What is life?

We ordinarily think of life as family, friends, career, things we find interesting to do, and so forth. That’s what we think life is. It’s what we are taught life is. But that isn’t what life actually is.

Life consists of precisely what we experience. 

What do we actually experience? We experience sensations: color, shape, sound, taste, smell, texture, touch; thought and feelings. So we have all the sensory sensations, and then we have thoughts and feelings. Emotions if you wish. That’s what life actually consists of.

From:  Mahayana Mind Training 3

This article by Ken McLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Another view of tradition

A tradition is an accumulation through time of inspired works, created by people who do not have tradition on their minds. If they have anything on their minds, it is their own uniqueness: the ways they do not fit in, not the ways they do.
— Clive James


In Buddhism (and elsewhere), much is made of preserving tradition. I've long felt that there was  problem with this notion, namely, the things one tends to preserve are dead, perhaps to be eaten later, or only to be viewed in a jar of formaldehyde, or after being subjected to a process that preserves form, shape, and perhaps color but certainly not the thing itself.

This quotation, from Clive James' book Cultural Amnesia, is a delightful reminder that tradition is only a concept applied to a certain phenomenon. The phenomenon itself is created by people doing "untraditional" things — writing, painting, or teaching in ways that generate new energy, new responses, new possibilities.

Recently, an old colleague of mine called to describe how a group of people at a center had asked him to translate a text for their practice, and then had turned around and changed some of the words and phrasings in his translation to more "traditional" vocabulary. The translator here has long and deep experience and has come to understand how the "traditional" vocabulary leads people astray or limits their understanding of their practice (not just the text, but their practice). Against stupidity, even the gods struggle in vain.

In our culture, we try new things, find what works, and discard what doesn't. We go down wrong paths, we get into trouble, but we learn, through experimentation and innovation. When they limit themselves only to what is tried and true, most people in this culture grow restless and impatient, unless they die of stasis and boredom first.

This article by Ken McLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Passivity and Freedom

Passivity is insidious. It kills your mind (your attention, your intention, and your will) without you knowing it. Internal patterns of reaction (as well as families and institutions) use various mechanisms to keep you asleep. Here, for instance, are six:

Marginalization: The belief system makes ideas, perspectives, or insights that threaten it seem unimportant.

Framing: The belief system frames your thinking so that nothing that threatens the system can be thought.

Seduction: The belief system presents a picture of a world that seems to fulfill your dreams.

Alignment: The belief system tells you that in order to exist, be happy, or have influence, you have to conform to the belief system.

Reduction: The belief system freezes you by reducing complex situations to a single emotionally charged issue.

Polarization:The belief system limits your ability to choose by presenting issues only in terms of right and wrong, this or that.

Freedom is being awake, and being awake means not being passive with the tendencies that kill attention, intention, or will. What you experience is your life. To be free, meet experience directly, know it completely, and act without hesitation.

From:  The Warrior's Solution

This article by Ken McLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

How do you recognize a reactive pattern?

How do you recognize a reactive pattern? Well, one of the features is that they're mechanical in nature. What's one of the characteristics of a mechanical system? No variation. It just runs one way. So, one way to identify a reactive pattern is, "Must be this way, can't be that way. Must have this, can't have that." Any time you have that going on in you, chances are you're running a reactive pattern.

We run into this all the time, and and we have many ways of saying, "It has to be this way." An example is, "Conversations have to be peaceful, can't have conflict". Or for other people, "Conversations can't be peaceful, have to have conflict." This is the same reactive pattern running in a different direction.

So any time you run into that kind of inflexibility you 're dealing with a reactive pattern.

Source: Awakening from Belief

This article by Ken McLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.