Rediscovering Life: Awaken to Reality

Are you getting some inkling of what it would mean if you really grasped this? You’d be above it all. That’s one nice definition of spirituality. Spirituality means no longer being at the mercy of an event, or a person, or anything else. I didn’t say not to love people. I said, You’re not at their mercy anymore. You’re no longer at the mercy of an

There is a story about a disciple who goes to the master and the master says, “What have you come here for?” And the man says, “Moksha.” Moksha is the Sanskrit word for “freedom.” “I’ve come for freedom.” “Oh, freedom,” says the master. “Mm-hmm. Go and find out who has bound you.” So the guy goes back and meditates for a week, and he comes back and

The world is full of sorrow. The root of sorrow is desire. The uprooting of sorrow is desirelessness.

So, what I’m offering you is not a withdrawal from enjoyment; it’s a withdrawal from possessiveness, from anxiety, from tension, from depression at the loss of something.

The human mind is such an extraordinary thing. It has invented the computer. It has split the atom. It has sent ships into space. It has not, however, solved the problem of human suffering, of anguish, loneliness, emptiness, despair.

My God, how childish can people get? And they don’t know their childishness. They’ve got to blame somebody. But, no. Maturity is understanding that no one is to blame. Or better still, and more accurately put, maturity is not giving yourself the childish emotional outlet of blaming others or yourself but, rather, seeing what went wrong and setting

Why don’t we learn? Because we’ve got to live in illusions. It feels good. It gives us a kick, doesn’t it? It certainly gives me a kick. We want kicks; we don’t want happiness. We want thrills. And wherever you’ve got a thrill, you’ve got an anxiety, because you might lose that thrill, or you may not get it. And then you’ve got depression following

“Don’t teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and irritates the pig.”

The great Chinese sage Tranxu puts it marvelously: “When the archer shoots for nothing, he has all his skill. When he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. When he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind. He’s out of his mind. He sees two targets. His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winnin