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the illusion of choice is an indication of a lack of freedom |
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passage from article: What is freedom? It is the moment by moment experience of not being run by one’s own reactive mechanisms. Does that give you more choice? Usually not.
| Compassion |
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| Los Angeles, CA, May 14, 2009 |
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Wisdom; meditation: observing what changes when we rest and relax with a problematic experience; experiencing what is actually arising and being at peace at the same time; spiritual opening as memory, idea, belief; beliefs vs ideology; compassion; emptiness as the means to compassion; compassion and ideology.
| What Am I Searching For? |
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| Los Angeles, CA, May 14, 2009 |
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Meditation on “What am I searching for?”; resting in the full experience of this question; meditation: “I practice in order to be at peace with the world.” ; samsara as the chaotic process of moving among different ways of experiencing different worlds; “I” as a narrative that is constructed in order to give a semblance of rational consistency to this chaotic process.
The value of retreats; making the transition from retreat to ordinary life; you can’t take this experience with you; finding the peace and clarity that exists in any situation; defining awakening as experiencing whatever arises as expressions of peace and clarity.
| How can I experience this and be at peace at the same time? |
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| Los Angeles, CA, January 10, 2009 |
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Participant’s concerns; how can I experience fear and be at peace at the same time?; how can I have all these stories going on and be at peace at the same time? goals vs results; principles, strategies and tactics; there are no enemies; 3 alternatives to every situation: accept, take action, or suffer; taking a larger view of conflict.
| Karma, pt. 3 & Loving-kindess and Compassion, pt. 1 |
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| Los Angeles, CA, February 5, 2008 |
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Participants reflection on intentionally engaging in a non-virtuous act; patterned behavior as a way to avoid experience; ascription, inevitability and karma; how to respond to questions like “Do you believe in evil?”; loving-kindness and compassion as remedies to attachment to the pleasure of peace; the maturation of motivation and practice; is compassion the natural outcome of awareness or something one must cultivate?; meditation instruction for upcoming week: what is it like to receive kindness? The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by Gampopa, commentary on Chapter 6 and Chapter 7.
Medieval context; definition of lamrim; translation issues; four reasons (obstacles) why we aren’t already awake: taking experience as fact, habituated tendencies to satisfy cravings, mistaking peace for being awake, and not knowing what to do to wake up; if experience isn’t real or a fact, what is experience?; differences in the meaning of “ego” as used in Buddhism and psychology; manufacturing vs. growth process; remedies to the four obstacles; impermanence and the four ends. The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by Gampopa, commentary on Chapter 4.
Working with the second of the four noble truths; attraction, aversion and indifference as impulses, and the reactions they initiate; concerns about making things last or getting rid of them; the formation of emotional needs and why they are impossible to meet; the need to be somebody conditioned by both family and society, practice instructions on finding peace and understanding in the experience of emotional impulses; Q&A
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