I resonate with the nondual teachings of people like Lisa Cairns, Helen Hamilton, Gangaji, Angelo DiLullo, Henry Shukman, Louise Kay, Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti, Richard Rohr, James Finley, Rami Shapiro, David Steindl-Rast,Norman Fischer, Rumi, Rainer Maria Rilke, etc.
"I believe that, whatever we’re going to call it – God, Kali or whatever – is a nondualReality. I don’t believe that there’s a God separate from Nature, who created the world, who judges us, and all that. I’m not a dualist. I’m a nondualist. And so I’m interested in the nondual aspects of Hinduism and Vedanta, in Taoism and Zen, Christianity, Islam, wherever – they all have this nondual perspective among their mystics. I’m interested in that. I will play in all those arenas, because I think they’re all leading us to the sameineffable experience. When you’re talking about that nondual reality, the labels are irrelevant. And I mean, every religious tradition has this mystic element. And because the mystics understand that - God or whatever they’re going to call it - can be experienced directly, in, with, & asyou. And I’m interested in that experience. But that’s not what the conventional religious teachers tell you." Rami Shapiro "CHALLENGING BELIEFS: Are You a VICTIM of Spiritual Misguidance?"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rZLlvXFQ7k
"The final stage of love is nonduallove, or love beforedivision, or love beforeseparation. Love where there is no person or thing to love. There is just love recognizing itself. So, when love looks at something, that loveseesitselfin a different disguise. It doesn’t see a person or a thing, only recognizes itself." Helen Hamilton – “The Pathway of Love” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWkkmLx1G6Y
“Vigilance is awareness of what does not disappear even when objects appear. Whether those objects are exquisite or horrible or mundane, always there is awareness aware ofitself. Whether those objects are emotional or mental or physical, always there is awareness aware ofitself. Pure vigilance must be an ease of recognition; otherwise, there is doing vigilance, and this is already not vigilant. When you hear this thought, Now I am going to do vigilance, ask yourself, ‘Who’ is doing vigilance? This is direct self-inquiry. You will see that it is quite natural to be aware of passing objects as well as aware of what is aware of both passing objects and itself. It is a mistaken understanding that implies vigilance to be a burden. The real burden is the denial of your beingness as awareness itself. The idea that vigilance is a burden comes from the concept of spiritual practice. You are admonished to practice. ‘You have to keep your practice.’ I don’t know what the word practice is translated from, but it is a bad translation, because in English practice means some kind of preparation for a real event. You practice for the football game. You practice for your recital. So I don’t use the word practice in terms of vigilance. I am talking about being vigilance. Be that right now. You are that already. Recognize yourself as that, and be vigilant to yourtrue nature. Then see. Without looking for anything, see. In Western culture, particularly in America, we are trained to know what is going to be ahead and to attempt to make it be what we want it to be. This is why there is so much suffering here, trying to force life to be something based on a particular concept. Then we search for agreement with that concept and fight any disagreement of that concept. Even if we are victorious in our fight, we are left unsatisfied, unfulfilled. Wait and see doesn’t necessarily mean you sit on your couch and never move. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that you get off your couch and move. It is much deeper than that. An active life can be lived as vigilance, and an inactive life can be lived as vigilance. There will be many insights. There will be many revelations and deepening experiences. In the midst of it all, be vigilant to what has not moved, what has always been whole, what has always been radiant & unpolluted. There will be even deeper insights. Enjoy them as they come, wave them good-bye as they pass, and be vigilant towhat has not moved, what has not been lostby the experience of loss, and what has not been augmentedby the experience of gain. Be vigilance. The deepest joy of the human experience is to be vigilant. It is not a task. It is blissitself. A bliss that is awake & vigilant to what never moves, to what is always present. Bethat. Then you will see that this entity called your lifetime unfolds exquisitely, as a flower unfolds. As it begins to die, itwilldie exquisitely, as a flower dies. You don’t need to dip it in wax so that it will stay forever at a certain stage. Death is not the enemy. Fear of death is the enemy. Fear of death is the result of the misidentification of yourself as some particular entity. Your true identification is the sky of being.” Gangaji. “Freedom and Resolve. Finding Your True Home in the Universe.” Hampton Roads, 2014.VALUABLE little book!
