Staying Awake Through the Final Act
.... and Life Coaching with Joe
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Learning to Stay Awake Through the 3rd Act Whether we realize it or not, we are all aging. It is happening even as we speak. And yet I find myself struggling to remain cognizant of that—to identify myself as an older person, or more unsettling, as someone approaching the end of their life. We die, […]
Pressure and Procrastination as (Poor) Coping Strategies: The title “Critical Mass” refers to Hexagram 28 of the I Ching, often translated as “Great Exceeding” or “Preponderance of the Great.” Its image is a ridgepole sagging beneath too much weight: strong in the middle but weak at either end. It describes a moment when the structure […]
Some are calling for a “war on woke.” Why are people so threatened by the idea? Admittedly, the term is meant to be provocative, still I can’t help feeling that parts of society harbor an underlying fear of being awake. What is “waking up”? Is it seeing past the firewall of self-perception or beyond the […]
Turning the Mind Toward Freedom Karma is one of the four reminders. The others are the preciousness of human life, impermanence and death, and the unsatisfactory nature of samsara. Together, these contemplations wake us up to our situation and how we create a path to liberation or further embed ourselves in suffering. This life gives […]
Understanding the Grand Cycle of Suffering Today I want to talk about samsara—a word many of us know, although, unless we are discussing the designer fragrance, most of us do not entirely understand it. To be honest, few of us understand the fragrance either. Samsara is a Sanskrit term shared by several Indian religious traditions, […]
From Suffering to Freedom What distinguishes the Buddhist path from more rule-based or solely academic traditions is its emphasis on direct experience. Study deepens our understanding, and guidelines provide important direction, but our immediate experience is where the teachings come alive. In the game of rock, paper, scissors, each choice defeats another and is defeated […]
Mapping Human Experience It is said that the Buddha, speaking to a community of priests, adepts, and teachers, was asked why he didn’t speak about the gods. His answer was purportedly a rather dismissive, “That’s not important.” This was taken to mean that speculation about the afterlife—and any preexistence we may have had—has only a […]
Remembering 2 Remain Human in The 6 Realms A Tibetan Buddhist saying warns that the bandits of hope and fear come to rob us of the present. The present being the precious moments that comprise our life. The true gift of opening this present is that it’s not only where we find our life, but […]
The Faith to Face the Present One thing I miss from my early Christian upbringing was the belief that something out there was caring for me, watching over me. And when I felt cut off as though my spirit had darkened, I assumed I was failing. My disconnect from God was evidence of their displeasure. […]
Not Perfection There is a saying in recovery rooms: “Progress, not perfection.” Perfectionism may appear to be a commitment to excellence, but it is often something more anxious and self-defeating. It comes from the fear that we are not good enough as we are—that we must perform, impress, or remain in control to earn our […]