Two Lessons from Tenzin Palmo

    Most of us start life eager to learn how to control, make & accumulate things & experiences to make us as happy, safe & comfortable as possible. Some of us remain  students of this stage for life.
    Others become frustrated from repeatedly failing to achieve deep, sustained peace & satisfaction despite controlling, making & accumulating all sorts of stuff & experiences. Some - probably many - wallow in this 'life sucks, and then you die' mode for life.
    Some then turn to religion or spirituality, assuming the magic is in ancient rituals, places, & practices. And a wondrous 'honeymoon period' can occur in religion / spirituality which feels very much like falling in love. Sadly the 'high' doesn't last, and along with it, enthusiasm for religion / spirituality can peter out, leaving adherents with nothing more than a social club for those trapped in 'ordinary unhappiness.'
    A growing number of people sense that there must be a deeper, wiser way of being than wallowing in anxiety / depression. And of course shamans, mystics, saints & serious meditators have known, spoken & written about wisdom traditions for thousands of years: shamanism, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Kabbalah, Christian Mysticism, Sufism, etc. http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=perennial .
    Mature mystics tell us that becoming a mystic does not make all our difficult challenges disappear. With lifelong practice, mystics gradually integrate mystical insights into their daily lives. This means that they gradually become less-and-less focused on personal concepts, preferences, likes & dislikes, etc and more-and-more focused on the welfare of others. This profound shift in consciousness eliminates more than 90% of unnecessary (self-inflicted) suffering: no longer getting angry the many, many times 'things don't go our way.' HOWEVER, mature mystics still experience constant change, aging, sickness, pain & death; and actually feel their own & others' hurts & sorrows much more than the average person BUT experience it all from a very different, much wiser perspective, with little if any suffering.

    “Humans live through their myths, and only endure their realities."
        Robert Anton Wilson. “Cosmic Trigger 1. Final Secret of the Illuminati.” Hilaritas Press, 2016.

    What we hear or read about mature mystics are 'myths' to those who've had little or no mystical experiences, but are simply the reality experienced by other mature mystics, regardless of their background, geography, or time.

 
    “… there is within me something greater, something far more wonderful than I have yet been able to show to the world … something intrinsically good …” 
    Rev. Roshi P.T.N.H. Jiyu-Kennett, “The Wild, White Goose. The Diary of a Female Zen Priest.” ed 2. Shasta Abbey Press, 2002.

    "There is something greater than us, this nondual reality of which we are a part. And you’re always connected to it. There’s no way not to be connected. But you can block it. And unblocking is what these practices are for." 
    Rami Shapiro. CHALLENGING BELIEFS: Are You a VICTIM of Spiritual Misguidance? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rZLlvXFQ7k

    One of the many mystical insights we are ALL capable of receiving is that "there is within me something greater." After this, instead of fearing we're alone, meaninglessly lost in a hostile universe, we KNOW that each of us is a precious, integral part of the intelligent loving Source of all there is.

    “View all traditions and views as non-contradictory, 
      And as true expressions of the Buddha’s teachings.”  
            Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, ‘Heart of Compassion”

    Highly-evolved beings like Sri Anandamayee Ma understand that "the 'personalized gods' of organized religion - whether Brahma, Buddha, Allah, or 'God the Father' of Christianity - are 'like ice, different forms of what is really only [the] pure formlessness' of water: 'When you become attracted and get in touch with a particular Divine form, as you become more absorbed in it, you one day find out that S/He is indeed the formless. Then you see that S/He is sakara [with form] as well as nirakara [without form], as well as beyond both.'"

        Diane Perry felt a strong call to become a Tibetan Buddhist nun when she was 17. As part of her training, renamed Tenzin Palmo, she spent 12 years meditating alone in a 6x6 foot cave in the Himalayas at an altitude of 13,000 feet.
    Most of us can become very upset over ridiculously trivial inconveniences - "first world problems." For context, Buddhists consider the entire realm of existence as 'samsara' - an endless circle of birth and rebirth mired in 'dukkha' - suffering (but more accurately, ‘unsatisfactory’).  
    Tenzin Palmo's reaction to a problem can be a valuable lesson for ALL of us:
    "One spring as the snows melted, her cave flooded. Sick and soaking wet, Palmo sat in her meditation box examining her plight. ‘I was thinking, “Yes, they were right in what they told me about living in caves. Who would want to live in this horrible wet?” It was cold and miserable and still snowing. 
    Then suddenly I thought, ‘Are you still looking for happiness in samsara? We’re always hoping that everything will be pleasant and fearing that it won’t be.’ Suddenly, she realized, ‘“It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. Samsara is dukkha. There’s no problem. Why expect happiness? If happiness is there, happiness is there. If happiness isn’t there, what do you expect? It really doesn’t matter.” 
    When I felt that in my heart, this whole weight of hope and fear just dropped away. … It was an enormous relief. … Why do we make such a big fuss when we suffer? It doesn’t matter. We go on.”

