Category: philosophical counseling

• May 20, 2024

  What Is It That You Truly Long For?

  1. What is it that you truly long for? 2. Inventory possible objects: love of another person, a beautiful home, robust health, considerable wealth, and so on. All of these change. When you’re younger, you may long most for a romantic relationship. Perhaps you now long for a beautiful home. And so on. 3. Whatever…
• May 16, 2024

  Are The Stars Just As Close As This Touch?

  When I look into the distance, I see the stars far away. Yet when I touch the floor or my leg, I feel that it is so close. How can consciousness be said to be “closer than close”? A wonderful question! When you close your eyes and put your hand on the floor, how many…
• May 13, 2024

  Weed And The Nondual Teaching

  Question: I don’t like the fact that I smoke weed, but I absolutely can’t help it in some cases. We won’t worry about weed per se. We’ll simply and kindly see it as a “coping mechanism”: it actually provided a temporary solution to some problems of suffering when you were younger. What’s now clear–and this…
• May 10, 2024

  Does Awareness Suffer? A 2-Day Online Meditation Retreat, May 25 and 26

  Does The Awareness That You Are Ever Suffer? ​“Does The Awareness That You Are Ever Suffer?” is a 2-day home meditation retreat held on May 25 and May 26. Drawing largely from the Direct Path teaching of Advaita Vedanta, it’s centered on a playful yet earnest exploration of one’s direct experience. Here, we are concerned…
• May 8, 2024

  What Is The Cause Of All Suffering?

  Question: Is dukkha, or suffering, occurring because of the arising of I-thoughts? No, not because of the arising of I-thoughts but rather because of the identification with the content of I-thoughts. Let’s go back a step and ask, “What makes suffering possible?” The short answer is: “I-thoughts, provided that I identify with the content of…