Contemplations
Short essays drawn from the books, for the days when your mind speaks so loudly that you cannot hear yourself.
You are not only a small figure caught up in the world's movement; you are the one the whole dance belongs to. A dance cannot exist without someone dancing it, and when you stop losing yourself in the steps and simply watch,...
ReadThe "I" you take yourself to be is a pattern of thoughts, not your true nature. When thoughts are present, the identity seems solid and real. When thoughts fall silent, it is simply not there, and yet you still are.
ReadTruth cannot be given to you by anyone, however wise or certain they sound. It can only be found, and found alone, in your own direct experience. Every teacher, every book, every confident voice is a traveler describing a summit you still...
ReadYou have never once lived anywhere but here and now. The past exists only as memory arising in the present, and the future only as expectation arising in the present. Time is something the mind experiences, not a place you can travel...
ReadThe ego is not your personality but your identification with it. It shows up most plainly as the need to control, to be right, to win, and to survive. Its cleverest trick of all is to convince you that you do not...
ReadLiving well may be far less effortful than you think. A bird does not fly by force; it rides the wind. A fish does not fight the water; it is carried by it. Much of what we call struggle is simply the...
ReadSuffering may not be the enemy it appears to be. Life seems arranged not to keep you comfortable but, in its own strange way, to wake you up, and pain often does what ease never could. Met with awareness rather than resistance,...
ReadPain and suffering are not the same. Pain is what happens; suffering is the mind's resistance to what happens. When you stop fighting the moment as it is, the suffering dissolves, even when the pain remains.
ReadInner stillness is not reserved for monasteries and mountaintops. It can be found in the middle of deadlines, traffic, travel, and small children. Hurry is not a fact of your schedule but a decision of the mind, and stillness is available underneath...
ReadThe effort to attain peace is what stands between you and peace. Seeking is a movement of the mind, and peace is found only where that movement ceases. This is also why true meditation is not a method for producing a calm,...
ReadYou do not have to become perfect to be at peace. Perfection is an idea in the mind, not a real place you can arrive at, and reaching for it has never once delivered the love or the rest you were hoping...
ReadThe peace you feel in nature is not coming from the landscape. It is your own inner stillness, reflected back to you. Snow, sea, wind, birds, and light are doorways, not sources, and they are always quietly inviting the mind to fall...
ReadInner stillness and a silent mind are not the same thing. A quiet mind is only a state that comes and goes. Stillness is what is already there underneath every state, and it is revealed through silence rather than produced by it.
ReadFulfillment is not something you reach by achieving enough. It is not waiting at the end of the next goal, and no accomplishment has ever delivered it for long. It is found in who you already are, and it tends to appear...
ReadForgiveness is not something another person has to earn from you. It is an expression of your own deepest nature, always available, waiting only on your willingness. When you refuse to forgive, what you are really holding onto is fear, and underneath...
ReadDarkness is not so much the opposite of light as its companion; neither one could exist without the other. The same holds for your bright and dark moments, your peace and your suffering. When darkness comes, it helps to remember that it...
ReadThe mind cannot be quieted by force. Every attempt to stop thinking is itself another thought, another movement of the very thing you are trying to still. Compulsive thinking loosens its grip not when you struggle against it, but when you simply...
ReadAttention is the truest thing you can give, to another person or to your own life. Words offered without it are only hollow echoes, and love expressed without it is only an idea. To give something your full, unjudging attention is already...
ReadPsychological fear points to something that does not exist. It is the mind defending its own image of itself, always some form of the fear of death, even when no danger is present. This is different from the natural instinct that keeps...
ReadA gift to begin with
Thirty short pieces on peace and clarity, as a PDF, and a note from me when something new is published. No noise. Leave whenever you like.