It is important to take note of what is happening and often persistent thoughts and patterns of thinking and emoting can be freed up by using some of the wonderful methods that are emerging in the West these days… Continue reading Another question about ‘spiritual bypassing’ and meditating with anxiety and depression
Not everyone is at the same stage in their Buddhist life and so it’s good to think in terms of spiral learning. It’s not all upwards and onwards – it is about staying grounded where you are right now and the next step forward in our own path of discovery. Continue reading An important conversation with a student about misunderstanding Dharma and ‘spiritual bypassing’
Our purpose is to hang on in there, trusting that our True Nature hasn’t actually changed, that how it manifests is not how it is and that although the pain of not being able to recognise that True Nature seems endless and hopeless, actually it is spurring us on to abandon what is false and open to what is real. Continue reading Lama Shenpen advises a student who is struggling with feeling there’s no point or purpose to their being
That sense of overwhelm in the light of world suffering is called ‘revulsion at samsara’ in Buddhism and is an important quality to cultivate. It is actually the healthy functioning of our Buddha Nature – our intrinsic openness, clarity and sensitivity. It is what compassion feels like… Continue reading How do you maintain compassion without getting miserable? How to deal with overwhelm and depression due to all the suffering in the world
“In a way the whole of samsara is like blockages in the flow of the life energy – you could think of it like that! Depression is just a very intense experience of just how bad that kind of blockage can get… even if thinking of impermanence doesn’t help, all mental states are impermanent and so sometimes all we can do is hang on in there and learn how to navigate our way through them.” Continue reading How can we practise with the energy of depression?
There is light at the end of the tunnel. There always is because we are Buddha by nature. It is worth aspiring to know what that really means. Continue reading Feeling exhausted by life? How can we start to care again?
How do you know that you feel miserable and out of touch with a sense of well-being? What is that miserable feeling or that dead, lifeless, depressed, can’t see the point in anything feeling? When you really turn your attention to it, what is it? Continue reading If we weren’t already in touch with an inherent sense of well-being, how could we know we are feeling miserable?
Even the feeling of heaviness associated with self-loathing can be seen as simply sensations, the habitual negative thoughts as just thinking. A possibility of being simple about the whole thing presents itself. A possibility of opening into something vaster, yet more intimate – the light at the end of the tunnel. Continue reading How do we practise with feelings of unworthiness?
