Three Principles to Liberation

May, 2011

Video from my recent talk at MIT. I discuss the Three Principles of Sydney Banks. The Three Principles are a philosophy of life that can help people to enjoy a happier and more fulfilling experience of life – right away.

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Your anger is a gift – learning the art of emotional alchemy

April, 2011

Buddhism, Taoism, and other “mindful” spiritual practices and religions share a worldview that certain emotions like anger, hatred, fear, and envy are both toxic and undesirable. Because of this, they encourage their practitioners to work hard to let go of such emotions. And given the choice, who would deliberately feel these kind of emotions anyway? [...]

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I hate happiness – the backlash against positivity

April, 2011

Some aspects of self-help and personal development have come under criticism recently. A specific area that’s received a lot of attention is the phenomenon of “positive thinking”. Some believe that this area has become a “positivity cult”, creating in its believers and practitioners an unwillingness to acknowledge lousy days, depression, loss, and other “downs” in [...]

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Ego and enlightenment

March, 2011

The awakened mind experiences Oneness with all that is. In truth, everything that you see is part of you, and vice-versa. All is part of the same continuum of Being, all is One. Infinite love, forgiveness, compassion, unity, and gratitude, all blend together into a single flowing emotional river of Oneness. To experience this directly [...]

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Power, genocide, and inner peace: the real secret to changing the world

February, 2011

The world is perfect as it is, including my desire to change it. (Ram Dass) People often think that being at peace with what is, now, is incompatible with wanting to change the world or change oneself (which are really the same thing). “Jack”, they say, “if I were completely at peace and didn’t have [...]

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Everything you believe is wrong (but that’s OK)

February, 2011

Do our beliefs have to be literally correct in order to create useful results in our lives? Posing this question another way, we could ask ourselves what matters more to us – “being literally correct” or “getting what we want?” Of course, a question that is not often asked about the idea of correctness is, [...]

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Landmark forum – cult, scam, or path to enlightenment?

February, 2011

Just over a year ago, I heard about a three-day weekend program called Landmark Forum, an educational experience presented by a “Forum Leader” to large groups of people (50-200) who sought to improve their life situations by going through this experience. Delivered by a company known as Landmark Education, the Forum is their flagship course [...]

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Don’t believe everything you think

January, 2011

One of the ideas that I’ve been exploring lately is the nature of subjective experience. Perhaps you’ve thought about this too – the fact that everything about our experience of the world occurs to us after translation into thought. Internal experience – thoughts and feelings – and “external” experience – sensory impressions of the world [...]

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Life lessons from GG Allin

January, 2011

Most of the people that I talk about in this blog are spiritual teachers – the Buddha, or Jesus, or Lao-Tzu – or other distinguished role models from the past. For a change of pace, I decided to look at the lessons that we can learn from a very different kind of person. Frankly, I’m [...]

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The stillness within

January, 2011

A few years ago, I was on a scuba diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia. The boat trip to the dive zone took about an hour and a half and many of the passengers on the boat grew seasick from the constant motion of the waves. Eventually we [...]

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