The following is an edited text sent by Sunil, a member of our Sat. meditation group. At our meetings we keep coming back to consciousness. I feel its important to clear some confusions. Here is a short explanation that may help. Consciousness is an common attribute, property and quality received by all living things rather than […]

Do you see the glass as half empty or half full? In the Buddhist Scriptures: The first Noble Truth: life is suffering. In the second one the causes of suffering are desire, hate and ignorance of realities. The third talks about end of suffering and the forth about how to achieve serenity. Your answer about […]

                                                      Self-induced Virtual Reality (VR) If you are looking to buy a VR headset for yourself or as a gift think twice. They are expensive and limited to video games. You don’t have to go on line or at the shop to find a fantastic VR set. Just learn to pay attention, to observe, […]

                                                    Practicing awareness is being mind free If someone is asking you:” Did you know that John ha a new job” and you may reply “Yes I am aware of it” Most of the time we are using the words “I am aware” as equivalent to  “I know”. But being aware or awareness has […]

                                 Breathing is pressing the pause button on our stream of thoughts                                                     The peaceful effect of conscious breathing Based on the most recent 24h neuro imaging, our mind produces around and at least  75,000 thoughts a day. This activity is automatic and subconscious since we do not watch or think continuously that we […]

                                                                      Consciousness vs. thinking  We need consciousness to think but we don’t need thinking to be conscious. Therefore, one can use consciousness to control thinking that is thoughts and feelings. Like all our body functions, thinking – around 72,000 thoughts/day - is subconscious since we are not aware that we are thinking until we decide […]

                                                     Learning to understand people. A Zen perspective We are hearing automatically but are we listening? How often do you try to understand people by listening to them actively? Most of us don’t. In fact, quite often and based on the power of our ego gravity we usually decide not to consider another point of […]

                                                                  BEFORE and AFTER  ENLIGHTENMENT Before enlightenment you sleep, walk, eat, drink, pee, poop, work, raise kids, have fun and pain, die. After enlightenment you sleep, walk, eat, drink, pee, poop, work, raise kids, have fun and pain, die. So, what is the difference?

                                                      “Graveyards are full of indispensable people”  This is a classic quote often used by French President General De Gaulle when he has to fire someone from his cabinet. In fact he never fired anyone since he was asking the person to sign her/his resignation letter when hired. He decided just to add the […]

                                                       Awareness, sensation and meanings of breathing  When a monkey is screaming non-stop, the zookeepers try to distract him, usually with a banana or a toy. When your monkey mind is on a non-stop talkative mode, you should try to distract him and divert his attention by forcing him to focus on something else. The […]