Body of Wisdom Intuitive Arts

08/20/2016

Beautiful.

A film I made last night based on my favourite quotes from Alan Watts about how the way of looking at your life as a journey can be the most destructive way. Please…

07/18/2016

Discoveries in the field of social genomics may confirm a theory of well-being that is almost as old as Western civilization.

07/10/2016

We don't grow so we can be better cogs. We don't grow so we can have a happy life oblivious to the suffering of others. We grow so that we can work together to uplift each other.

Late capitalism is like your love life: it looks a lot less bleak through an Instagram filter. The slow collapse of the social contract is the backdrop for a modern mania for clean eating, healthy... Read More »

02/07/2016

A growing field of research is examining how life satisfaction may affect cellular functioning and DNA.

10/31/2015

I am glad to read this article. Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book on this topic a few years ago.

The problem isn't with self-love. It's with "Law of Attraction" kind of thinking. Real self love means to stop blaming ourselves for the particular ways that our dysfunctional system has affected our lives.

It is knowing exactly when we can sit in the fire of our authentic feelings and knowing when we need to numb out and seek comfort because we've had enough.

I have gotten to the point in my life where I see the notion of personal-growth-as-the-end-all-be-all solution to all of our problems to be misguided and problematic. It is not enough for most people just to "follow your bliss".

Different people need different sorts of help. It's the Maslow's Hierarchy thing. You don't help poor people by insisting that they get their psychological house in order. We might just find that if they have reliable food and shelter, that they may end up being healthier psychologically than we are. It is condescending BS to assume that they are not the badasses that they are for simply surviving when everything is stacked against them. It is completely probable that the teaching directional should be from the poor to the privileged, rather than the other way around. We certainly need to take them at their word when they tell us that BS platitudes are humiliating and counter-productive. It is appropriate that poor people are angry. The rest of us should be angry too.

For me, my relative privilege means that personal growth must be turned toward activism and assisting others' healing. Otherwise it feels empty to me. For others (and for myself at an earlier point in my life), personal growth for its own sake is exactly what they need to be doing. For others, simply having compassion and respect for themselves while they are in survival mode is the only helpful psychological prop.

The burden of changing society to meet human needs should not just be on the poor. But in reality, the bubble of privilege and comfort keep many more resourced people from really seeing how thoroughly messed up things are. And if we convince relatively resourced people further that their responsibility is only to their own happiness, that they should shut out negativity, then we are hurting more than we are helping.

Sometimes when we are recovering or ill or otherwise need to conserve resources, self-centeredness is appropriate. But as a long-term life strategy, it is really pretty anti-growth and counter-productive for creating a better world.

As far as I am concerned positive thinking will fu***ng ruin your life.

05/12/2013

In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech...

03/09/2013

I'm adding a new meditation class, starting next Tuesday (5:30-6:45PM). This one will be at the Trauma Healing Project, 2222 Coburg Rd (in the Heeran Building, left entrance). It is offered by donation.

www.bodyofwisdom.net/meditation.html

02/06/2013

"That's why I want to speak to you now. To say: no person, trying to take responsibility for her or his identity, should have to be so alone. There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors...I think you thought there was no such place for you, and perhaps there was none then, and perhaps there is none now; but we will have to make it, we who want an end to suffering, who want to change the laws of history, if we are not to give ourselves away.” Adrienne Rich.

01/25/2013

A PURE GAP

When concentration and awareness are working together, for a fraction of a second you may have a taste of what enlightenment might be. You might find yourself with no discursive thoughts. When you discover that your unwholesome discursive thoughts have been pacified and subjugated, there might be a gap. A pure gap of the absolute, ideal state of mind might occur to you. For everyone, without exception, such a glimpse is always possible. You realize that bodhichitta, or awakened heart, is not a theory or a metaphysical concept, but a reality. It is more than rain clouds gathering in the sky—it is the actual rain.

~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

01/04/2013

Body-Based Meditation Classes in the New Year:

Sundays, 5:00-6:15PM, Everyday People Yoga, by donation
Mondays, 5:30-6:45PM, Just Breathe Studio, as part of their card system

For more information, please visit www.bodyofwisdom.net/meditation.html.

Hope to see you there!

Meditation is a chance to stop doing and simply be. It is the antidote for distraction and avoidance, a gift of paying attention to that within us which needs our care.

12/03/2012

William Blake saw the world in a grain of sand. Half a dozen visiting Buddhist monks on Sunday used sand and art to highlight the world’s impermanence and the resulting need for human compassion in a ceremony attended by hundreds at the Eugene Public Library. Members of the Drepung Loseling Phukhan...