Student Talks: 2/2/2024 - Key Lesson: Because we are literally defined by our desires, we are confined to an unseen house of pain that, in turn, has transformed our fertile planet into a prison filled with frustrated inmates... none of whom can figure out why they're unable to escape the consequences of their (own) choices.

Student Talks: 12/20/2023 - Key Lesson: To everything there is a season, and life's great cycles of expansion and contraction -- of yes and no -- serve no individual save the one who has uncovered the secret of being in the world, but not of it.

Student Talks: 7/28/2023 - Key Lesson: A true search for the beginning of things must, invariably, lead to the end of things; but the end of things is not the end of the awareness of them.

Student Talks: 4/21/2023 - Key Lesson: Never run from any moment you don't understand, as whatever your conflict may be in that moment with life... (it) will be waiting for you when, and wherever you come to a stop.

Student Talks: 4/7/2023 - Key Lesson: There is no reward for love, let alone for being "loving." Either love ITSELF is the reward, or it is not.

Student Talks: 12/30/2022 - Key Lesson: How can we ever hope to be at peace with life when -- for the most part -- all we know to live for is the endless struggle to carve out a piece of it for ourselves?

Student Talks: 3/18/2022 - Key Lesson: Part 1: By wanting are all things not wanted... thus created; much as joy and sorrow, bound as one... are related. Part 2: If you build it, they will come; if you leave it empty... it will be filled.

Student Talks: 5/28/2021 - Key Lesson: Since no desire can complete itself -- by itself -- through anything it imagines -- its only recourse is to imagine "more of" whatever failed to satisfy it the first time around. This unseen cycle is the mainspring of all forms of addiction, as unconscious desire keeps trying to fill a bucket with...

Student Talks: 4/16/2021 - Key Lesson: All unconscious negative reactions -- with others, events, or with ourselves -- deflect this one crucial revelation: as long as we meet life with any compulsive demand or unseen craving, we can't help but be painfully remanded into the hands of one self-punishing reaction after another...

Student Talks: 12/4/2020 - Key Lesson: Part 1: There are as many desire-driven dead-end roads promising to deliver us from our fears as there are fearful thoughts looking for a way to escape the consequences of the unconscious choices they helped to create. Part 2: As long as desire remains unaware of itself... it can only chase its own...

Student Talks: 8/21/2020 - Key Lesson: Part 1: The divided mind -- driven as it is by unconscious desires -- is very similar to a dog that has learned to throw its own stick. It cannot come to a rest until it has exhausted itself, and even then it can’t let go of what it feels compelled to chase. Part 2: The cost of starting over spiritually...