Chapter 10 of “Mind Training in Seven Points”
[…] able to be experienced—for whatever reason—so were frozen. And any time anything resonated with them, you just bounced out of there real quickly. Which is basically how reactive patterns form and operate. And what I’m suggesting now, when you sit in presence, those same emotional issues, and any others, will be experienced as an imbalance […]
Chapter 4 of “Living Awake: Making Things Happen”
[…] there. Part of watching the signs for me is rule of three. When something happens three times, same dynamic, it usually indicates that I’m caught in a reactive pattern—there’s something that I’m ignoring. [Unclear] Certainly when I’m teaching people about difficult conversations, whenever you find yourself going through the same dynamics in a conversation with […]
Chapter 3 of “Living Awake: Making Things Happen”
[…] can be extremely functional until they get into another quarter of their life, and then all of that function goes. That’s because there is some kind of reactive pattern operating, which cuts them off from all that natural ability. So. Randye. Microphone please. Do we have a mic anywhere? Okay. Thanks. Randye: I’m confused. A […]
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[…] problems many people encounter. → Engage with Q&A Read for insight Looking for a fresh perspective? Dive into Ken’s reflections on topics such as our existential context; meeting reactive emotions and reactive patterns; work, culture, and the everyday world; and the student–teacher relationship. The Articles section includes both short pieces and long-form commentaries. → Read Articles
Chapter 4 of “Buddhahood Without Meditation”
[…] more about things getting bigger and bigger. Ann: I have to say more about things getting bigger? Ken: That’s where you started. Ann: Well, it’s like a reactive pattern getting bigger and bigger, it just keeps doing the same thing. It’s almost like … Ken: Okay. That’s interesting. Keep going. [Silence] Anybody want to help […]
Chapter 3 of “Buddhahood Without Meditation”
[…] do it, because really we should be able to do it. As my own practice matured, and as I came to appreciate how intractable certain obstacles and reactive patterns can be, I began to see the wisdom in it. That is, okay, so you can’t do it. Well, don’t make your inability to do X […]
Chapter 4 of “Chö: Cutting Through the Thickets of Thinking”
[…] pours over your body and over the body of all sentient beings, particularly all of the disturbances, and washes away all of the negativity, confusion, unwholesome actions, reactive patterns—these are washed right out of your body, just as if elixir was pouring right through it. And it is flushed down, coming out of all the […]
Chapter 13 of “Mind Training in Seven Points”
[…] them how things actually are? That’s the question to ask. What in you is being served? And it may be your own discomfort. And then it’s a reactive pattern. Student: [Unclear] Ken: That sounds like dangerous waters. Student: But if you were in [unclear], that question probably wouldn’t arise [unclear]. Ken: I think we would […]
Chapter 21 of “Then and Now: A Commentary on The Jewel Ornament of Liberation”
[…] to want to wake up in order to help all beings, it’s a very different thing, where we actually go about the work of waking up: dismantling reactive patterns, developing a stability of attention, and so forth. The second grows out of the first, but it needs to grow out of the first. It is […]
Chapter 7 of “A Trackless Path I”
[…] you get consumed by it and now start relating to the new situation from that old prospective, that’s a whole different thing. Now we’re caught in a reactive pattern. This comes up very, very frequently. When my father died, my parents were married I think for about sixty years. Long term. And I talked with […]
Chapter 2 of “Guru, Deity, Protector”
[…] Tuesday. Compassion-in-training Ken: The fourth method is compassion, through service. It’s one of the primary themes of the Mahayana. You use the energy of compassion to transform reactive patterns into attention. It is wonderfully and beautifully expressed through bodhicitta. The great work on this is Shantideva’s Entering the Way of the Bodhisattva or Entering the […]
Chapter 3 of “Stalking Death”
[…] You can tell them about it, but you can’t share the actual experience. In the middle, meditation on death and impermanence helps us to cut through the reactive patterns that create suffering for ourselves and others. And it does so because we see that much of what we’re holding onto is really quite insignificant in […]
Chapter 4 of “There Is No Enemy”
[…] the past of the teacher, and I grew up in a very traditional religion with a great deal of obedience to authority. That is one of the reactive patterns I had to work through. And so I, and think it may be shared by others, profound distrust of placing my path in another’s hands. Ken: […]
Chapter 6 of “Chö: Cutting Through the Thickets of Thinking”
[…] As you recite the mantra elixir drips from this, filling first her form and then overflowing through her toe. Coming and washing all the karmic obscurations, negativity, reactive patterns and emotions, confusion, bewilderment totally out of your being and out of the being of all sentient beings everywhere. And all of that negativity and disturbance, […]
Chapter 5 of “A Trackless Path I”
[…] we’re working emotionally is extremely important. You’ll know if something is out of balance or—to put it another way—it is the expression of or feeding of a reactive pattern, by how it plays in your body. Ken: Janet you had a question. Janet: When you encounter a part of you that resists this kind of […]