The Five Blind Men and the Elephant

What is all the turbulence and argument going on all over the world (I am thinking of the USA and the UK as I write)?  Why are people so desperately trying to impose their opinion on others?

Growing up as I did in the England of the 1950’s there was a sense (admittedly one I found stifling) of a collective agreement, of society adhering to a set of assumptions. Just as England is the only country that does not have its name on our stamps – because we invented them – so we have a similar relationship to England.

In this way there was an implicit sense of lining up behind certain codes which could not easily be spelt out Read More

The world as love in action..

I just loved this quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj – a beedi wallah in Bombay – who was extrordinarly incisive:
“Someone asks:
What can truth or reality gain by all our practice?
He uses truth and love interchangeably.  He says:
“Nothing whatsoever, of course.  But it is in the nature of
truth or love, cosmic consciousness, whatever you want to call it, to
express itself, to affirm itself, to overcome difficulties Read More

Is psychology wrong-headed?

I did an online course on ‘Buddhism and Modern Psychology’, and found it useful to write an essay for the course on just how wrong-headed evolutionary psychologists appear to be. I studied Social Anthropology years ago and was equally stunned at how little access it gave to the mysteries of the human heart. The human sciences (including psychotherapy, philosophy, sociology and academic psychology) wrestle with studying the human mind and desperately try to pin it down with a myriad of theories. What they do not understand – which the Buddha did – is that we can only penetrate the Mind by trusting the principle of awareness. Read More

What is the Mind ??

Nisargadatta Maharaj was an Indian guru who died in 1981. His book ‘I am that’ is one of the great spiritual classics – as you will see there is a pure Mind, which can only be found when we stop identifying with all the junk we think is me…Does internal family systems therapy draw on this pure Mind ? Well it can help to begin to align ourself with the power of knowing, of tuning into the felt sense of the body, of knowing what it is to step back and be the knowing, of being able to recognise trains of thought, and see them rather than be lost into them…Our culture is lost into the situation of the five blind men and the elephant and not knowing what is real….Maharaj is a good guide… Read More

The Child’s Dilemma

Fairbairn is one of my heroes  – as a child we have no choice but to greedily eat what our parents put in our mouths. But often we felt poisoned, but because we needed them so badly, it was easier to believe there was something wrong with us, and they must really be perfect.  It can take a long time to understand this situation, to feel our hunger, and dare to STAND our need and not just blindly swallow down what others offer. Read More

Why hope often leads you to frustration

All of us find ourself longing for some kind of fulfilment, which so often seems to be disapointed at every step – since we find ourself already looking through a telescope of what is usually blind hope, we fail to see how much we often sacrifice ourselves on this altar (and alter!) and end up feeling cynical and frustrated. . Aldous Huxley once defined cynicism as someone who wouldnt take yes for an answer…
There is another dimension of being we cannot find by looking that lies right under our own feet, that is available when we can dare to feel disapointment, or sadness – doesnt sound great, but it enables us to stand our need, trust our own perceptions, and deal with the weirdness of Life Read More

Healing – by not going somewhere else!

Therapy can take us on a relentless journey – if we really want to glimpse how we can heal ourselves and others, we are forced to put our trust in the depths of our own heart –  that it contains potentials we have not begun to dream of – but we cannot open this up by trying to get somewhere else.
The following is quoted by Joan Tollifson (herself  an amazingly courageous explorer of our ineffable birthright who was forced to confront Life without a  right hand) – from Joko Beck:

Joko said: “Practice is not about having nice feelings, happy feelings. It’s not about changing, or getting somewhere. That in itself is the basic fallacy. But observing this desire begins to clarify it. Read More

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