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[…] the transgression against me, you help me come to terms with the reactive process within myself. Yet it is still up to me to work through the reactive patterns that gave rise to that transgression. In the Protestant context, the picture is a bit different. With the elimination in all but name of the mystery […]
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[…] is arising and experience it as completely as possible without getting lost in it. Do I do anything to address the adversity? Well, as long as the reactive patterns are running, it’s generally better not to. If, in the process of practice, my relationship with the emotional reactions shifts, then I’ll be able to see […]
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[…] feel abandoned, bereft, heartbroken, and lost. At the point when prayer seems futile and hopeless, when we feel we can no longer tolerate the raging of these reactive patterns, something else begins to form. As one practitioner said, “Gates look like corners, until you go through them.” Unexpectedly, we leave behind the world of emotional […]
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[…] emotional patterns. If you now repress the emotions, pushing them out of attention, two things happen. The higher level of energy in your system flows into the reactive pattern, making it stronger. The higher energy also flows into the repressing pattern, making that stronger. Both the reactive patterns of the emotion and the repression are […]
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The final challenge of habituated patterns is to question direct experience. How do we know? How can we trust this knowing, which is totally beyond the ordinary conditioned experience of life? Like Buddha Shakyamuni, we turn to no external reference and live in the knowing. We rest in presence, in the very mystery of […]
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[…] between two people means that they relate to each other. Before two people can relate to each other, they must remove the principal obstacles to relationship — reactive patterns. For present purposes, the reactive patterns are judgement, closing down, contraction, and feeling deficient. These four reactive patterns prevent us from relating to the other person […]
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[…] teacher are three: To show you the possibility of presence To train you in the techniques and methods you will need To direct your attention to the reactive patterns that prevent you from being present in your life Everything else is extra and is usually based on the projections of the student, the teacher, or […]
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[…] which typically embody the energies of compassion, compassionate activity, intelligence, and so forth, are powerful in a more subtle way, as their energy seeps deep into our reactive patterns and dissolves the corresponding identifications. Practicing as the Commitment Being In formal meditation sessions, we let the mind settle, resting in the experience of breathing, perhaps, […]
