The Discipline of Mind Training
.... and Life Coaching with Joe
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Compassion For an Annoying World
In the play, “Huis Clos” or “No Exit” French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre introduced three characters that represented a kind of social three-body problem that uncovered the basic instability of human interaction. The nature of this dynamic encouraged the edges of each personna to trigger the others. That dynamic continued
Life can be overwhelming. Especially when we look at it. I used to love horror movies, but these days its enough to watch the news. Sometimes it seems we’re living in the apocolypse, as written by Steven King.
At this writing we are heading toward a pivotal, some say existential, national election. The two primary
FINDING TIME FOR KINDNESS AND KINDNESS IN CHAOS
Before he turned his kingdom over to Buddhism, King Ashoka had been a particularly ruthless warlord. There is a story about a monk who walked on to a battlefield during one of King Ashoka’s typically vicious battles. There was an injunction at the time against monks
During our evolution we lost our fangs, claws and venom as we traded up for a big brain. As this brain grew, it gained the processing ability to go beyond the defensive reaction of its dark beginnings and, learning to see a bigger picture, strategize its way past danger and toward sustenance. This remarkable ascension … Read the rest
Today’s photo evokes the romance of the school dance. An oft used descriptor of that moment would be “innocence” although, events later in the parking lot might not be very innocent. Yet, we wistfully remember clumsily fumbling around another person in the dark because whether it was glorious, frightening or both, opening the heart was … Read the rest
Compassion is a very large idea. But in order to make it a practical idea, we can see how it can become right-sized. If we conjure images of Mother Teresa, Gandhi or the Dalai Lama we are likely conjuring something inherently out-sized, that we can never attain. These outsized images are not only unrealisitc,
Seeing Beyond Our Pain
We are the product of love. Even if our life sometimes seems separated from love, the act of love happened someplace. Love is everywhere around us whether or not we are able to contact it.
Contacting love in our life is possible if we are free of the turmoil … Read the rest
Slowing Down to Move Quickly
We began our discussion of flow by establishing the practice of calm abiding (Shamatha) to settle into the present, so that we can let go into a natural organic flow in our practice and life. Last post we used an analogy of the flowing water to depict the movement of … Read the rest
LETTING GO INTO THE RHYTHM OF LIFE
This post follows “settling into the groove” and it indicates a next step, letting go and moving on. Settling in relates to the “Samatha” level of our meditation training. Samatha means peace, or cultivating peace in its active rendering. In Tibetan Buddism it is taught as a 9
