Jesus, Non-Dual Teacher

When we are so caught up handling sin, peddling forgiveness, and getting people into heaven, we forget that Jesus was also a great non-dual teacher. His teaching was revelatory, revolutionary and bewildering. Sometimes we think his teaching was merely a secondary part of his life, like “while I’m here to save everybody from their sins, I might as well say some stuff.” I don’t think we have to determine if one was more important than the other. What Jesus was teaching was very much in line with who he was and what he did – die to self, turn the other cheek, the lucky ones are the poor and meek. What he said and his life and death were a cohesive package. Read More

I’ve Stopped Trying To Be Happy

I have stopped trying to be happy. For a while, I thought it might be possible, but now I believe something different. There was a point three years ago when my grandmother died and I realized the rest of my life was going to be a series of losses leading up to my own death. Then my family and I lost a few more people before their time and a series of other unfortunate events ensued. It was the most difficult time of my life (still is), but I have also found a lot of meaning in it. One of the things that has changed is that I no longer believe being happy is the singular goal. I mean I don’t mind being happy and know that I will be happy sometimes without even trying, but I just mean I’ve given up on happiness as the point of life. Read More

The Unavoidable Dichotomy Of Life And Death

We must accept life as it is – with the good and the bad.  Think about it – just embracing life itself means you are also embracing the fact that you will some day lose your life. Life is I guess about an even split between great pleasure and gut-wrenching loss. You win some and you lose some. I know, I know – you did not choose to be subject to this dichotomy – you were thrust into this life. “Get busy living or get busy dying.” Maybe you are doing both. Read More

Brokendownness

And I wonder if this broken-down-ness is supposed to be. Everything created enters a state of disrepair at times. Your car breaks down – you kind of expect that, but there’s brokenness in the natural world, too. Sometimes things do not work just right. Babies are born with deficits. There is disease in the human body, and turmoil among people and wildlife alike. Read More

Reconciliation/Repair

You will always be in conflict and there will always be a need for reconciliation and repair. The people around you are different than you, and your competing desires produce tension, sometimes agonizingly so. It is not hard to see the world around you is in turmoil. You are probably even in conflict within yourself. Repair, or reconciliation, is what brings all things together. Any beauty we see is the orchestrating of disparate parts into a state of resonance. We must learn to enact this type of reconciliation and practice it routinely. If we do not do it daily, things fragment and fall apart. Read More

The Good Life = Resilience  

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Remember your life is not supposed to be stress-free. I think we all have ideals we are dreaming of: “Everything will be great when….” Fill in the blank: “…when I find ‘the one,'” “…when I get a new job,” “…when I retire.” It’s the time when it feels like you’ll just be able to kick up your feet and relax for the rest of your life, when you’ve finally “made it.” I’m not saying we can’t experience good things, but if we count on attaining some version of utopian paradise, we are going to start wondering why all this stress keeps coming at us. Read More

Middling

Our desire for perfection can be damning. It leads us to constant unhappiness, feeling as if something is not quite right. We always expect to have life the way we want it and when life does not cooperate, we enter depression. The reality of our lives is that we are basically always in this middling position – always working toward our ideals and seldom attaining them. When we do attain them, the satisfaction is fleeting. We rest on the top of the mountain for a moment and then set off toward another higher mountaintop. Read More

Perspective

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It is important to periodically step back and evaluate where you are going – to sharpen your focus, refine your course, gain some perspective. Without this, you are just a rudderless ship, floating and swaying every which way the wind takes you. One of the greatest gifts we have as human beings is the ability to get outside ourselves – outside of life – and look in, measuring and assessing, ever evaluating in order to choose the best course. Without doing this, you may end up somewhere you did not choose to be. It is not because you chose to be there; it is because you neglected to pay attention. The reasons we do not pay attention are myriad, but they mostly have to do with us not wanting to face the music – not wanting to take a sober look at ourselves, what has happened to us and what we have had a hand in creating. So much unnecessary damage can be avoided by taking this step back on a regular basis. Read More