
    What Are We Celebrating On July 4th?
    What Blocks Me From Being Truly Present And Radiating My Inner Energy 24/7?
    What If The Present Is Bad?
    What Is Joy? What Is Happiness?
    What Is Life Without Emotion?
    What Is Most Important To You?
    What Is Your Task In Life?
    What Lies Behind Our Good Deeds?
    What Nourishes My Soul?
    What Price Peace And Happiness?
    What's In A Name?
    What's Real And What’s Not Real?
    What’s The Real Challenge - Life Or The Ego?
    What To Do When You Lose Faith?
    What Use Fame Power Fortune?
    What You Can’t Will And What You Can
    When A Heart’s Desire Is Commandeered By The Ego
    When Joy Is Not Joy
    When Love Is Not Love ...
    When Nothing Offends
    When Really Bad Things Happen
    When Smiling Toddlers Cry
    When The Mind Intervenes
    Who Am I?
    Who Are You?
    Who/What Is Your True Self?
    Why Diets Fail - A Buddhist Perspective
    Why Do We Crave?
    Why Is Being Grateful Such A Challenge?
    Why Is It So Hard To Be Free Of Your Ego?
    Why Is Mankind Trapped In A Box?
    Why Point The Compass Towards Tomorrow?
    Why We Take Offense
    Wisdom - What Is It?
    Wounded Our Ego-Mind Becomes The Devil
    Yes Virginia There Is A True Buddha Nature
    Yet Another Past Attachment
    You Are Not Alone
    You As Observer
    You Can Be In Control
    You Don't Need To Be Liked
    Your True Self And The Irrelevance Of The Min

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