    Even before she left England for the Himalayas, Diane Perry started doing a Buddhist mantra practice of chanting ‘Om Mani Padme Hum.’ This practice reinforces the practitioner’s focus on compassion for other beings.
    She "was working in a library and couldn’t say her mantra aloud, so she began repeating it silently in her heart. ‘Within a very short time, my mind split and there was this quiet, calm, spacious mind with the 'Om Mani Padme Hum' reverberating within it, then there was this peripheral mind with all the thoughts and emotions. The two minds were detached from one another. This gave great poise to my mind and the ability to exercise far more choice over my thoughts and feelings because I was no longer immersed in them.’”
    Lawrence Pintak “Lessons from the Mountaintop. Ten Modern Mystics and Their Extraordinary Lives.” Sentient Publications, 2025. 

    If you're naturally empathic to the plight of others, continuously repeating (internalizing) the mantra, 'Om Mani Padme Hum' will gradually open & soften your heart and you'll feel warmth radiating from your chest. SUPERCHARGE THIS WITH Loving-Kindness Meditation: http://www.johnlovas.com/2022/12/deeper-dimensions-of-acceptance.html 
    If you have a more devotional temperment, and feel more at home with Christian spirituality, try using the mantra, 'maranatha' - Aramaic Christian exclamation meaning "Our Lord, come!" or "Come, Lord Jesus!" used in some Christian meditation practices.
    If you feel more comfortable with a secular mantra, try, 'Om (Aum)' - the sound of the universe, creation, and wholeness. Other secular mantras, "I am grounded," "I am calm," "I am safe," "I am loved," "I am enough," "I am at peace."

    With steady practice, our command center gradually shifts from being exclusively fear / thought-based ("fight / flight / freeze"), located in our head, to being increasingly love / compassion-based ("tend & befriend"), located in our heart. This intentional process of "de-armoring" our heart, allows us to perceive everything - joys & sorrows - of life with progressively greater sensitivity. 

 

“God dwells within you, 
as you.” 
Muktananda


“No effort is lost, 
No obstacles exist.” 
Bhagavad Gita

 

     

Illustration from onbeing.org

Basic Meditation Practice

    Meditation practices pre-date organized religions by thousands of years. All major religions adopted; then - except for Hindus, Buddhists, Eastern Orthodox Christians & Quakers - forgot about; then over the past 50 years or so, most progressive religions re-introduced meditation practices. 
    Nowadays, even outspoken atheists, like Sam Harris, proudly practice meditation. Zen, a branch of Buddhism, is seriously practiced by, and even officially taught by, some Roman Catholic nuns & priests, Jewish Rabbis and atheists.  
    Meditation is profoundly beneficial, even "transformational," regardless of what, if any, belief system one holds. Avoiding meditation is easy. Practicing meditation regularly, like regular physical exercise, takes a bit of effort, but is very wise.

    Basically, meditation practice is about cultivating the courage to remain present to anything your mind & body throws at you, resisting the urge to turn away from pain by turning this physical felt sense into an abstraction, a mental & emotional concept – which actually causes suffering. The pain alone causes less than 10% of the suffering, our attempts to resist feeling it & dealing with it directly causes over 90% of the suffering.
    (In meditation,) face physical as well as emotional & intellectual discomfort, as merely data (simply information) coming from the senses. Be curious about it, 'lean into it' & learn from the data. This practice is designed to teach equanimity, or self-control & awareness, no matter what arises in life – pleasure, pain, boredom, jealousy, anger, lust, longing, sadness. It's designed to interrupt the common habitual impulse – to turn from pain and toward pleasure as fast as we can, … which in the long run leads to greater ignorance & suffering.
    Keith Martin-Smith. “A Heart Blown Open. The Life and Practice of Zen Master Jun Po Denis Kelly Roshi.” Devine Arts, 2011. A REAL EYE-OPENING READ!    

