ringfencing my self
I remember reading somewhere that just few decades ago we lived in small communities, unconnected by the internet. We would only need to cope with the happenings of this small community, and…
tags /identity /
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what does it mean to live well
A while ago an old friend texted me that an unexpected event had once again reminded her how transient life can be, and she thought of me because I was one of…
what is there when there is nothing
When we quit careers, leave relationships or start working on ourselves, we may neglect to consider the systemic consequences of that in our lives. Plenty of those times it is most likely…
self-nourishment in times of despair
I grappled a lot with identity, self-worth, purpose and meaning after developing a chronic illness and quitting design as a job. I recognised my life then was unsustainable – I felt like…
the story
I have this habit of bullet journalling on dayone every night, and it has this feature where it would show all the entries I have made “on this day”. It has been…
falling petals
I missed a week of writing because I ate some champagne foam in a dessert and my body reacted so adversely to it I was sick for a week. In the middle…
people transform the dharma into a belief system
All too often in the name of Buddhism, people transform the dharma into a belief system, a religious or ethnic identity, a dialectical tool that they employ to secure a place either in their own egoistic scheme of self-appraisal or in the various pecking orders established by society and the world. Far from dwelling in the radiant, open-hearted equanimity that allows them the freedom to risk responding to life unconditioned by reactivity, they prefer to encase themselves in an armor of fixed opinions, where they can feel self-righteous and impervious to criticism.
39
I write one of these every year, since the age of 30. This is my tenth year writing, and from reading posts from the previous nine years you could see the trajectory…
the ultimate mystical goal is to be united with one’s god
But the ultimate mystical goal is to be united with one’s god. With that, duality is transcended and forms disappear. There is nobody there, no god, no you. Your mind, going past all concepts, has dissolved in identification with the ground of your own being, because that to which the metaphorical image of your god refers is the ultimate mystery of your own being, which is the mystery of the being of the world as well. And so this is it.
a whole new way of experiencing a society
All this hope for something happening in society has to wait for something in the human psyche, a whole new way of experiencing a society. And the crucial question here, as I see it, is simply: With what society, what social group, do you identify yourself? Is it going to be with all the people of the planet, or is it going to be with your own particular in-group? This is the question, essentially, that was in the minds of the founders of our nation when the people of the thirteen states began thinking of themselves as of one nation, yet without losing consideration for the special interests of each of the several states. Why can’t something of that kind take place in the world right now?