You could think of it as a kind of distorted compassion. Having failed to recognise openness, clarity and sensitivity as the true nature of reality, avidya tries to protect a separate individual self from the overwhelming nature of these qualities. Continue reading The power of Avidya – primordial ignorance – is an expression of the fundamental quality of sensitivity.
Notice moments when you have a strong impulse to deny, resist or try to ignore change. Instead of trying to ignore or shut off the experience, stay with the feeling and let there be a gap or a space for that feeling to spread into. Continue reading Reflection Exercise on Responding to Change/Impermanence
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?
The only good thing that can be said about feeling pain and suffering is that at least you are alive. It is very important to link into that constant feeling of aliveness as something good and inescapable. That is the goodness of your heart which can never be destroyed, even by death. Continue reading How is it possible to find a sense of well-being in pain and suffering?
What is really happening when we feel out of touch with a sense of well-being? If you think about it, 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 Student’s Question: How do we turn towards our distorted sense of well-being and recognise it as our inherent sensitivity?
If you find it hard to let go of a critical and judgmental attitude towards yourself and others, remember that the fundamental quality of sensitivity is already your nature and the nature of others. We are not trying to create or maintain this. We are just trying to notice it. What we call ‘not feeling a sense of well-being’, is our sense of well-being responding to something that does not feel right. Continue reading Letting go of judgmental attitudes and opinions