    As with other challenges, it's best to start with baby steps. When starting meditation practice, we're advised to remain still & silent (not engage in internal conversations) even when we feel some minor physical discomfort, like a tickle on our nose. We simply stay with the physical sensation of the tickle, only observing the physical sensation of the tickle, not moving, not talking to ourselves, simply observing JUST THIS physical sensation. We learn experientially that everything ends, so we don't have to immediately react to unpleasant physical sensations. Succeeding in this, gives us the confidence to face more difficult challenges with equanimity.

    As we steadily face whatever unpleasantness we've always avoided & run from before, remain fully-present to the physical feeling of discomfort, the degree of discomfort will progressively diminish, until it disappears, and we are suddenly rewarded. In the long run, this same issue, that we just physically processed, will either recur in progressively milder & milder manifestations, or might only recur without any negative charge at all, as only a powerless memory. This physical processing - remaining with only the physical feel of whatever we're averse to, is a powerful DIY way to disarm psychological baggage.
    If you can't do this on your own, the right meditation teacher, and possibly, the right mental health professional, can definitely help you with this essential healing.

    There's no way to shortcut the essential step of emptying our closet of 'skeletons.' No matter how religious or spiritual you become, significant remaining untreated psychological baggage will continue to sabbotage your life, resulting in needless suffering for yourself and all those around you. 
    Avoiding needed psychological / psychiatric treatment, and instead choosing religion or spirituality, is a common serious form of avoidance called 'spiritual bypassing.'

    Only after we're able to deeply face our small self (personality) - the fictional 'story of me' we've been telling ourselves & others; and have forgiven & accepted this perfectly imperfect small self with kindness, are we able, with an established meditation practice, to repeatedly, lovingly, recognize whenever we relapse into small self behaviour, and effortlessly & lovingly shift back into our true Self (shared aliveness, Buddhanature, Christ consciousness, etc).
    Sitting wishing, hoping, to eventually become awakened takes us further away from awakening (shared aliveness, Buddhahood, Christ consciousness). But as soon as we embody our true Self, we ARE sitting AS shared aliveness (AS the Buddha, AS Christ consciousness).
    Getting hijacked by the tired old 'story of me' pulls us right back into unnecessary suffering. 
    Becoming aware that we're lost in our self-talk / 'story of me' drama, we learn to immediately choose to return to our true Self.

    The more we practice awareness of when we're lost in the old story, the more kindly & effortlessly we remember & re-embody our true, original Nature, the more we stabilize in embodying our original Nature, and the more difficult external circumstances need to be to pull us back into our old story of a separate adversarial self.

     Our awakened shared aliveness is the 'home' - we all look for, first in all the wrong places ie outside of ourselves - money, possessions, experiences, addictions, etc. BUT embodying who / what we truly are, always have been, and always will be is the ONLY 'place' or state that provides real, lasting, peace, satisfaction, contentment, stillness, silence, real happiness - it is our only home.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI8oH2I-iLg   

Wayne Boucher "The Well at Heaven's Gate" www.harvestgallery.ca

Practical Practice

    When is the best time to practice? NOW! Every moment of our brief life! 
    Why?
    Because we face a new reality every single moment,  
        EITHER 
with a loving, spacious response which BRINGS heaven
         OR
with a fearful contracted reaction which BRINGS hell 

    "PRACTICE" is very simple & practical:
CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSING,  
more-and-more consistently, 
moment-by-moment-by-moment-by-moment ...
to live in heaven. 
    Important details: http://www.johnlovas.com/2025/12/basic-meditation-practice.html

    Remember the old joke:
"Why do you keep banging your head against the wall?"
"Because it feels SO GOOD when I stop." 

    Each time we react adversely to anyone or anything, we reject, try to avoid, or judge as wrong the reality we face. We create completely unnecessary suffering whenever we prefer something different than "what is, right here, right now." 
    No matter how old we are, how sophisticated, educated, well-read, etc, we tend to behave like a 4-year old who gets a slightly different toy than the one s/he wanted. We may no longer have melt-downs (though most of us still do at times), but even a brief angry thought causes our body to constrict, adding to a lifetime's store of repressed fear, pain, sadness & hostility in our bodies AND conditions us to automatically react faster & stronger, further solidifying "the story of me" the fictional identity of a "self" composed of a list of likes & dislikes - Eckhart Tolle's "pain body."

