After decades of practice and teaching, what inspires me are those moments when I can see the habitual as if it were for the first time. If such moments occur while I'm giving a talk, then the teacher in me can hear its own words imbued with the freshness imparted by those who truly listen -- the multiple aspects of myself being part of the audience as well. Thanks for your participation in the process.
We get easily hooked by the media, both in the marketing and the political arenas, because of their clever appeal to our I-making and our us-making tendencies. As we become aware of this we realize that we need not fall for this.
Much anguish and insecurity results from a sense of being separated from our fellow beings and from the world. The strategies we use to try to overcome this often involve the fabrication of additional partitions (e.g.; "us vs. them"), and thus backfire. The Noble Eightfold Path offers a better way.
In our dark moments we tend to look for "the light at the end of the tunnel." In doing so, we end up constantly trying to be where we are not, and we miss the opportunity to learn from the darkness itself.
Bowing has two parts: the bowing down in full acceptance of what is, and the coming right up in readiness to do what needs to be done. Each part is incomplete without the other. To realize this non-duality is to open the door for transformation.
Just as seeing-eye dogs (Carrot is one), our minds need training in order to become our guides and allies. To meditate is to train the mind to be insightful, to become a seeing-eye mind.
The tendency to relate to others through a sense of possessiveness, through clinging, creates suffering; so does clinging to ourselves as the "aggregates". To relinquish possessiveness is to open the doors to freedom.
Pain and loss are inevitable occurrences in our lives, but the self-torture that often follows--the "second arrow" we habitually shoot at ourselves--is entirely avoidable.
In spite of the deep longing to connect with the earthiness of things and ourselves there is also a pull to disconnect. How can we reconnect, become of the earth?
