Tag: correct understanding
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Total Immersion – Nothing Left to Oppose
Read time 3 minutes. Total Immersion is a stand alone article in our Spiritual Immersion series. The revolution doesn’t begin with calm.It begins when you let yourself feel everything —and you stop backing away. Nothing is erased. The flood still comes.The ego still calls from the shore.What changes is the way you meet it.All of it. For most…
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Spontaneous Mind: The Paradox Of An Actively Passive Existence
Read time 4 minutes. Spontaneous Mind is a stand alone article in our series regarding paradox. Former pro quarterback Hugh Millen once told a story about John Elway, who gave him a deceptively simple piece of advice: “You don’t want to be thinking out there. You just want to be reacting.” At the highest level of the…
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Koan Practice: Self-discovery And The Virtue of The Unknown
Read time 6 minutes. Koan Practice is a stand alone article in our series regarding paradox. We’ve been exploring the role paradox plays in cultivating a stable Zen mindset. Each paradox nudges us out of conventional thinking and into a new way of being. Today, let’s pause and step back. What is paradox, truly, in practice?…
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Paradox: Embracing Simplicity To Make Room For Complexity
Read time 5 minutes. This is the first stand alone article in our series regarding paradox. Looking back on the lessons we’ve explored so far, I am once again struck by the power of simplicity. The teachings can be intricate—sometimes overwhelming in their complexity. Yet within simplicity lies a capacity that meets everyone where they…
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Become a Verb: Practice of Self-inquiry in Review
Read time 5 minutes. Become a Verb is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. Our exploration into the practice of self-inquiry has stretched across ten lessons—sometimes direct, sometimes meandering, always circling back to the same essential question: Who am I? The aim has not been to collect more theories but to transform intellectual understanding…
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The Illusion of I and the Burden of Concepts and Ideas
Read time 5 minutes. The attached video opens with a quote from One Dharma by Joseph Goldstein: “Thoughts themselves are the thinker.” The Illusion of I is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. At first glance, this statement is almost disarming in its simplicity. But if we sit with it, the implications unravel the very core…
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Ultimate Reality: Truth That Transcends Linguistic Expression
Read time 5 minutes. Ultimate Reality is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. At the heart of self-inquiry lies the question Who am I?—a question that immediately collides with the mother of all dualities: the false self of the ego and the true self of Tao. Yet here we run into a paradox. Our…
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Essential Nature, I Am and the Duality Within
Read time 4 minutes. Essential Nature is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. In earlier lessons, we explored self-inquiry and the danger of turning Who am I? into a mechanical mantra. Today, let us approach from another angle. Instead of repetition, let us consider the experience of being struck by a poetic line—a phrase that…
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Who Am I?: Making Sense of A Practice of Self-Inquiry
Read time 4 minutes. This is a stand alone article in our Who Am I series. In our recent discussions, we’ve been unpacking the Zen ego in order to better recognize the false sense of self. Now, as we turn toward realizing our true nature, the question naturally arises: Who am I? Self-inquiry is often presented as one…