March 12, 2025
The Promise and the Sword of Presence
La Promesa y la Espada de la Presencia
This session explores the tension between the implicit promise of awakening and the mind's tendency to misinterpret it as a future achievement, pointing instead to presence as the resolution already here. Through dialogues on bodily tension, the compulsion to fix problems, and parenting challenges, the conversation examines how identification with a solid self creates suffering, and how not-knowing opens a more honest and responsive way of living.
meditation
The Promise and the Sword
An invitation to meet the fullness of this moment exactly as it is, letting presence cut through expectation and longing for something elsewhere.
dialogue
The Pull of the Familiar
A student shares about physical tension arising in meditation, which opens into a wider exploration of how the compulsion to "become" something or "fix" ourselves perpetuates suffering, and how seeing through the illusion of a solid self is different from replacing one identity with another.
dialogue
The Farmer's Horse
A student reflects on the compulsion to identify problems and fix them, especially in parenting, and how the humility of not-knowing opened a new way of moving through life.
dialogue
The Power of Seeing What Is False
A reflection on how genuine breakthroughs arise not from accumulating knowledge, but from recognizing and questioning unexamined assumptions.
dialogue
Surfing the Wave You're On
A student reflects on praying from a place of not-knowing, and the teacher explores how projecting beliefs onto reality creates suffering, using the metaphor of surfing to illustrate the difference between controlling and responding.
dialogue
The Fear of Death and Knowing Without Experience
A student who practices improv draws parallels between the freedom of performance and spiritual freedom, leading to a deeper inquiry into the fear of death and whether awareness depends on experience.