Temptation

Topics covered:  We seem to be at peace whenever we are getting what we want, but anything can interrupt that kind of peace; There is never a moment when you are not being given what you need, but you have to want to receive what you are being given; If you are thinking about how to face a moment outside of what is practical, you are lost.

Topic: Start Thinking for Yourself and Stop Sinking into Painful Thoughts and Feelings (Remastered Classic Talk) (Classroom Talk 5/27/26)

Topics covered:  We keep reaching out into the world for what seems to be missing because we are not at peace with ourselves as we are; Whenever we are looking to distract ourselves, there is an unseen hope that we will find a lasting refuge of some kind. We are hoping to find some kind of relief from feelings of dissatisfaction; The nature that feels dissatisfied and incomplete will find ways to create dependency in others so that it can feel momentarily significant.

Student Talks: 02/06/2026 - Giving yourself empty things to do can't fill the emptiness you feel inside, so…risk leaving that space empty; allow it to be filled with something you can't give yourself: freedom from the fear of feeling empty.

Topics covered:  We always find fault with what captures us instead of finding fault with what got captured. "The fox condemns the trap, not himself." -- William Blake; In the same instant that we identify with what we believe will make us whole, there is fear that we will lose it. Then we set out to protect what we have identified with; How can we be immersed in suffering and yet not know anything about it? We don't question our suffering; we question what we believe is the source of it.

Remastered Classic Talk: 11/4/15 - Here is the obvious, but rarely acknowledged reason why we must dig in and do the difficult inner work needed for real self-transformation: if we don't change, we gradually come to wholly embody the very weaknesses whose destructive nature we wish weren't (living) within us. The courage to see the truth of this inevitable outcome gives us the reason, the will and the courage we need to succeed in our quest to regain command over our own heart, mind, and soul.

Student Talks: 07/25/2025 - Our true nature is not discovered by acquiring new knowledge, but by awakening to what has always been present: the light of a living awareness, waiting to be awakened, and realized as being inseparable from one’s True Self.  

Student Talks: 05/30/2025 - It’s not by accident that we reach interim points of mounting resistance in our work to be free, any more than we accidentally meet the challenge of some uncertain, unstable ground that waits to be gained the nearer we come to the summit of a mountain.

Classroom Talk: 11/20/2024 - Whenever we kneel to the temptation of some consoling indulgence, or struggle to acquire a power to protect us from a fear...we yield to, and serve the pleasure of a darkened desire that has promised, once again, to save us from (our) pain.

Topics covered:  People go into pain over being told that their pain is self-inflicted; Most of us are more interested in trying to answer our pain (resolve it) than in understanding it; The very last thing that a human being wants to do is give up their suffering.

Student Talks: 3/10/2023 - Key Lesson: Allowing any part of self to act in such a way as to deny yourself a new awareness of yourself -- whatever its quality -- is the same as refusing your right to realize the limitless depth and breadth of your true Self.

Topics covered: To paraphrase the well-known koan: If a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there wishing it didn't, does it create fear or suffering?; The very struggle to escape the captivity of the consciousness that you are born into is why you remain a captive of that consciousness; The task is not to save yourself. The task is to realize a relationship with a part of you that does not need to be...