Category: Teachings

There is a line clearly dividing the first 50 years of life from the years since (twelve, at the present accounting). From here, looking back, it’s as if the time before were black-and-white, two-dimensional, a pencil sketch of existence. Though at the time life often appeared (and felt) luxurious, if sometimes tainted with worry and dissatisfaction. (more…)

There are two kinds of suffering: the kind that bears fruit, and the kind that’s pointless (and therefore doomed to repeat).  (more…)

Freedom is living unencumbered. You are free to move easily among whatever things come along. You are soft, without the tension of doing, of anticipation; without the readiness to defend. (more…)

What appears to be a single multifaceted response to a moment of life is, if you look closely, several steps that occur in rapid succession. They happen in a particular order. Every time. The steps come fast like falling dominoes, so the impression is that they occur concurrently. As if all of a piece. (more…)

I found a door I hadn’t known was there. It was like entering into another dimension, only this wasn’t science fiction, or a dream, or delusion. It was just plain true. There had been a door all along, in the room in which life-so-far had taken place, fifty years of it. Suddenly I turned and looked in a direction I’d never looked before, and a door I’d never seen was slowly opening, waiting for me to step through. I stepped. (more…)