    "The Great Way is not difficult
     for those who have no preferences..." Seng Ts'an

    “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor E. Frankl

    Frankl had this powerful insight in a Nazi concentration camp while starving, witnessing thousands of people being murdered daily, and anticipating his own death. He saw the wisdom in CHOSING to RESPOND from his spacious loving higher Self RATHER THAN REACT from a fearful, hateful contracted small self. 
    THIS IS OUR PRACTICE MOMENT-TO-MOMENT

    Wise people, for thousands of years have been telling us things that sound alluring yet counterintuitive:

    "Only have no preferences!"    YET we get upset over the slightest diversion from what we assume would make us happy. 

    "All shall be well,
     and all shall be well,
     and all manner of things shall be well."   Right here & now, as soon as we "see rightly" & choose wisely

    "The kingdom of God is at hand"   It's right here & now!

    "Existence is unimaginably paradoxical. It’s absolutely perfect and beautiful AND it’s a total disaster – a bloody mess, at the same time, occupying the exact same space.
    And that’s why, at least historically, at least as far as I see it, the greatest realizers that have ever walked around this place, haven’t taken their realization, hidden in a cave, and gone ‘Well good for me. I’m in heaven and that’s what I’ll do.’ They’ve generally completely dedicated themselves to the well-being of the world that they see as perfect. But I think it’s because their vision is big enough that it can hold this paradoxical vision, that it’s perfect and complete AND it’s a bloody mess, with a lot of potential. 
    Our (dualistic) minds don’t like those kinds of things. They want to know ‘Which is it?’ ‘Is it this or that?’
    Both!"  Adyashanti http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=everything+is+perfect

Eldred Allen "Epic Sunset" 2019 www.inuitartfoundation.org 

Choice, Choice, Choice ...

     We might recall traumatic events, particularly from childhood, when we helplessly endured something that even now fills us with raw anger, and perhaps we sometimes even fantasize wishing we had immediately reacted with entirely justified fury and power. 

    The toxic energy surrounding such events remains hidden, yet active in our bodies and subconscious, adversely affecting every aspect of our daily life. 

    If our life is severely compromised, we might require help from a trauma therapist. 

    But if we can function reasonably well, putting up with 'ordinary unhappiness,' then we can do 2 things to 'physically process' and gradually purge or unburden our system from these toxins. 

1)    When we're alone in a quiet, safe place, we can intentionally recall, in detail, a specific traumatic incident from our past - perhaps not the worst one to start - that even now causes us to react with anger. 
    We then resolve to allow ourselves to simply physically feel the unpleasant emotions that arise. Although we're very used to reacting to unpleasant feelings by quickly escaping, our mission now is to physically digest, as it were, this entire unpleasant plate-full ie to stay present & curious to the physical feel, as it gradually diminishes in power.  
    Just feel into it. Nothing more.
    Stay with ONLY the physical feeling - no words, no stories, etc.
    Avoid escaping into thoughts, and other distractions.  
    Feel this emotion until it looses its power over your life. You might need to re-visit this same traumatic event and do another physical processing to fully extinguish its power. 

2)    A wonderfully inspiring & useful imho interview between Christina Guimond & Angelo Dilullo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuqmDYYnLSA includes a recommendation (between 32:30 & 44:19) for a potentially very useful body-based adjunct to the above instructions, called TRE - Tension or Trauma Releasing Exercises (a simpler, self-help complement to Peter Levine's deeper, longer-term Somatic Experiencing therapy). 
    If you have Parkinson's or other neurological conditions it's prudent to consult your health-care provider before trying TRE.
    An excellent intro to TRE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoB9wpuO688

    We have the tools to unburden ourselves from all that has ever held us captive. NONE of us have time to waste by remaining timidly imprisoned by our fears. The spiritually independent path is challenging, but WE'RE HERE TO DISCOVER WHO / WHAT WE TRULY ARE and thus be able to BEHAVE like SPIRITUALLY MATURE, RESPONSIBLE HUMAN BEINGS.

Four Paths of Meditation Practice

    It can be almost impossible to have any sense of where we come from, who / what we really are. Usually we only get brief, vague, glimpses, intuitions, insights. But these nudges are recurrent, and our openness, readiness, preparedness to receive them fluctuates. At some point, some of us are drawn to open up & assent to this whispering call, to at long last say, 'Yes!' 