May this guided nondual (30 minute) meditation help you feel into, remember & re-experiencedeep calm, homecoming & peace - that you (& everyone & everything) already are, have always been, & will always be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkhrKy4FStE
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. ... live in the question.” Rainer Maria Rilke
We all hold firm to the ideas we've - mostly unconsciously - formulated that are essentially survival strategies. A few of these are important & useful throughout life; while mostare justlife lessonsin various disguises. And yet, our old dogmatic rules for lifecan keep us imprisoned in a tight little box, fearing that even examining & questioning them consciously is to risk death& eternal damnation. Of course it's far easier to see such rigidity of speech & behavior in others. Wemight clue in to our own imprisonment whenever our anger is suddenly triggered, when we refuse to look deeper into, consider alternative ways of thinking about, or further discuss certain ideas. Religion, politics & personal finance seem to be common no-go zones - triggers forrigid little box certainties.
At the bottom of the page is imho Helen Hamilton's most valuable guide to help us experience freedomfromunnecessary suffering. Fully90-95% of our suffering is unnecessary because we unwittingly bring it upon ourselvesby rejecting parts of reality we don't want, and by clinging to parts of reality that we do want. The mindonly understands controlling our environment, even when it cannot be controlled - which makes no sense& of course causes prolonged, unnecessary suffering. Especially those who've had a great deal of success controlling life using the mind, may find it very counterintuitive & almost impossible to shiftfrom our common hyper-rational, head-centered operating system to asupra-rational (NOT irrational), spiritual heart-centered one. We may have to suffer needlessly, for a very long time before we allow ourselves to make this ESSENTIAL SHIFT. Helenskillfully guides us to radically accept ALL of REALITY - saying: "Yes to everything!”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUOtVI_LnUU
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us." Marianne Williamson
“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
"The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences..." Sengstan
"The lightwithin you, when resolutely recognized in all circumstances, has the capacity to embrace everything. This uncompromising acceptance is, in fact, your true nature." Amoda Maa
"There never was a time when you or I did not exist. Nor will there be any future when we shall cease to be." Bhagavad Gita
As soon as we're ready to let go of fearful certainties, the spacious mystery of who / what we truly are & actual reality awaits!
"Try to be mindful, & let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange & wonderful things come & go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha." Ajahn Chah
"We are stars wrapped in skin. The light you are seeking has always been within." Rumi
Helen Hamilton's MOST VALUABLE teaching - listen to ALL of it
I'm sure I'm not alone wanting a wise, big-picture overview of life, so I canlive my best life. Mystics of all wisdom traditions, passed & living, are connected to & sharethis wisdom.
One of the wisest quotes I've come across: "The most important question to ask ourselves, according to Einstein: 'Is the universea friendly placeor 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 bymysticism 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 fearless." Marie Curie, Nobel Prizes in Physics, & Chemistry
"... relax, allow life to be as it is, &open yourheart to yourself. It’s
easier than you might think, and it could change your life.” KristinNeff. “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 tojudge terrible behavior. Butfrom 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 andfully 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:
and MANY MORE wise elders to learn from & be inspired by.
It'sOUR CHOICE - our free will - whether we immerse ourselves inwisdom - OR - indarkness. "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 bestfor feeling superficially OK, "ordinary unhappiness" - OR - discover what life isreallyabout.
Learn & Do Spiritual Practices. Theory is important BUT not enough. We need to intentionally PRACTICE shiftingfrom beingfearful consumer robotstobecoming 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 judgmentsslip 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 burdenthat 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 BURDENstarts 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 embodyingpeace & joymodelingequanimityeven 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, freefrom 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, butto find a joyfulway to be aliveamidst it all.” Jack Kornfield - Finding Your Self on the Spiritual Path - Point of Relation with Thomas Hüblhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fjz7WaTyX4WONDERFUL 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 itselfproblematic, 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 tocorrect / "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 cloudsin the infinite, bright sky of Buddha Nature, the luminous, open expanse of our mind that has no limits or boundaries. Once theseclouds 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 thisradiant 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/
One summer night when we were around 14, my best friend Kazimir and I were walking through a park in Montreal near where we lived. We noticed 20 or more people near us all looking upwards. We stopped, looked up, and saw this extraordinary, large, bright white, stationary object overhead. We all stared at it for several minutes. We had no idea what it was, but decided that nobody would believe our description, so we went home and never discussed it.
Roughly fifty years ago, while a university student working for the summer as an orderly in a large hospital, I was called to help clean up a mess. I arrived to find a tragicomedy unfolding. An elderly, apparently famous gentleman, dressed only in an untied, soiled Johnny shirt, was experiencing explosive diarrhea all over his private hospital room's bathroom. Several hospital staff were helplessly standing around, trying to keep him from slipping & falling into the mess. Only one person was quite beside herself - the gentleman's elderly wife. She was impeccably dressed in black, evening-at-the-opera attire, complete with all the jewellery, black gloves etc. The gentleman himself was impressively peaceful, gently trying to calm his completely distraught wife.
