Category: Authentic Self of Tao
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Launch Spiritual Awakening By Taking The Seat of The Witness
Read time 3 minutes. Launch Spiritual Awakening is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. A quick sidebar in our discussion of the ego. One of the core premises here is simple: self-inquiry can serve as a powerful launch point for spiritual awakening. Letting go of the ego—remembering who you are beneath it—eases mental…
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Zen Ego: Me Against The World
Read time 5 minutes. Zen Ego is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. As we touched on in the last lesson, the practice of self-inquiry begins not by asking who am I? but by clarifying who I am not. Any honest attempt will inevitably circle back to our old companion: the Zen ego. By this I mean…
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Discover Your True Self By Understanding Who You Are Not
Read time 3 minutes. Discover Your True Self is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. In the next series of writings, we’ll step deeper into the distinction between the true self of Tao and the false self of ego. There are many approaches to truth, but one path stands out for its…
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Balance and Harmony: The Middle Way of Mindfulness
Read time 3 minutes. Balance and Harmony is a stand alone article in our Everyday Zen series. This practice of looking within, subtle and nuanced as it is, leads to balance and harmony. Over time, it deepens into a recognition of the balance and harmony already present all around us. But to realize transformation, one condition must…
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Absolute Freedom: The Endgame of Acceptance and Experience
Read time 4 minutes. Absolute Freedom is a stand alone article in our series regarding Acceptance. Our last lesson on radical acceptance turned toward the subject of authentic experience. With it comes a freedom that cannot be manufactured by the ego. This entire series has been pointing us toward that realization, and guiding us along the…
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Roses and Thorns: “Me,” The Great Troublemaker
Read time 3 minutes. A new perspective we can take when walking amidst the garden, roses and thorns. At first glance, this lesson may sound like it is about optimism over pessimism. There is some of that here, but let us take it a step deeper. When we walk into a garden, our attention naturally…
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Emotions: Instinctive Body and Intellectual Mind At Play
Read time 3 minutes. Explore how emotions arise from the tension between instinct and intellect. This stand alone article is part of our letting go series. Our broader discussion around letting go moves another step forward as we examine the next layer of our emotional activity. We’ve already seen that a kind of low-grade, existential distress leads…
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Emotional State: Mood Versus Emotion
Read time 3 minutes. Emotional state reflects ego dynamics. Shifting your seat of awareness can transform emotional experience. This stand alone article is part of our letting go series. We continue our investigation into letting go by peeling back another layer of the emotional onion—this time, mood. For our purposes, mood refers to a general emotional state—a kind of…
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Undetectable Distress: The Void Beneath All We Know
Read time 2 minutes. Undetectable distress is the existential void that gives rise to emotional weight. This stand alone article is part of our letting go series. To truly understand the art of letting go, we need to step back—way back—and ask: why do we even feel the need to let go in the first…