Finding the Real in Ecstasy: The Metaphysics of Joy

We need only reflect on our own daily experience to see that much of suffering, I mean the unnecessary and avoidable suffering, is the result of attachment to what’s pleasant and aversion to what’s unpleasant. Perhaps if we have a bad day where we don’t feel great, we’ve made it what it is in contrast … More Finding the Real in Ecstasy: The Metaphysics of Joy

I Can’t Stand Musicals & More

Sinn, in German is to have meaning, to deploy intelligence forward and outward. Perhaps it’s the same thing: to sin is to sinn, to suppress one’s primordial and divine stupidity for the sake of a loaf of meaning; it’s to beat the innocent stupidity in the head by the hammer of intelligence and wisdom so that life finds some arbitrary and transient meaning. Man can’t tolerate meaninglessness and indeterminate being, that is, sheer stupidity. To bring things into form, into intelligible conceptions and limitations, this man elevates intelligence over and above stupidity and takes the fall and the subsequent suffering. … More I Can’t Stand Musicals & More

The Primordial Confusion: How to See Nonduality in Duality

When we realize that realness belongs to us rather than the things outside us, when we realize that we are that realness itself, it’s only then that we become fearless, for we know that realness can’t hurt itself. Realness just is and and it is us. And that’s why he said “that which doesn’t kills us makes us stronger,” for when we face realness with courage and open heart we become even more real, which is in truth a case of reclaiming our own reality which we had lent to things outside of ourselves. … More The Primordial Confusion: How to See Nonduality in Duality

The Ground of the Soul in Meister Eckhart’s Theology

What keeps us from seeing The Truth is our stories and interpretations about it. Once we cease looking in the direction of this self-created drama, truth will shine on its own accord and without the need for our effort. It’s quite often our own efforts, and more so our spiritual efforts, that muddle the waters of Beyond-Being and keep our true essence hidden from view. … More The Ground of the Soul in Meister Eckhart’s Theology

Seeing With The Flesh: How our bodies tell us what to see and how to see it

The mind simulates situations and reads threats into them, quite innocently, to make sense of uncomfortable sensations and unpleasant feelings. As a result we end up seeing in our visual field more than what’s there. We may see a monster in our spouse, an enemy in our friends, etc., and we do so by projecting malicious intentions onto others’ behavior when we are bothered by our own sensations. In a sense, the bodily sensations warp our our visual field: we actually see the world not with the eyes but rather with the flesh. … More Seeing With The Flesh: How our bodies tell us what to see and how to see it

Mystical Union: Transcending the Cosmos by Pure Seeing

Mystical union occurs outside space and time, so one can say that to become fully naked is to transcend both space and time. And in transcending space and time, the mystic transcends all opposites, and in so transcending it also encompasses all things, including all pairs of opposites, space and time. In mystical union, all opposites are reintegrated into the dimensionless, ever present origin. Some have called it the Void. … More Mystical Union: Transcending the Cosmos by Pure Seeing

Meditation: A scientific method for the study of consciousness

If mastery over the natural sciences has helped us tame and transform nature, mastery over the science of consciousness (by meditation) can help us tame and transform ourselves. Wholeness is always achieved by transforming and reintegrating both poles of reality, the knower and the known. … More Meditation: A scientific method for the study of consciousness