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 […]
Article
[…] 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 […]
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 […]
Chapter 9 of “Karma: Awakening From Belief”
[…] does, override the body, because that’s where all the habituated conditioning is stored. The mind of emotion rides change, in all the changes, but it’s where the reactive processes are actually stored. And then there’s the mind of awareness, which operates at a still higher level, and thus can bring attention to the mind […]
Article
[…] each moment is very important! Karma and Growth Our personality can be described as a complex adaptive system. It is the product of many forms of conditioning. Reactive emotional patterns established in our physical, emotional, family, educational and cultural development act as templates for future growth. How do these patterns come about? For our […]
Chapter 6 of “Releasing Emotional Reactions”
[…] deliberately, intentionally, is they run and hide. So you evoke the feeling and [Ken snaps fingers], it goes. Because the whole idea here is that for that reactive pattern to operate, you are meant to be out of attention. Then it can run; it can do it’s thing. Like Nasruddin and the fox. He got […]
Chapter 7 of “37 Practices of a Bodhisattva”
[…] to throw in a caution here. All of us have experiences that we can’t stay present in or haven’t been able to. That’s what originally produced the reactive patterns which mess up our lives. And one may feel that, “Oh, I should just go straight into these and open them up.” This actually isn’t such […]
Chapter 8 of “Karma: Awakening From Belief”
[…] of attention. And you include in your experience of the breath the experience of the feeling. Okay? Student: And then, I breathe in the experience of the reactive pattern? Ken: No. Breathing in, I experience the reactions to the feeling. Student: Okay. Ken: Breathing out, I experience the reactions to the feeling, or the problem, […]
Article
[…] 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 […]
Chapter 12 of “37 Practices of a Bodhisattva”
[…] actually, I have a little story about it. Ken: I don’t want to get off topic yet. Catherine: Okay. It’s about cutting. Somebody cut for me a reactive pattern that I was in. I was completely immersed in this, really sad because of something somebody said to me. I was not in attention, and I […]
Chapter 9 of “A Trackless Path II”
[…] situation and survive. So what reactive patterns know extremely well, really, really well—I shouldn’t say “know” what they’re good at, because there isn’t any awareness in a reactive pattern—what they’re good at, they’re very, very finely-tuned mechanisms which are really good at surviving. I mean, they’re really good at it. They’re much better than you or […]
Chapter 4 of “Chö: Cutting Through Demonic Obsessions”
[…] that’s what Nagarjuna says, “People who believe in emptiness are incurable.” So those very briefly are the three levels of chö, we cut through our fixation on reactive processes and all the negativity in them, and then we cut through any residual fixation on positive, open qualities such as the four immeasureables. And then […]
Chapter 10 of “Five Elements Five Dakinis”
[…] As you open to that experience which is bringing attention to it. You don’t have to do anything you find that space in the experience. Now the reactive pattern is just experience, it’s just stuff and you’re functioning in a different way. So yes it does dismantle them, but it isn’t by you taking them […]
Chapter 6 of “There Is No Enemy”
[…] question? Applying the four stages of conflict: the example of overeating Student: Could you please give an example of using the four stages of conflict with the reactive process? Ken: Oh yeah. An internal reactive process. Yeah. The four stages of conflict with an internal reactive process. Okay. I eat more than I should. […]
