Life will always give you something greater than what it's asked you for, providing you're willing to let go of that part of yourself that, for fear of the new, favors what's old.

Every time we accept a negative state we compromise ourselves and increase the level of conflict for ourselves and everyone we meet.

There is an ancient idea, perhaps best expressed in the New Testament, which states that before a human being can hope to awaken, he or she must have not enemies. When you lie to someone, you have automatically made an enemy because you will always resist that person out of fear that he or she will expose your lie at any given moment. Therefore, not only have we made an enemy when we lie, we a...

I've heard this maxim again and again: that you'll repeat an experience until you no longer need it or resist it. Yet I know of more than one person who left a boss, spouse, or friend because they were fed up with the relationship. None of them claim they grew in wisdom or grace or some other form of enlightenment. They claim the only thing that changed was that they woke up to the fact they w...

Topics covered: The most important thing in any given moment is that I have to attend to "my" part of that moment, my responsibility; We never see ourselves at fault; There are two sides to every relationship; What can I learn in this moment about myself; Can I resist something that my partner has said or done without having an expectation of some kind; We accuse our partner of pushing our button...

Catch any strong reactions you have to an event, a piece of news, or to a conversation with someone that fills you with negativity. See how this sudden onset of pressure tempts you to set out on a path to resolve the pain. Observe the pain and the nature that resists the moment. That old nature's problem is no longer your problem when you are conscious of the pain that it produces.

One of the problems that we face as human beings is that our senses separate us from what we see. If you have ever been physically sick, you know that prior to being sick, you were virtually unaware of the fact that you were healthy. So were it not for physical sickness, we would never know gratitude for health. Health and sickness are not separate things. We usually resist, reject, and refus...

Can you see that there is something inside of you that immediately begins to tell you what any event means and what you need to do about it? You've been with this storyteller for so long, it's an unquestioned presence in your mind. It's just part of what we call our life. But this storyteller isn't really alive. Its story is to ensure the continuation of its life...

We have a nature that thinks about itself -- a nature that weighs itself on a scale that our culture has created and our thoughts have unconsciously adopted. Unexamined, this mind is a virtual torture device, keeping us locked within its own limitations. In the absence of practical thought (the only right capacity of the mind), there is always some painful reaction...

The possibility of realizing our highest Good is hidden in every unwanted moment of life where -- if we wish to realize the grace that awaits us there -- we are asked for what amounts to an act of Divine obedience: and that is to yield ourselves to whatever we're given to see as true (about us)... without resisting the nature of what we're being shown, let alone to ask the question "why?"

Topics covered: Instead of telling you what to do, the present moment is first and foremost asking what it is that you love and what is it that you will serve; We are not going to change other people by resisting what they are and insisting that they be something else; Unconscious suffering involves blame, shame and judgment. Conscious suffering reveals unconscious suffering and everything that comes with it.

Classroom Talk: 12/19/2021 - Part 1: Resisting what feels like an unwanted moment seems natural; but, refusing to accept it... is not. Part 2: There are some things in this life -- in the world of passing time, governed as it is by the illusion of opposites -- that cannot grow up side-by-side; for instance, by reason of their nature, the lion and the lamb never lay down together...