Chapter 7 of “Karma: Awakening From Belief”
Reactive patterns are mechanical Ken: Several people have asked, “How do you recognize a reactive pattern?” Well, one of the features of a reactive pattern, as I mentioned, is that they’re mechanical in nature. What’s one of the characteristics of a mechanical system? Student: No variation. Ken: No variation. It just runs one way. So, […]
Chapter 6 of “Karma: Awakening From Belief”
[…] I minimize the pain here? I’m really uncomfortable with it.” Okay. And I imagine that’s what you’re doing in other situations in your lives, right? So, that’s reactive pattern. Now, reviewing your experience, in either situation—you can take your choice—either as the explainer or the interrupter, what experience were you trying to avoid? Student: Conflict. […]
Chapter 2 of “Monsters under the Bed”
[…] trying to get our emotional needs met, trying to hang onto things and make things solid. I’d like to focus on the change. Change, impermanence and noticing reactive impulses George: It’s not very popular in Western culture, but in traditional Buddhism probably the number one form of practice is contemplation on death and impermanence. […]
Chapter 17 of “A Trackless Path II”
[…] suggest to you. Some time ago a friend of mine, John Parmenter, came up with the phrase, mind-killing, which he defines as the use of your own reactive patterns to get you to do something which is against your interests. Now, one of the themes that we’ve explored here is that mind is how we […]
Chapter 5 of “Karma: Awakening From Belief”
[…] are in awareness as we do something, which we’ve habituated, learned how to do. And when the patterns are running us, that’s what I mean by a reactive pattern. Now of course we use patterns, we’ve learned how to do things. We do them in a habituated way. The question is, are we also in […]
Chapter 7 of “The Warrior’s Solution”
[…] are? This is what you got to do. So the reactive patterns always generate a realm. The way that you become free of the operation of the reactive pattern, is to die to the realm that the pattern creates. [Silence] Ken: Go ahead. Give me an example. Student: [Unclear] Ken: Okay, give me a concrete […]
Chapter 4 of “Releasing Emotional Reactions”
[…] confuse everything—you may find that there are elements of your own experience that you’re very alienated from. Maybe certain reactive emotions; maybe certain physical pains; maybe certain reactive patterns. You could do taking and sending with those, too, to dissolve the sense of “I” and other. Student questions Ken: So, that’s the instruction. We have […]
Chapter 11 of “Karma: Awakening From Belief”
[…] and cut. Student: Develop a practice and what? Ken: Cut. Cut. Student: What was the third one? Ken: Develop a practice. Student: Thank you. Recognize Ken: Now, the first thing is to recognize reactive pattern. And we’ve talked about various ways to do that. The main one is when what you experience as result is consistently different from your intention, that […]
Chapter 4 of “Monsters under the Bed”
[…] realms Ken: Okay, so the five steps are: Enter and open to the experience of the realm. That’s number one. Number two: Experience the realm triggering a reactive pattern in you, which will be in line with that realm, okay? Number three: Experience that reactive pattern in attention, which as George says, you stay in […]
Chapter 9 of “Buddhahood Without Meditation”
[…] at a whole other level, what proportion of your life is driven completely by reactive patterns. And it’s just bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce from one reactive pattern to another. Student: Is it like that in meditation too? Ken: At the beginning, yes. And at the beginning of this practice, it’s the same, definitely. […]
Chapter 10 of “Karma: Awakening From Belief”
[…] all six realms, or is in all six realms. And that’s why it’s called samsara, because you move around from realm to realm, just depending on what reactive pattern is triggered in what circumstance. And you are born and reborn in the realms all the time. Trungpa does a very nice job on this in […]
Chapter 15 of “Mind Training in Seven Points”
[…] Which is one of the reasons why some of the weakest people—the people who are weak inside—become the most vicious torturers. So, most of us, in a reactive pattern, identify primarily with either the expressive or the receptive pole. So, we often think we’re just the one side. But as you begin to work on, […]
Chapter 7 of “Mind Training in Seven Points”
[…] over and over again all across the board in practice. Here it’s referred to as three problems; you’ll find many other formulations. What are they? Recognizing a reactive pattern is the first one. It’s hard to recognize a reactive pattern. That’s the first challenge. And there are various ways you can recognize reactive patterns. My […]
Chapter 4 of “The Warrior’s Solution”
[…] set in motion, or trigger, and that web of patterns takes over. It’s almost as if there’s another person inside us. The Appropriate Opponent: Emotional Record and Reactive Patterns Ken: One person brought this up the other day—the ogre inside. And the way that we’re working in this retreat, we call this person “the appropriate […]
Chapter 5 of “Guru, Deity, Protector”
[…] one identity and use that one identity, the yidam, to really engage experience completely. Now is this frightening? Absolutely, it’s terrifying, because it’s the death of the reactive patterns. They can’t function in this environment, not the way they’re used to functioning, at all. And we are heavily invested in many of the behaviors and […]
