Shrinking Self-importance
Our modern culture and politics is based on self-interest, and the values of psychology are ego-oriented, emphasizing self-knowledge, increasing self-esteem, and getting what we want. Yet, at the core, it’s these notions of self that make up a large part of our current problem.
An old Buddhist notion states that a primary cause of unhappiness is spending most of our attention and energy thinking about oneself, when… Read More »
The Great Mystery is not to be Solved!
Carlos Castaneda applies a simple and elegant distinction to reality: He divides the field of action and awareness (the world) into two spheres — the known and the unknown, the right side and left — and associates corresponding practices with each. These practices are called stalking, the art of handling ordinary reality (the known) in non-ordinary ways; and dreaming, the art… Read More »
I was recently at a men’s group gathering of about a dozen men, where the meeting was started by “creating sacred space.” As someone who’s guided vision quests for 35 years and been on over 30 quests of my own, I’m familiar with the concept, know the feeling of, and have spent days sharing time-honored wisdom and teaching about ritual, ceremony, and practices for creating and being in sacred space.
I want to continue the conversation about what I call the “civilization-indigenous dilemma,” and the crux of the dilemma is this…
Most people reading this, and most people today, have grown up within the “civilized world,” and most of “us” would not want to give it up. This is a world that has given its citizens – us — antibiotics, modern medicine, and lifespans of 70-80 years… an ability to… Read More »
My last post – The Dangerous Ape – expressed the hope that we (humans) could become adults, and that involves “embracing reality” by looking in the mirror and seeing our gifts and our gold, while simultaneously owning and taking responsibility for our shadows… and neither avoiding nor denying any of that. My hope is also that, starting there, we can focus on what’s truly important — developing those practices and… Read More »
