Already Here: Pain, Power, and Right Action
July 28, 2025

Already Here: Pain, Power, and Right Action

Ya está aquí: dolor, poder y acción correcta

A session beginning with a guided meditation on the timeless knowingness that underlies all experience, followed by dialogues exploring spiritual bypassing, rumination, anger and sadness, physical pain and identification, the right relationship to power and privilege, and the nature of ethical action. Throughout, the teacher emphasizes direct looking over analysis, and the recognition that what we seek is already present.

awareness presence spiritual bypassing rumination anger sadness physical pain identification power privilege ethics emotions
Already Here
meditation
Already Here
A gentle invitation to notice that peace and presence are already here, in the awareness that quietly knows every passing experience.
Spiritual Practice and Spiritual Bypassing
dialogue
Spiritual Practice and Spiritual Bypassing
A question about how to discern the difference between genuine spiritual practice and spiritual bypassing.
The Pressure Cooker and What Lies Beneath
dialogue
The Pressure Cooker and What Lies Beneath
A student asks about the roots of rumination, leading to a wider exploration of anger, sadness, physical pain, and the patterns of identification that sustain them.
A Right Relationship to Power
dialogue
A Right Relationship to Power
A question about how to relate honestly to the desire for power, and why true power is never one's own.
The Garden That Was Given to You
dialogue
The Garden That Was Given to You
A question about how to use one's privilege responsibly, and whether privilege is truly ours to wield.
The Choice Between Pain and
dialogue
The Choice Between Pain and "Me"
A student explores the amplification of physical pain during deep meditation, and the teacher guides them to see that pain arises from identification with thought, presenting a fundamental choice between suffering and letting go of the constructed self.
Ethics Without a Map
dialogue
Ethics Without a Map
A question about whether liberation leads to more ethical behavior, and how to navigate the guilt and shame that arise in everyday conflicts with others.