Love isn't an emotion or a feeling. Love is the desire, the wish for another being's happiness--on their own terms, in their own way. Real love tears you apart, makes you soft, cracks open your dry heart to get at the wetness inside. I think there's too much confusion, too much emphasis placed on the crazy part of love, possessiveness and ( Read more... )

I think I want my epitaph to read, "He did not fuck around."

The headlines today read "Vive La Republique!," and clearly there's something kitschy about the offhand use of French in a former Himalayan kingdom; most people here would probably confuse the ancien regime for some kind of stew. All the same there's a palpable excitement on the streets that's infectious: yesterday Chabahil chowk (a major ( Read more... )

I believe chapter four of my autobiography will be titled "'Don't Ash on the Carpet': a Cave Yogi's Guide to Getting High."

Just for the record, over the past few months I've been diagnosed with PTSD, reduced to a gibbering wreck on account of physical pain I could not stop or explain, felt the most excruciating pain of my life when I tore a ligament and dislocated my ankle joint (and then watched helplessly as my "friends" didn't believe I was in pain; I crawled ( Read more... )

You think you want a meaningful life? You don't want a meaningful life. You want an easy life, a comfortable life; you want to have your cake and eat it too, you want all the benefits of spiritual practice (inner peace, deep calm, abiding joy) without any of the effort. Happiness isn't something you reach for or something you find, so the sooner ( Read more... )

I think one of the biggest obstacles to happiness is an all-or-nothing attitude, which is really just an extension of ego, the inner tyrant. We feel like we have to win out completely or it's not even worth participating. Really it's just the fear that we may not get what we want; instead of allowing ourselves to experience the painful gap ( Read more... )

frankly, I don't know what you were expecting.

I think I'm starting to figure it out: I've been wounded by time and space.

"All the promises we have heard are pure seduction. We expect the teachings to solve all our problems; we expect to be provided with magical means to deal with our depressions, our aggressions, our sexual hangups. But to our surprise we begin to realize that this is not going to happen. It is very disappointing to realize that we must work on ( Read more... )