    There have always been those among us - shamans, wisdom keepers, prophets, mystics, saints, and countless ordinary folk - who remember their True Nature more clearly than most, and live as closely as they can to align with that insight: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=perennial+philosophy

 
    Hearing / reading about our True Nature, especially for those with minimal direct experience of it, can be challenging. Language itself is dualistic - it comes from & reinforces a perspective that each of us is a separate entity in a harshly competitive relationship to people, animals, Nature, life itself.

    Those who've had profound direct experiences of ultimate reality, have powerfully experienced how everyone & everything is one, profoundly interconnected, expression of timeless, intelligent Love. 

 

    One of these awakened folks is the Zen teacher & poet, Henry Shukman. A few words he says about his latest book, "Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening" 2025:

     “What I’ve come to feel in the world of meditation, and what my book is really about, is that there are different paths. They’re all closely related, but they have slightly different purposes. They’re not all one and the same.

    So there’s a whole world of practice around mindfulness, which is basically therapeutic, healing. It’s about taming our anxieties, de-stressing, and getting our nervous systems in better shape, more balanced, more subtle, responsive and well-toned, rather than jammed into an accelerated position all the time, stressed-out. So that’s great.

    There’s a whole world also of discovering deeper connectedness, and discovering that underneath our surface life of name & gain and trying to get things, or what Wordsworth called, ‘Getting & Spending,’ beneath that surface life that we’re all so engaged in, there’s a kind of deeper life where we contact something some call the soul, like a deeper level of our personalities, a sort of truer, somehow more authentic self, that has very different concerns. It’s much more concerned with beauty, with spiritual things, and with deeper connection with others. Sometimes it feels connected to forces in Nature, and Nature itself. So to uncover that more connected part of ourselves is a whole other kind of practice. Mindfulness and meditation can help with it, but it’s a slightly different target zone from foundational mindfulness.

    And then there’s the whole world of flow states and absorption practices and what we call Samadhi in Buddhism. This deep absorption, beautiful states of mind that we can cultivate in our mediation, which are wonderful. That’s another world of practice.

    And then the fourth one, I say is Awakening, which is also not like any of the others. Yes, closely related, but it’s a sudden, dramatic shift from one way of seeing, where I am me, which basically I am in those first three kinds of practice. I remain me. I don’t have to suddenly discover I’ve never been here the way I thought. I can work with who I feel I am in mindfulness. Likewise in the deeper connectedness, I’m still a person. There’s no doubt about it. But I am feeling myself in a very different way, but it’s still kind of me. And likewise in cultivation of flow, my sense of self may get quieter, but I haven’t radically discovered that I’ve never been a self the way I thought. 
    In Awakening, we do discover that. Suddenly, we see that what we have taken ourselves to be, has just been a figment of our imagination. And somehow, what’s really been going on is something – well we can get it on different levels really, different depths. There’s no time, there’s no space, there’s no separation. It’s just one unfolding happening now. Just like this. And that’s what we are.” 
    Henry Shukman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ6uKrhAc_s

 

         “There are only two ways to live your life.
         One is as though nothing is a miracle.
         The other is as though
         everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

 Now is the Time

Now is the time to know 
That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider 
A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand 
That all your ideas of right and wrong 
Were just a child’s training wheels 
To be laid aside 
When you can finally live 
With veracity 
And love. . .

My dear, please tell me, 
Why do you still 
Throw sticks at your heart 
And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside 
That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know 
That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time 
For you to compute the impossibility 
That there is anything 
But Grace.

Now is the season to know 
That everything you do 
Is sacred."

Hafiz 'The Gift' translated & interpreted by Daniel Ladinsky

 

Insight Meditation Society (IMS), Barre, MA

 

     

What CAN We Do?

    I'm sure I'm not alone wanting a wise, big-picture overview of life, so I can live my best life.
    Mystics of all wisdom traditions, passed & living, are connected to & share this wisdom. 

    One of the wisest quotes I've come across:  
    "The most important question to ask ourselves, according to Einstein: 
    'Is the universe a friendly place or not?' ... If we believe that the universe is unfriendly ... peace will be elusive at best." 
    Joan Borysenko. “Fire in the Soul. A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism.” Warner Books, 1993. 

