Scientists catching up with Buddhism on issue of no-self

Natasha Mitchell of ABC Radio National and Radio Australia had another interesting guest on All in the mind show – German philosopher of mind Thomas Metzinge spoke about his research of the self as well as the first hand accounts of out of body experiences and lucid dreaming. Metzinge published his conclusions in the book [...]

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John Daido Loori descended the mountain

Was planning on going to the Zen Mountain Monastery for a month of art and meditation with John Daido Loori next summer when I got a Tweet that he was retiring.  A selfish thought popped up at once, “Could he not wait for another year? He cannot be that old!”. Then I read that he [...]

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Living with the question

During the last Webinar we were looking into the following passage from Genjokoan:

Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot turn back into firewood again. However, we should not view ash as after and firewood as before. We should know that firewood dwells in the dharma position of firewood and it has its own before and after. Although [...]

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Mental yoga a là Dogen: what did the monk see?

It is a challenge to be working on Genjokoan and it’s inspiring to do that with the teacher that taggs on our sleeves to remind us to avoid the Zen snare of dry, conceptual understanding and encourages us to “have a keen and sensitive busshit detector to do this work “.
Once again – the koan [...]

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The fallen body loved by life

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

-  Rumi

SU-EN Butoh Company had a world premier of their performance Luscious at Dansenshus in Stockholm last Thursday. [...]

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Coming home

As my commuter train arrived to the Stockholm Central Station yesterday I got off the train and for a short moment did not exactly knew where I was. I thought we arrived to a different platform and I’d have to take a different way out. Turning my head around to get oriented I noticed that [...]

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That business of the edge

Before I start working my edge it would be helpful to find it first. What is my edge then? What is an edge in the context of a spiritual practice?  The idea of looking for one at the edge of the known resonates with me. The edge is where I no longer have a script [...]

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The song of not knowing by Lisa Hanningan

I don’t know either.  Sometimes I get curious though and wonder what he is doing right now.

more about “The song of not knowing by Lisa Hanni…“, posted with vodpod

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The pleasure of not having

Picking up where I left talking on wine in the daily entry on my 100-day Ango page, a few words on bitter sweetness of not getting what we want. Abstaining for some time from what I used to enjoy surprisingly brought some… pleasure.
Exploring the phenomenon of pleasure as a biological process, Alexander Lowen holds [...]

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Will we be miserable if we don’t get what we want? Dan Gilbert says he knows the answer

This job that I wanted so badly and did not get or the relationship that went into pieces, will these happenings have the lasting effect on my happiness? Not according to the research Dan Gilbert and his team have been conducting. It is known that thanks to the prefrontal cortex humans have a fantastic ability [...]

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