Choice

Student Talks: 10/17/2025 - There is no painful state of psychological resistance to any given moment that isn’t preceded by some form of unseen demand that we have brought with us into that moment. 

Doing the right thing, in the right way, begins with seeing the right order of things. All of life's lessons point us toward this simple, celestial truth. Through the pain of missteps and mistakes, we are gradually awakened to discover what has always been right before our eyes: whenever things are out of order within us, our choices and actions must follow -- and sorrow is the inevitable result.

Student Talks: 3/07/2025 - The inevitable sense of emptiness that eventually nips at the heels of most men and women is the sudden realization that in spite of having "banked" a billion self-stimulating sensations -- even when all have been added up -- they still amount to nothing.

Student Talks: 1/24/2025 - Awakening is the (graduated) process of negating all forms of identification; (it is) the realization that no matter how real the feel of any familiar sense of self -- for its pleasure, or pain -- nevertheless: no sensation does a “self” make, any more than a wave on the sea makes the sea from out of which it rises, and must return.

Student Talks: 9/29/2023 - Key Lesson: True joy is uncalled for; it is like a breeze you didn't know you were waiting for; a silence that speaks of things eternal; (it is) to experience and realize the completion of something within you that you didn't even know was missing.

Student Talks: 2/3/2023 - Key Lesson: The more we work to attend to the need of each new moment, the more the conflict of yesterday -- along with its closest friend, called the "fear of tomorrow" -- seems to be miraculously resolved, and then just quietly disappear!

Student Talks: 11/18/2022 - Key Lesson: The past does not give birth to the future, any more than we might think to look for the living in a graveyard.

Student Talks: 11/4/2022 - Key Lesson: There is a proportionate and direct relationship between the degree of an inconsolable pain -- some form of disquiet that's pretty much our daily companion -- and misunderstanding the real purpose of this life we have been given.

Student Talks: 4/22/2022 - Key Lesson: There is a very strange feature as concerns most human beings: we would rather feel anxious thinking about unwanted moments over which we have no power, than to practice placing our attention in the fact of that moment... where no thought is needed to build a bridge between ourselves, and a timeless peace whose Presence all of us seek.

Student Talks: 8/14/2020 - Key Lesson: Part 1: We can imagine almost anything save this one unimaginable exception: the dark walls that seem to close in on us in the midst of some unwanted moment are, in fact, nothing more than (parts of) a dark dream born of a mind so asleep to itself... it can't see it has unconsciously...

Student Talks: 3/15/2020 - Key Lesson: There is only one reason why we become emotionally negative, let alone surrender ourselves to embrace its dark and debilitating embrace: We have forgotten that we have a choice as to what we love, and whose company we keep, accordingly.

Student Talks: 6/14/2019 - Key Lesson: The sooner we realize the wisdom of refusing to excuse our negative states... the sooner will these dark thoughts and feelings excuse themselves from our life.