    Even intelligent, educated people seem overwhelmed by mysticism for many reasons. First and foremost, our culture is by and large ignorant about mystics & mysticism. Our "consumer society" trains us to buy as much as possible as fast as possible, "greed is good," even after 9/11 George W. told Americans to show the world what they're made of, "Go shopping!" We're starving on a restricted diet of junk food (shallow materialistic concerns), and don't even know the vocabulary of nutrition (metaphysics, spirituality). We fear what we don't know, and procrastinate & otherwise avoid learning about it.

    "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."
    Marie Curie, Nobel Prizes in Physics, & Chemistry 

   "... relax, allow life to be as it is, & open your heart to yourself. It’s easier than you might think, and it could change your life.”
    Kristin Neff. “Self-Compassion. The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.” HarperCollins, 2011. 

 
      "I was born
       when all I once feared
       I could love.”                     Rabia Basri 

      "Once we are willing to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of the simplest of life experiences." Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara 

      During meditation “you are not escaping the world; you are getting ready to fully embrace it.” Christine Skarda  

     "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen   

    SO, what CAN we do? Not should, not must - although our time as individual mortal beings, as well as a species is running out - but absolutely CAN do, because wisdom that is IN ALL of US, the wisdom that is in fact who/what we actually are, is amazingly what we mostly, and in some almost entirely, have forgotten.
    Here's some of what I've understood from the many imho wise elders I've been reading about, listening to on the web, occasionally meeting, and more recently, blogging about: 

 

    Don't Judge. Every day we see outrageous, disgusting behavior on the news. It's disorienting to see how almost half of the US population fervently supports behavior, that in a few years (as Germans did after WWII) they will categorically deny having even known anything about it. So it's hard not to judge terrible behavior. 
    But from a much higher, non-dual perspective, what if we're each born to play a certain role, with a certain set of talents, a certain set of limitations & no matter how wonderful or horrible it appeared, we all did our best. And what if most of our ridiculous behavior was because most (but mercifully not all) of us completely forgot that we took on our role freely, including the fact that we are actually producers & executive directors of the entire play - almost identical to the Jesus being fully human and fully Divine story, except the he had almost complete recall of who he actually was, where he came from, and where he would return to.
    Bewildered? This blog & its video might help: http://www.johnlovas.com/2023/01/the-nearly-unforgivables.html 

 

     Be Discerning. Many of us spend a great deal of time watching / listening to the news & comments about the news. While it's important to perhaps watch / listen to the CBC or BBC news for 30 minutes a day, much more than that is probably masochistic or even an addiction. Doing more & more of what makes you feel sick is not a recipe for optimal healthy.
    Instead of a steady diet of psychopathic politicians, billionaires, "influencers", and other nightmare visions, for the sake of sanity - how about reading about and listening to wise elders? My blogs are all about inspiring, mature, healthy, wise role models, like: 

    James Finley: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=James+Finley .

    Helen Hamilton: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Helen+Hamilton .  

    Rainer Maria Rilke: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Rilke . 

    Robert A. Johnson: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Robert+A.+Johnson

    Rami Shapiro: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Rami+Shapiro . 

    Richard Rohr: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Richard+Rohr .  

    Henry Shukman: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Henry+Shukman .  

    John Welwood: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=John+Welwood .

    Toni Packer: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Toni+Packer . 

    Ram Dass: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Ram+Dass .

    James Hollis: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=James+Hollis . 

    Roger Walsh: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Roger+Walsh .

    David Whyte: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=David+Whyte .

    Norman Fischer: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Norman+Fischer .

    David Steindl-Rast: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=David+Steindl-Rast . 

and MANY MORE wise elders to learn from & be inspired by. 

    It's OUR CHOICE - our free will - whether we immerse ourselves in wisdom - OR - in darkness. "Too busy", yet doomscrolling for hours each day?; is this wisdom stuff "too deep" or "too confusing", and again, "just too busy" to get into it and learn? You can procrastinate and aim at best for feeling superficially OK, "ordinary unhappiness" - OR - discover what life is really about.

 

    Learn & Do Spiritual Practices.  Theory is important BUT not enough. We need to intentionally PRACTICE shifting from being fearful consumer robots to becoming wise elder human beings.
    Our culture is not big on "practices." Some of us might admire the dedication it takes to become world class athletes, dancers, surgeons etc, but most of us just don't have the dedication to put in the time & effort. 
    The ONE area where ALL of us would massively benefit is putting in dedicated time & effort into spiritual practice: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=spiritual+practice 

 

    Be a Nurturing Presence. Only by waking up to who/what we truly are, can we help instead of hinder others to wake up and help others. 
    “… we have to allow our higher nature to show before we can do anything real, before we can be truly responsible people.” Jiyu-Kennett. “The Wild, White Goose. The Diary of a Female Zen Priest.” ed 2. Shasta Abbey Press. 2002.

