Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Sam Harris speaks eloquently about non-dual mindfulness

A few days ago I wrote a blog post about my Zen'ish adage that when you're sad, be sad; when you're happy, be happy.  I mentioned that part of the inspiration for that post came from listening to a conversation Sam Harris had with Nikki Mirghafori on his Waking Up app.  Mirghafori believes that equanimity is central to spirituality. She has a dualistic approach to enlightenment, or realization, where the goal is to attain an inward state of silent/pure consciousness that is separate from everyday consciousness.  I skipped quite a bit of the more than two hour conversation. But at…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

Zen’ish adage: when you’re sad, be sad; when you’re happy, be happy

Whenever I have a Grand Intuition about something that really is obvious, I'm never sure whether (1) I deserve to be honored in the Great Hall of Enlightened Beings or (2) laughed at for not realizing sooner what I should have understood long ago. (Personally, I'll go with #1, but I can't argue with someone else who favors #2.) The core of today's Grand Intuition is the title of this blog post: When you're sad, be sad; when you're happy, be happy. It's an emotional echo of some familiar Zen sayings. Chop wood, carry water. When hungry, eat. When thirsty, drink.…
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Posted inAwareness Spiritual practice/meditation

Lose yourself to find yourself

For a long time, over three decades, I assumed that a central goal of my life was to know myself. Another way of saying this was self-realization. The idea was that somewhere hidden away in my psyche was a True Me who was different from the current Untrue Me. So I diligently meditated every morning. Sometimes as long as two and a half hours, sometimes for a shorter period, but never less than an hour.  I don't regret all that meditating, which totaled well over 20,000 hours. Plus, I've continued to meditate every day since the end of my religious…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Bruce Lee’s Six Diseases of a competitive attitude

I'm prone toward feeling competitive. That was obvious when I was playing competitive tennis. I didn't like to lose. It's been less obvious now. But today when I started reading Be Water, My Friend, a book written by Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, after putting it aside for a while, I came across her description of how Bruce Lee viewed a competitive attitude in everyday relationships and situations. I saw myself in these Six Diseases. Maybe you will also. Shannon Lee says: (the indented passages are from Bruce Lee) If we want to look at how we practice all forms…
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Posted inConsciousness Spiritual practice/meditation

You can’t go beyond mind, because that’s what you are

Yesterday Spence Tepper, a frequent commenter on this blog, responded to Appreciative Reader, another frequent commenter. I enjoy how Tepper thinks, even when I don't agree with him. Below I've shared in bold italics some observations on his interesting comment. Hi ARYou asked""Please explain in clear words what exactly you were trying to say."Thank you for the clarity of your question. It was a great question. And I appreciate the response from Tepper below, which is pleasingly direct. Beyond mind meaning beyond your own conventional thinking. OK, I agree that it isn't possible to go beyond the mind, because mind isn't…
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Posted inAwareness Reality Spiritual practice/meditation

The best spiritual practice could be…nothing

Here's some thoughts about the value of basing your spiritual practice on... drumroll please... absolutely nothing. But I'll introduce this topic by sharing an anecdote. Yesterday I took our dog for a walk around the community lake near our rural property. A house is for sale that overlooks the lake. A woman and two children were walking down from the house toward the lake, seemingly because the family was looking into buying the house. A young boy came up to the fence that our dog and me were on the other side of. He pointed and said, "nice lake." Then…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

This talk by Alan Watts is marvelous

Thank you, Sam Harris. As of January 1, he's arranged to have about 100 hours of recorded talks by Alan Watts put on his Waking Up app.  I've read just about of all of Watts' books. Some I've read numerous times, notably The Wisdom of Insecurity, one of my favorite books.  The recordings are arranged in categories: Tao of Philosophy, Philosophies of Asia, Myth & Religion, Philosophy & Society, Comparative Philosophy, Ways of Liberation, Religion of No Religion, Eastern & Western Zen, Taoism, Zen & Meditation, Comparative Religion, Early Radio Talks, Human Consciousness, Buddhism, Spiritual Alchemy, The Arts, The Future,…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Mental Tai Chi and dissolving the remove

Yesterday I had one of those pleasing experiences where I got the same message from three different sources -- one inside my head, from me, and the other two from outside, a guided meditation and a book I was reading.  First, me. I was idly going to sleep, not thinking about much of anything in particular, when the notion mental Tai Chi popped into my mind.  For seventeen years I've been practicing Tai Chi under the guidance of a skilled instructor who is adept at teaching the martial aspect of Tai Chi, as well as the more typical relaxation/exercise aspect. …
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Genuine spirituality is very simple. Not like religion at all.

