Articles

Select pieces written over the past few years. Click here to see the Newsletter Archive.

Living Nonduality – Panel

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I hosted this panel at the 2013 Science and Nonduality conference in Holland. At least two of of the participants – Lisa Cairns and Gary Weber – claimed to be in a permanent state of nondual consciousness. For those who don’t speak the lingo, they are what some Buddhist might call “enlightened” – i.e., their sense of being a separate self has collapsed, and they now apparently reside in a state of open unfixed “oneness” – whatever you take that to mean. Actually, what the hell that actually means is the subject of this panel.

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How Zen Master’s Die

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Meditation and other contemplative practices seem to accelerate the aging-gracefully gradient. They are ways of thinning out in the prime of life – a kind of dying in the midst of the everyday. Then when death does come, as it comes for us all, there’s nothing to fear, “for the things we’ve learned to care for will continue.”

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Terrains of Life and Practice

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What is a “breakthrough?” It’s a jump to higher level of insight and perspective. This looks different depending on the person. For some it’s an insight into a dysfunctional pattern or relationship. For others, a renewed sense of vigor and direction. For others still, a glimpse into who they are at what feels like a deeper level.

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Plant Medicine and Meditation

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What she showed me – and for me she is a she – is I am not alone in this process. My reality is co-created – with her when she is with me, with the other participants in the room, with the shamans and their icaros and the whole ecology of natural presences teeming in the space around us.

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Devotion

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We can start pretending, in a vaguely schizoid way, that existence / nature / whatever responds to our overtures, indeed, that the whole container is a 360-degree dance partner keeping time with your every move.

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