Being an Instrument

The reason that we don't have peace is because of the way in which our present minds view the experiences we have with others and within ourselves. Our present nature takes everything personally. In fact, most of us don't know how to do anything other than to take something personally...

Whenever we can't understand the nature of some unwanted situation we fall, by default, into the hands of a nature whose answer to this ache is always the same: get negative and then try to protect ourselves from anything that can't be otherwise controlled. The rest takes place in us on automatic pilot:

Until the peace and pleasure found within yourself is equal to or greater than any consolation found outside of yourself, then your power to be patient, loving, and profitable in every moment is, at best, conditional.

Almost every kind of unhappy feeling is the result of mistaking the partial for the whole. What this means is that when we don't see the whole picture, we are likely to act in a way that is self-defeating. One example of this would be that terrible sinking feeling that comes with learning too late, after you've become upset, that things weren't the way you were so sure they had been. That, in...

In days long past, seekers of Truth spoke of a mysterious "lost chord." Perhaps you are familiar with this timeless spiritual idea? Roughly speaking, the search for this lost chord centered on an idea not too dissimilar from the one that drove seekers to try to find the legendary philosopher's stone. If someone could discover, group, and then intone certain musical notes together -- at the rig...

Imagining all that remains to be done to realize the contentment we seek -- or that we must struggle with to attain some illusive peace of mind -- is like trying to calm the ripples on the surface of a reflecting pond...by throwing a polished stone into its waters.