Tag: conscious awareness
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Just a Little Peace | A Greatfruit Meditation
Read time 2 minutes. A short meditation for when your mind refuses to cooperate. Just a Little Peace is a stand alone article in our BeToKnow series. You don’t need a quieter mind. You need a bigger cathedral. There’s a voice in your head.“In your head?”Says who? And that voice…Sometimes loud.Sometimes subtle.Always offering commentary no one asked for.And…
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Strawberry Fields Forever is Not-Not Zen
Read time 3 minutes. Find out what makes “Strawberry Fields Forever” so strange and emotionally familiar and discover “nothing to get hung about” as a mantra. This is a stand alone article in our BeToKnow series. John Lennon’s Strawberry Fields Forever: “That is—you can’t, you know, tune in—but it’s alright.That is, I think it’s not too bad.” How…
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Empty Awareness: Presence Dwarfs the Identity Center
Read time 6 minutes. Empty Awareness is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. Our last lesson on self-inquiry ended with a warning. The question Who am I? is powerful, but it is not meant to become a lifeless mantra, repeated without presence. Nor is it meant to be dissected endlessly until we obsess and overthink.…
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No-Mind, Consciousness, and the Limits of Knowledge
Today’s lesson turns to a wonderful quote from Ramesh S. Balsekar, pointing us toward the essence of Zen training. This ties directly into our earlier discussions on presence. When we are identified with the separate self, we assume consciousness emanates from the individual “I.” But Zen tells us awareness itself is a field, not a…
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Video: Conscious Awareness and the Nature of Illusion
Redefining illusion There are two reoccurring themes referenced in this video. First, you are not your thoughts and emotions. You are the one that witnesses the thoughts and emotions. Second, there is an illusory quality to reality as we experience it. Orgyen Chowang makes a subtle yet profound point regarding illusion which I have often…