Here's what I've come to realize after over fifty years of searching for spiritual truth. For most of that time, I had things completely backward, because I didn't understand how simple genuine spirituality really is.  I've got lots of company in that regard.  At first, almost everyone approaches spirituality, or religion, like everything else in life. It's viewed as something to be desired, then worked for, then hopefully attained. This is how we get a college degree. This is how we get our first real job. This is how we get married. This is how we have children. This is…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Right in the middle is where life really happens

I really liked today's guided meditation by Jeff Warren, which I regularly listen to on the Calm iPhone app. So much so, I made a transcript of what Warren had to say. The ellipsis (...) in the transcript below indicate a marked pause in the guided meditation.  This afternoon I shared some copies of the transcript with my Tai Chi class. There's a close connection between the notion of staying in the center of a movement and basic principles of Tai Chi.  More philosophically, I enjoyed Warren's observation that when we're right in the middle, we have the greatest ability…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

“There is no path” — poet Antonio Machado

For a long time I believed in a path. A path back to God. The religious group I belonged to for 35 years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, taught there was such a path. One of their books was called "Path of the Masters." Since I no longer accept that such a path exists, I like this poem by Antonio Machado. There are various translations from the Spanish. I've shared several. Wanderer, your footprints arethe path, and nothing else;wanderer, there is no path,the path is made by walking.Walking makes the path,and on glancing backone sees the paththat must never be trod…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Transcendence and immanence: two paths to attain oneness

It's important to not get one-sided in our approach to meditation and spirituality. After all, oneness is a laudable goal, even if it can't be attained perfectly. (If there truly was only one, there would be no one else to know there was only one, so oneness would never be experienced.) A one-sided coin doesn't exist. It takes two sides to make a coin.  So we shouldn't get locked into a single way of looking upon oneness. Many commenters on this blog appear to be so enamored with transcendence -- leaving this world behind to find a better one --…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

I’m enjoying my Mendi neurofeedback device

Recently I got the Mendi brain exercise (neurofeedback) device that I'd ordered early last year via a Kickstarter campaign. Repeated delays kept pushing back the estimated time us backers would get our Mendi. Finally it came, from Sweden. Here I am modeling my Mendi. I took the photo in front of several katana swords and a fan in my office, because the Mendi has a certain Japanese/samurai look to it. The Mendi web site describes what the device does. An iPhone app connects with the Mendi via bluetooth. You train your brain by playing a game. You focus on a…
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Posted inComments Reality Spiritual practice/meditation

Is a mechanism required for realizing Oneness?

Below I've shared a lengthy comment from "Appreciative Reader" that deserved to be made into a blog post. Why? Because the comment is nicely thought out and well written. It addresses an interesting question: whether someone's experience of Oneness just happened, and can't be described in a step-by-step fashion, or whether a mechanism that leads to an experience like this can be communicated to others. I tend to agree with Appreciative Reader that in general, someone's spiritual realization is capable of being analyzed and critiqued to a significant degree. As I've noted before, dreams are highly personal and unlike everyday…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

Bruce Lee’s daughter writes about her father’s philosophy

A fellow Tai Chi student and friend mentioned "Be Water, My Friend" a while back. This is a book by Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter. I'm enjoying it.  My favorite Tai Chi form is called in English, Water Boxing. It's very long, difficult to learn, not known by very many, and involves a lot of subtleties.  I probably should call it a Tai Chi'ish form, because few of the hundreds of moves look like traditional Tai Chi. But that's the way of water. It can take on an infinity of forms, because water is fluid, flexible, formless. Which is the…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Reactivity amplifies our suffering in the moment

I'm an admirer of Jeff Warren's guided meditations on my iPhone's Calm app. Here's how a recent offering from Warren starts out. I liked it a lot. His tar metaphor is great. When I react to a problem in my life with a strong negative emotion, it does indeed feel like I'm covered in a black sticky substance that makes it difficult to see what's going on with any sort of clarity.  But notice that Warren says we shouldn't fight what's happening. Rather, we need to accept everything both inside and outside of us.  The less we fight, and simply…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Another guest churchless post from John

Here's another guest post that I fashioned out of an email from John, a guy I regularly communicate with. I always enjoy his thoughtful responses to stuff that I've written about. I believe TNH stands for Thich Nhat Hanh. Hey Brian, how are you and yours doing? Hopefully as well as you can be. As always, I’ve been enjoying your posts. Especially the two about what we can learn from the internal arts. It is funny when I tell people that tai chi has legitimate martial applications for self-defense. They look at me like, right…. Like you, I trained in…
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Posted inMeaning of life Personal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

Ending the spiritual search

It's a bit difficult for me to tell when my spiritual searching began. Was it when I tried to figure out in high school the deeper meaning of Bob Dylan's enigmatic song lyrics? Was it when I devoured Sartre, Camus, and other existentialists during my early college years?  Maybe. But for sure it started when, in 1969, my wife-to-be and I began learning hatha yoga and meditation from a crazed Greek guy who melded Christianity and Eastern philosophy in a decidedly weird fashion.  Ever since, I've pursued some sort of spirituality.  For several decades I spent about two hours a…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Buddhism can help silence your inner critic

I enjoy reading movie reviews. The people who write them are called critics. When they criticize a movie, or streaming show, that I was considering watching, often I'll decide to see something else instead. So critics can be wonderful. However, there's also a critic who is uncomfortably close to me. In fact, it is me. Or at least, a part of me who isn't shy about pointing out my screw-ups, mistakes, and such -- often in a caustic manner that leaves me feeling bad about myself. I don't mind getting feedback about things I could have done better, whether from…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Escaping from the need to escape

My wife and I have been without electricity for 11 days during the aftermath of the worst ice storm to hit Oregon in a long time. In fact, it might have been the worst ice storm ever to hit the state. Today, while I was on a dog walk around our rural south Salem neighborhood, I heard someone scream in delight. Then I noticed lights on in houses.  For the rest of my walk home I visualized coming back to a house with electricity. I pictured myself taking a hot bath for the first time in over a week and…
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