In an essay called What Makes You Not a Buddhist Tibetan teacher Dzongsar Khyentse stated that: If you cannot accept that all compounded or fabricated things are impermanent, if you believe that there is some essential substance or concept that is permanent, then you are not a Buddhist. Whether you want to be a Buddhist, […]

Lewis Carroll began his poem, The Jabberwocky, thus: `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Does this mean anything? It follows most of the conventions of English language, because we can distinguish: • Nouns – toves, wabe, borogoves, raths […]

Many years ago, my good friend and mentor, Dr Phil Harker, put to me that psychological maturity comes from a process wherein an individual should get to know themselves, and then accept themselves, and finally if they were truly enlightened, forget themselves. But of course the process is not as straight-forward as it might seem. […]

We have just celebrated our version of the Northern Hemisphere’s festival of the Winter solstice. This is a ubiquitous celebration. It was celebrated by the Celts, the Germanic peoples, the Chinese, the Jews, the Hindus, the Egyptians, the Persians to name but a few. It was subsumed by the early Christians and in our Western […]

In earlier blogs we have learnt that it is our consciousness that distinguishes us from other animals. Because of this we can not only think but be aware of our thoughts. We can not only make decisions but are conscious of the process of decision making. Because of this we are not only aware of […]

As I sit here in my office I can see the small tree in the front yard. It is a favourite place for the bull-finches to sit before they venture down to the bird bath. Naming, as we have seen before, is part of the process of duality. It is differentiating something of a particular […]

I have always been fascinated by time. It has often seemed to me that if I could understand time, I might come closer to understanding reality. Turning to our scientists and philosophers does not easily clarify the matter. Newton, Kant and Leibniz all had varying opinions of the real nature of time. To begin with, […]

In a comment on my last blog I was asked to revisit the subject of love and detachment. It is an interesting, but difficult area. Consequently this week I have attempted to clarify the issue a little more. Some years ago someone shared with me a tape of Anthony De Mello running one of his […]

Researchers over the last two decades have written many papers on the subject of happiness and its determinants. Matthieu Ricard in analysing and interpreting their results came to the following conclusions: 1. Outward conditions and general factors such as wealth, education, social status, age etc account altogether for no more than 10 to 15% of […]

The quest to isolate the defining characteristic of our essential humanity has been a long and convoluted one. Aristotle wrote that “Man is a social animal.” In retrospect this seems far off the mark. Although the human animal is indeed social this is hardly a defining characteristic. We are aware of not only the social […]