Browsing Tag

Conscious Living

Suicide for the Living

December 30, 2023

The journey inward, if earnestly pursued, begins to reveal a hideous truth: that I, and all others, are one and the same thing. There, just at the edge of my perception, I begin to see that aside from the window dressing each of us calls ‘my life,’ there is nothing. All of the characters and settings, the adventures and dreams, are imagined imaginings signifying nothing. These days I see that I am poised, as it were, with one foot in…

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ending suffering

Ending Suffering, Part 4: Ending Me

Some years ago I had a remarkable dream. In it I was a raindrop tumbling from a great, gray cloud and I felt ecstatically free the way one can in flying dreams. Then, suddenly, the clouds parted and below me stretched a vast and…

January 21, 2010

Ending Suffering – When Enough is Enough: Part 1

His name is Gene Sprague. He paces the Golden Gate’s walkway at its highest point, occasionally stopping to gaze down at the water more than 200 feet below. Immersed in their picture-taking, nearby tourists fail to notice him. His pacing stops, he brushes his…

December 16, 2009

The Forensics of “I” – Part 2

Every human being has a favorite subject: him or herself. This is only natural since it is the “I” who experiences the world and there is no subject that any of us know so well as ourselves. Right? But what if this conceit is,…

October 20, 2009

Beware the Snooze Button Labeled “Ego”

It is said that each of us is offered an endless number of opportunities to “awaken.” That life is filled with these mini-alarm clocks, each tolling at different times and frequencies and each affording us an opportunity to stop, if only for a moment,…

September 18, 2009

The Art of Genuine Compassion

Picture an individual who, for one reason or another, annoys you. I don’t care how “Zen” you are, there is someone in your life who fits this bill (a boss, a spouse, a child, the neighbor, the driver who cut you off in traffic…

July 12, 2009