Seek Knowing, Not Truth
Article
Lineage is not the passing on of “The Truth” from one generation to another. It is the passing on of the methods, the tools, with which you uncover and live this natural knowing.
Three Questions: Willingness, Know-How, Capacity
Article
[…] chaos. You are building a capacity in attention. From time to time, you will struggle to know something that you simply don’t have the capacity to experience directly. Attention is too unstable or it doesn’t have enough juice. Without realizing you are doing so, you compensate, striving to know emptiness, compassion, or non-self by […]
Imagine You're Enlightened
Article
[…] You know nothing of tiredness or fatigue. You see into the workings of the world. You don’t have to withdraw from pain or difficulty. You are clear, direct, sympathetic, insightful, wise, or responsive — whatever you need to be — in each and every situation you encounter. You do not fear the pain of […]
Shakyamuni's Life and Teachings
Article
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 […]
Where Thinking Stops
Article
[…] arise when either of those minds is operating. It gives us access to a higher level of attention, a level of attention that draws energy from the direct knowing that is mind itself. Devotion is closely related to awe, where awe is a feeling of being intimately connected to something that is infinitely greater than […]
When Energy Runs Wild
Article
[…] is based on energy transformation. We saw how transformation takes place in the four foundations of mindfulness. Body scanning, holding a question, taking and sending—not to mention direct awareness methods such as shikantaza (just sitting) in Zen, Yidam practice and Mahamudra and Dzogchen in Vajrayana Buddhism, and “bare attention” in the Theravadan tradition—all involve […]
Refuge
Article
[…] by a teacher or spiritual elder, you, the student, formally acknowledge that you are taking wakefulness (buddha) as your principal orientation in life. Ultimately, refuge is the direct knowing in which experience arises as movement in mind and emotional reactions and the associated struggles no longer arise. What do I take refuge in? You take […]
Learned Helplessness
Article
[…] or tradition. Metaphorically, we must be willing to go north, the direction that takes us out of society. We must be willing to endure pain, know from direct experience, act on what we see and receive what happens. We must yearn to experience what is without relying on anything to confirm our existence. Undoing […]
How is the Medium Changing the Message?
Article
[…] and practices that the modern world makes accessible. For instance, the groundwork or foundational practices in the Tibetan traditions (sngon.’gro) were originally developed as a preparation for direct awareness (mahamudra) training. The practices are not well suited to life in the West, and the expectation to complete this set of practices became an obstacle […]
Three Kinds of Training
Article
[…] regarded as unavoidable and deeply habituated patterns of misperception that confuse our understanding of what we experience. The fundamental block, in this model, is the lack of direct knowing of what we are. (Ask yourself, “What am I?” If you observe closely, you will see that there is first a moment of clarity in in […]
Forgiveness Is Not Buddhist
Article
[…] God’s grace enters a sincere mind, through the action of grace that person is freed from the reactivity that gave rise to the original transgression. But this direct intervention by a higher power into the mindstream of another person is not a Buddhist notion. You may forgive me—that is to say, you may forgive […]
Compassion, Culture, and Belief
Article
[…] with whom you have differences. In difficult situations, it leads you to find a way that meets the vital interests of all concerned when possible and to minimize the pain when that is not possible. Compassion puts you directly in touch with the human condition. It cuts through beliefs. It goes straight to the heart.
The First Precept: To Kill or Not to Kill
Article
Deep questions about values and ethics arise around the issues of abortion, life support, and elective suicide for those with debilitating and terminal illnesses. In these and other circumstances, call up compassion so that you see clearly, go empty in all the complexities so you know what is, and in that knowing act without hesitation.
Attention in Speech
Article
[…] speech untrustworthy as she tries to recite poems that she thought she knew, but the words come out all wrong. Finally, she has had enough and speaks directly out of her experience, “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” Immediately, her dream dissolves and she wakes up. So it is for us. When we […]
Meditation, Mindfulness, and Misconceptions
Article
[…] understanding things only through words, only through concepts. This form of understanding is limited both in its effectiveness and power. The knowing that comes through meditation is direct and doesn’t depend on thought or concept. Misconception 4: The purpose is to become a psychic superbeing. Again, the purpose is to uncover awareness, not to […]