 

    Be Humble. The ego is a tricky, sticky, persistent trickster. We must regularly check our own BS-meter. A common problem is assuming a massive group ego - thinking one can do even horrible things because "I'm doing God's work." But such "crazy wisdom" is just crazy. To paraphrase Forest Gump, "Crazy is as crazy does." 
    Humility, gentleness, empathy, wisdom & kindness are rarely promoted or even recognized in our consumer culture & partisan religions. 

 

     Learn Self-compassion. The tough, aggressively self-reliant, workaholic individual is venerated these days, while a decent, nurturing, humble person would be branded "a loser" by today's dictators & billionaire CEOs. So decent human beings need to intentionally practice self-compassion, in order to survive & be effective in today's crass, superficial, heartless environment.

 

    Practice Self-awareness. With self-awareness practice, your talk & your walk are kept aligned. Again, humility is crucial. 
    "Self-inquiry" is a specialized, key, self-awareness practice: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=Self-inquiry 

 

    Become More Discerning, More Self-compassionate. The more neuroses & "story of me" burdens we shed, the more clearly we see ourselves & what's going on around us. The more clearly we see, the more magnified our remaining (though diminishing) neuroses & other burdens appear to us, so it can seem like we're regressing instead of "getting ahead." So we need more self-compassion & patience with ourself.
    “Felt reality is invariably wept reality, and wept reality is soon compassion and kindness. Decisive and harsh judgments slip away in the tracks of tears. And when we cry, we are revealing our truest, most loving self.” Richard Rohr. “The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage” Convergent Books, 2025.

  

     Live in Joy. Gradually, you will be progressively more peaceful & joyful, regardless of the many challenges & sorrows in your own & loved ones' life, as well as that of the human race. The major, even crippling burden that you will shed is your identification with & constant rehashing of your own 'story of me' AS WELL AS its twin, the constant anxiety of 'what will happen to me?' and of course, vividly imagining the worst possibilities. As this HEAVY PSYCHOLOGIC BURDEN starts to lift, you start to experience 'the peace that surpasses all understanding' ie it must be experienced to be understood. Even this has, if you will, a 'dark side': while you'll see as your own past, no matter how miserable, as just a story, your empathy towards others (even actors playing a sad role in a movie) becomes progressively more powerful. Your job now is embodying peace & joy modeling equanimity even in the midst of chaos, when it's the most essential.

    "This is actually instruction from the Buddha, where he says, ‘Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate. Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted. Live in joy and peace, even among the troubled. Look within. Be still, free from fears and attachments. Know the sweet joy of living in the way things are in the Way, the Dharma.' 
    And so this is also a challenge. He doesn’t say, let’s get rid of disease and all these problems, but to find a joyful way to be alive amidst it all.”
    Jack Kornfield - Finding Your Self on the Spiritual Path - Point of Relation with Thomas Hübl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fjz7WaTyX4 WONDERFUL MATURE WISDOM - Jack Kornfield at his best

    And some 500 years later, in another incarnation of the Divine, Jesus said, "the poor will always be with us." Fixating on quickly eliminating age-old problems is in itself problematic, akin to "seeing a splinter in another's eye," again from Jesus, advising that we should first address our own significant flaws (‘the beam’ in our own eye) before attempting to correct / "save" others.

“The teachings on Buddha Nature do not mean that there is some nucleus of Buddhhood enclosed in sentient beings 
behind the temporary obscuring stains. 
Rather, our whole existence as sentient beings is in itself 
the sum of temporary stains that float like clouds in the infinite, bright sky of Buddha Nature, the luminous, open expanse 
of our mind that has no limits or boundaries. 
Once these clouds dissolve from the warm rays of the sun 
of wisdom shining in this space, 
nothing within sentient beings has been freed or developed, 
but there is just this radiant expanse without any reference points of cloud-like sentient beings or cloud-free Buddhas." 
Sthiramati, 6th century Indian Buddhist scholar-monk

 

 

     Watching David Ditchfield's 40-minute BBC interview about his Near-Death Experience (NDE) is imho wise use of your precious time: https://www.shineonthestory.com/