During that summer in the same hospital, I chatted with a young man who was about to have heart surgery the next day. He was friendly, cheerfully looking forward to enjoying the rest of his life post-op. I wished him well. The next day, I came by to visit, and found his bed made and empty. I asked about him, and was told he had died during surgery.
"Shit happens," no matter how obsessively we try to control ourselves, others & life in general. If we live long enough, we realize it's just a question of when. And yet we do have freedom, which depends on our perspective, which determines our response.
We can, and I fear many of us do, see each individual unwelcome event in our life as if it were some random or even intentional cruelty of chance, Nature or the Divine. We can keep count of these, and rationalize holding a grudge against the meaningless of life, cruelty of Nature, or malevolence of God. This is our noisy ego's last desperate, failed attempt to hang onto its own relevance. It is the ego / false self / separate self that goes through Kübler-Ross' 5stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression & acceptance.
While our wiser 'part' / Self is aware of the bigger picture and our intimate connection with everyone & everything, our Oneness. "There’s a crucial6th stage to the grieving process: meaning. ... we acknowledge that although for most of
us grief will lessen in intensity over time, it will never end. But if
we allow ourselves to move fully into this crucial & profound sixth
stage – meaning – it will allow us to transform grief intosomething else, somethingrich & fulfilling."David Kessler. “Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief.” Scribner, 2019.
But the egodoes not give uppretending to be in complete control easily! One ploy is taking on the persona of "the liminoid ... when you start to take pride in the breakdowns, trouble & commotion of your life, because you think ... ‘it makes you windswept and interesting.’" Martin Shawhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpi06B0mvSI&list=PLb7eXq8MJBchKf73SDzbcMyD3i-mhjJsn&index=2 When all else fails, the ego's last act is to PROUDLY cling to anything: Charlton Heston, spokesperson for the National Rifle Association (NRA), "I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands" and Dylan Thomas' call to the dying, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
OurSelfknows better, and we canhear our ownwisdomwhen the egoisn't yelling.
But we requirea lifetime of intentional training to recognize how thoroughly we have been conditioned by our stunningly shallow society to abandon our true nature and instead adopt a robotic level of self-centered left-hemisphere dominance.
The training, the practice we need is one by which we progressively remember our true nature, who wetruly are, andintegrate this more & more consistently, into daily life. "Growing pains" are inevitable on any learning journey, especially a spiritual one which requires us to releasecompulsive self-centeredness. It's probably easier for an obese life-long 'couch potato' to become an elite athlete, than for the average person who considers him/herself open-minded and 'good' to become moderately spiritual. These 2 very recent interviews shed useful light on this process :
Executive orders abolishing or reversing any policy that's humane, ethical or simply decent,
flow relentlessly, like sewage from a broken main, from this cartoon
character. What on earth brought this nightmarish shadow
on the U.S., the whole world? Such immoral behavior, and support for it, is caused by fear & ignorance about basic human decency, and certainly about evolved human behavior.
We know that fear can cause the survival or fight, flight, freezeinstinct to take over. This primitive instinct cango easily too far, as when during war, soldiers commit barbaric acts, which even in warfare are denounced as "atrocities." Committing atrocities unknowingly inflict "moral injury" on perpetrators,and so they becomemuch more likely to suffer from PTSD. "Moral transgression," above and beyond all other dangers & hardships, is ... the most important cause of combat PTSD. Jonathan Shay. “Achilles in Vietnam. Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character.” Scribner, 1994.
Even without combat, manyexperience trauma, do not receive treatment, and thus can be triggered, causing harm to themselves and others. For various reasons, trauma remains largely unrecognized & under treated.
Not just prisoners, but far too many politicians & their supporters are dysfunctional people coming from dysfunctional homes (inter-generational trauma), who continue to spread their unresolved pain & sufferingfar & wide.
First, we MUST recognize, diagnose & treat mental illness to at least the level of "ordinary unhappiness." Electing cartoon characters to the highest office is extremely worrisome & dangerous, and accurately reflects the patheticpsychosocialspiritual level of voters.The 2023 movie, "Lee" starring Kate Winslet (Prime Video), is a powerful true story about what happens when a cartoon character is elected to head a powerful militaristic nation.
