Simon V.

Hello Chris,

I wonder if my quoting Gurdjief made you think of the hacker analogy.
It’s understandable that it would be misunderstood.

The truth is that it wasn’t my intention in the least to give that impression. Gurdjief means, in my humble opinion, that it is beholden on the student to make what he learns his own; the teacher can’t do it…[Read more]

Hello Chris,

I wonder if my quoting Gurdjief made you think of the hacker analogy.
It’s understandable that it would be misunderstood.

The truth is that it wasn’t my intention in the least to give that impression. Gurdjief means, in my humble opinion, that it is beholden on the student to make what he learns his own; the teacher can’t do it…[Read more]

“No teacher can GIVE you anything. You have to TAKE it from him.”
–G. I. Gurdjief
I find what you are saying here and in other recent posts very interesting and heartening.
One of the things I kept thinking about while studying Tibetan buddhism (which was not my first and contemporaneously only area of spiritual study-practice) while being…[Read more]

“No teacher can GIVE you anything. You have to TAKE it from him.”
–G. I. Gurdjief
I find what you are saying here and in other recent posts very interesting and heartening.
One of the things I kept thinking about while studying Tibetan buddhism (which was not my first and contemporaneously only area of spiritual study-practice) while being…[Read more]

Yeah, I think as soon as you strip zen of “and the art of”, you start to twiddle your thumbs and reach for the cigarettes, or whatever else is handy.

My initial personal exposure to zen came through the martial arts, which is different than what I haven’t really personally experienced (except for the brief encounter with the Austrian zen…[Read more]

Yeah, I think as soon as you strip zen of “and the art of”, you start to twiddle your thumbs and reach for the cigarettes, or whatever else is handy.

My initial personal exposure to zen came through the martial arts, which is different than what I haven’t really personally experienced (except for the brief encounter with the Austrian zen…[Read more]

It came out during the guy’s series of teachings that weekend that he did do one simple exercise the student who was a qi gong instructor had taught him–he used it to zap himself out of drowsiness to keep up with his zazen: Drawing energy up the back to the top of his head.
I’ve read that in chinese zen (chan) qi gong is very common or simply…[Read more]

It came out during the guy’s series of teachings that weekend that he did do one simple exercise the student who was a qi gong instructor had taught him–he used it to zap himself out of drowsiness to keep up with his zazen: Drawing energy up the back to the top of his head.
I’ve read that in chinese zen (chan) qi gong is very common or simply…[Read more]

This reminds me of a story I think I told on this board quite some time ago.
While living in Germany I used to go to this Tibetan buddhist retreat centre now and then. They would have guests, usually teachers within their (Kadgyu) lineage.
This time the guest was an Austrian zen master, who’d received transmission from a Japanese guy. So there…[Read more]

This reminds me of a story I think I told on this board quite some time ago.
While living in Germany I used to go to this Tibetan buddhist retreat centre now and then. They would have guests, usually teachers within their (Kadgyu) lineage.
This time the guest was an Austrian zen master, who’d received transmission from a Japanese guy. So there…[Read more]

I’d like to qualify what I said:
Somone comes into the room and he or she is in a really good headspace. At first, this doesn’t have too much of an effect. But that person is really stabilly in that headspace and it starts of have an effect, changing the whole character of the evening perhaps.
There could also be someone there who is really…[Read more]

I’d like to qualify what I said:
Somone comes into the room and he or she is in a really good headspace. At first, this doesn’t have too much of an effect. But that person is really stabilly in that headspace and it starts of have an effect, changing the whole character of the evening perhaps.
There could also be someone there who is really…[Read more]

Nice to encounter someone of like mind 🙂

Nice to encounter someone of like mind 🙂

This is in a sense restating thoughts already expressed, but I think how long you live and what ails you along the way depend on what part you’re playing in the plot on a local and macro level; greater detachment and compassionate aspiration lead to less chance of being meaninglessly hit by a truck, and greater chance of not dying of dioxin…[Read more]

This is in a sense restating thoughts already expressed, but I think how long you live and what ails you along the way depend on what part you’re playing in the plot on a local and macro level; greater detachment and compassionate aspiration lead to less chance of being meaninglessly hit by a truck, and greater chance of not dying of dioxin…[Read more]

Thanks for the excellent article.
Re people’s impressive response to the tsunami, I’ve also been tending to think that it has been serving people as something else to focus on aside from that worrying, suspicious, ingrown toenail in Iraq; it’s something horrible but (as you also mentioned) accidental, which people can feel compassion and express…[Read more]