In this excerpt from a recent classroom talk, Guy talks about how agreeing to live with fear, worry, anxiety, depression -- or any other negative state -- is the same as living in the "dread zone," a psychological state of useless suffering that prevents us from being alive and aware in the present moment.

Exercise: In any moment when some 'adversary' shows up and you feel the need to defend yourself, don't do it. Be present to what has been produced in you from the appearance of the enemy and don't return unkindness with unkindness. Allow an atonement to take place instead.

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of August 20, 2018. Part 1: It's not the moment that's unsteady; it's our present level of self: a shack made of sticks that's shaken by any unexpected wind... and that fears its own shuddering.

Remastered Classic Talk: 04/20/16 - All of our imagined hopes and plans for the promising pleasures of "tomorrow" are crafted by the parts of us determined to keep us from seeing what we're being given to see about ourselves in each and every present moment.

 

 

Our inner work to be present - including the attention needed to do so - is to make possible this revelation: the negative experience of any unwanted moment is inseparable from the nature of the seer; in this awakening is born the willingness we need to surrender ourselves, that we may be "reborn."

Classroom Talk: 2/23/2022 - The past -- whatever its pain -- only exists in the present moment as a place of suffering due to an unconscious level of self that -- on its own -- first recalls that time and place of sorrow, and then resists the torment of its own conditioned memory.

If we work each moment to practice kindness, patience, and persistence -- doing so in grateful remembrance that each breath we take is a gift -- here's what we'll find: the power of being present in this way ensures that each of our "tomorrows" dawns with more Light than was seen this day.

To be able to see any life event -- good or bad -- as a vehicle to help transport us from our present level of understanding to a higher one requires that we develop a new relationship with these unwanted events in our lives. Instead of trying to protect ourselves from them, we must become willing to see what they are revealing to us about ourselves in that same moment. The difference between these two paths and their attending possibilities...

If you're tired of being a slave to a painful relationship out of your past, this study in how to release resentments is sure to bring welcome relief. Unconscious conflicts, in dialogue form, play themselves out in our mind by painfully reenacting various scenes from our past; moments gone by in which we either know, or sense, we were compromised by our own weakness. If these inner dialogue...

Unconscious conflicts, in dialogue form, play themselves out in our mind by painfully reenacting various scenes from our past; moments gone by in which we either know, or sense, we were compromised by our own weakness. If these inner dialogues were left to themselves as they popped into our mind, they'd be as powerless to disturb us as an echo is to change its own sound. Where we get into tr...

Student Talks: 2/23/2024 - Key Lesson: The present moment and our awareness of whatever may be passing into and through it are one consciousness, much in the same way as the Eye of The Beholder shares an awareness of both the mirror, and the object it reflects.

Learning what it means to take a deliberate step back from our reactions to life is the same as learning to walk past those parts of us that want us to believe our only choices in that moment are those presented to us from the content of these reactions.