It WILL eventually dawn on us that we're INFINITELY MORE than an isolated, separate, meaningless, worthless lumps of meat accidentally adrift in a massive mindless, soulless, mechanical cosmos. We WILL become increasingly moreporous to & intimate with loving cosmic intelligence which is our origin, home & true nature.
Weprogressively integrate our true identity with our daily life - with all of its ups, downs, sunny days, cloudy days, summer days, winter days, blissful days, tearful days... Our true identitygrounds us more and more securely, like the ballast of a sailboat prevents it from being turned upside down, no matter how strong the stormy winds blow. We come to feel like the stillness & silence in the center of a tornado; the endless, peaceful blue sky, which is unperturbed whether visited by clouds, sunshine, or thunderstorms. We gradually recognize that we are, as Rumi writes, "the clear bead at the center," and that deepening realization "changes everything."
The clear bead at the center changes everything. There are no edges to my loving now. Some say there’s a window that opens from one mind to another. But if there's no wall, there's no need for fitting a window, or a latch. The clear bead at the center changes everything.
Rumi, translation by Robert Bly & Coleman Barks
“... this peace or quiet joy or sufficiency that is the nature of our being is always there… like the blue sky, it's always present but not always seen.” Rupert Spira
Rupert Spira (now 64), has been meditating from the age of 17, and a full-time spiritual teacher since 2011, was asked by Tami Simon, "do you always feel in touch with that blue sky natureor do you have times when it’s a really cloudy day today, come on?"
Rupert Spira: "I have times when it’s a cloudy day, so I would not say I always feel in touch with this background. I would say that I nearlyalways feel in touch with it. And what I’ve noticed as I’ve grown older is that fewer & fewer experiences retain the capacity to veil this background of peace & quiet joy. Some experiences do still retain that capacity, so I don’t always feel it, but fewer and fewer experiences have the capacity to veil this peace. And when they do, they don’t last long. It’s not like the olden days when a feeling could obscure this background of peace and last for a week or even a day. So, yes, in answer to your question that there are days or times when the gray clouds temporarily cover this, the blue sky of happiness, but it happens less and less often and lasts for less and less time." Tami Simon: "And is there something in those moments that’s your personal Rupert Spira go-to move, this is what I do when that happens?" Rupert Spira: "Yes. There are two things I do ... One is pause, turn my attention away from whatever it is that is causing the gray clouds in that moment. And if my circumstances permit, I will literally pause and close my eyes and if not, I’ll do it in the midst of my experience and I just go back. Instead of being engaged with the foreground of my experience, the activity, the relationship, the object, whatever it is that is causing the gray seeming to cause the gray clouds. Because the gray clouds are never really caused by something outside of ourself, but whatever it is that seems to be causing the gray clouds, I’ll pause and I’ll go back and I just go back to the fact of being, I just go back to my being. My being and your being and everyone’s being is always at peace. It’s likethe screenbefore it’s colored by the image, it’s colorless, it’s unqualified, it’s always at peace. So that’s one thing I do. It’s a turning away from experience, just a resting, going back to being. Nowthe other thing I do is rather the opposite of that, instead of turning away from whatever seems to be causing the gray clouds, the unhappiness, I’ll turn towards it. And instead of saying no to it, because that’s what causes the sorrow, it’s not the situation itself that is causing the unhappiness, it’s our saying no, I don’t want this. This shouldn’t be happening, I don’t like it. It’s ourinner no, or resistance to the experience,that causes the unhappiness. So in that moment, I’ll turn towards the situation, whatever it is, and instead of saying no to it, say yes to it. I just embrace it. I just turn towards it fully and open myself to it. And I say to it, you have no power to cause me happiness unless I grant that power to you that the resistance is in me, you and you. That the situation, the person, whatever it is, are not causing the resistance, I’m doing that to myself. And so I positively affirm that this complete openness, this complete yes to my current experience. Andin that yes, there can be nosuffering because suffering is always no, I don’t like what’s happening. So I do one of those two things. And of course just one more thing to say, Tami, I don’t wonder which of these two approaches to take. It’s a spontaneous thing." Interview :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E45Lfv31TMY Transcript : https://resources.soundstrue.com/transcript/the-quiet-joy-of-being/
The wise approach above is particularly valuable when dealing with those for whom most, if not all, of life is covered by dark clouds. We cannot expect them, or really anyone or anything else, to dependably part, or see pastour clouds. These are our clouds. The best we can do is for us to see pastour clouds, and share our clear skies with others.
