Month: October 2021
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‘This Old Monk Doesn’t Dwell In Clarity…’
The marvelous Chan master Joshu appears in Blue Cliff Record, Case 2: Joshu, instructing the assembly, said, “The supreme Way is not difficult; it simply dislikes choosing. But even if a word is uttered, it is already an action of ‘choosing’ or of adhering to ‘clarity’. This old monk doesn’t dwell in clarity. Do you…
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Two Ways Of Freeing Thought (Thanks To Tskoknyi Rinpoche)
How do we, beginning or–most especially–more seasoned meditators, free ourselves from thought? Tsoknyi Rinpoche speaks about three ways in his book Fearless Simplicity: The Dzogchen Way of Living Freely in a Complex World: There are three ways to be free. The first one is called freed upon arising. In this state, arising and being freed…
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Really Pinning Down The Nature Of Ego
In Fearless Simplicity: The Dzogchen Way of Living Freely in a Complex World, Tsoknyi Rinpoche offers us a tantalizing hint about the nature of the ego: When you look for this “me,” for this “I” or ego, you find that it is mind. It is the knowing quality that you call “me.” In fact, there…
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Happiness Is A Life Having Come Together Into A Whole
Dear friend, As for the Signal recording, sorry about that. Obviously, I’m not sure what happened. The basic line of thought was this one: 1.) Let’s suppose, as a child, that you begin thinking about happiness. Naturally, it occurs to you that happiness is pleasure. (This is essentially what Epicureans, or followers of Epicurus, said…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 