Breaking Free from Unhealthy Competition: A Path to Happiness

We humans, especially men, are naturally wired for competition. In our modern society, this competitive drive manifests most prominently in our careers and consumption habits – particularly in what we purchase with our hard-earned money. In this article, I'll share what I've learned about overcoming unhealthy competitiveness and how this journey has made me not only happier but, surprisingly, even more motivated.
80% of its function is to get from A to B


How Do You Know You Are Not Dead?

 


This is a good video because it shows you how deep you can question seemingly obvious things. It also shows you the limits of rationality. Some of the conclusions reached by rational reasoning are just absurd. It's a strange loop. You end up in absurdity if you try to be completely rational. 

Watch the video to see whether you have openly considered the question of what reality is. I don't think the way this video emphasizes physics and mathematics to arrive at the answer is particularly helpful, though. Introspection can work just as well to deconstruct your current belief system. 

The Nature of Illusion and Self-Deception: A Journey Through Consciousness

In this article, we'll explore the fascinating psychological process of illusion and how self-deception operates within all of us. We'll examine how these mechanisms are fundamentally interconnected with the nature of reality itself. Through this understanding, we'll discover the connection to spirituality and why genuine enlightenment remains such a rare achievement. Finally, we'll explore why this might actually be beneficial and how we can use this knowledge to our advantage.

Water above rocks

Finding Your Original Face: Understanding I-AMness

"Without thinking of good or evil, show me your original face before your mother and father were born." - Zen Koan

How can we understand this Zen koan and find our fundamental I-AMness? The koan is meant to be understood directly rather than metaphorically, which makes it even more challenging. You cannot retreat into your imagination to visualize what it might mean. Nor can you think of an arrow of time going back into the past and imagine what you could have been like without a body. The meaning of the koan is to be found right here in every moment of lived experience. That's what we are going to explore in this post.

Embracing the whole of experience.

Appreciation Transforms The Ordinary Into Perfection

Compared to our not-so-distant past, we are all incredibly wealthy. Imagine for a moment a life without absolutely any possessions. You are out there in nature without any clothes, tools or shelter, left alone to find enough calories and protection from the elements every day of your rather short life. Today we are equipped with a lot more tools, possessions and wealth, yet we are also becoming more depressed than ever before. 

Appreciates having nothing

Lack Of Financial Knowledge Causes Fear

Have you noticed how people at your workplace are fearful? We hide it quite well though but I have certainly noticed it. And I think we have become fearful because we are too immediately dependent on a complex social structure we don't understand. Think about it, how many of the things that we use and consume on a daily basis can we really provide fully for ourselves. Probably very few. And if we are living in a city, maybe even none. May this undermine the trust we have in ourselves and the world?


Developing Equanimity

Equanimity is one of three qualities of mind that we want to develop if spiritual enlightenment is our goal. The other two are focus and clarity. Equanimity as a quality of mind is helpful not only for meditation and insight but also for life satisfaction in general. With equanimity, we remain in a peaceful state regardless of the experiences we have at the moment. When pain arises, we are not swept away by our stories around it and remain aware of the sensations that arise and pass from moment to moment. 



Awakening Into Life

The term awakening is often used in spiritual language to describe an experience of utter clarity about the nature of reality. The experience is usually the result of a lot of deliberate practice and is even the final goal of some spiritual paths. 

The term awakening can be a bit misleading though. Awakening to the truth of what you are at your core does not mean, as the work implies, waking up from life to something else. Instead, it is the recognition that all of reality is a self-created experience with literally nothing "outside" of it. In other words, it has no objectively true ground to it, that is different from your very experience of life, right now and that you can wake up to. 

How do you wake up?

Better ways to think about meaning

Maybe you have been asking yourself the question: "What does all of this actually mean?" Is there a fundamental true meaning to life?

Maybe this deep question was triggered by great loss or by having had a dream shattered despite the investment of money, time, and effort. Whichever way you arrived at this that life seems to lack inherent meaning, in this article we are going to explore how what we think about the metaphysics of meaning directly influences what feel and how we act. 


Asking a question many times implies that there must be a concrete answer. In the case of meaning any absolute statement about it is going to be inadequate in most circumstances. To start this exploration, the question has to be reframed so that we can actually find worthwhile answers. 

The Awakened Mind


How can I attain awakening?

It's in the simple process of discovering how everything is Mind. Look in your experience how everything has awareness as its basis. It's not the discovery of something new. It is seeing clearly after the lenses of perception have been cleansed. Cleansed of what?