Psychology and spirituality. Mind/Soul. Self.
Since entering the MSW program at the University of Michigan, it has become abundantly apparent that “identity” has taken stage and is the official University of Michigan School of Social Work buzzword. Students are awash with discussions and assertions regarding the need for sensitivity and awareness of intersectionality of identities, identity based oppression, identity…
Culture is the context within which all human interconnectedness occurs, and the intersections of those interconnections is where we find all meaningfulness and all sense of identity. Identity is relational, and relationships necessarily happen within a cultural context; blurred lines delineate the border between the cultural context within which the relationships that shape identity occur,…
“An injustice to one is a menace to all,” – Montesquieu This powerful quote captures a certain essence of interdependence, itself sometimes slightly elusive to define. Interdependence, in this sense, is in part an immediate and intimate sense of a common and shared humanity, something directly experienced on a felt level, beyond concept, and almost…
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This…
Mindfulness: the new buzzward in pop psychology. You can’t throw a stone these days without hearing someone mention mindfulness, see a new study on mindfulness, or run into some new guru trying to sell their particular flavor of mindfulness practice. There’s so much information and chatter out there that the regular Jane or Joe might…
“If you perceive the existence of all things In terms of their essence, Then this perception of all things Will be without the perception of causes and conditions. Effects and causes And agent and action And conditions and arising and ceasing And effects will be rendered impossible. Whatever is dependently co-arisen That…
Be vulnerable Struggle against the blindness Oh, human being Dreams, flesh, and delight Hypnotic fog of grasping For some secure ground Objects of our ire Gain solidification Fed by our hot gaze Objects of desire Wisp away in the wind, while we chase happiness Just so, out of sync Disconnected from…
Life is hard, this is just the way it is. Life is made of the stuff of hardness. There’s no getting around this, and it is true for everyone in the world. We all have our troubles, we all have our pains. Weather it’s a direct experience of not having enough, of watching something beautiful…
On my mind as of late has been the realization that we are all merely hairless apes that found a way off of the African savannas. Listen to the crowd roaring in an appreciative cacophony, “SCIENCE!” they cry, and, “EVOLUTION!” Huzzah, I add. As a subtle result of this, I have been inadvertently thinking, among…
Energy flows where attention goes. The self is a continuous manifestation of endless reality. We become a channel to those energies which we pay attention to. We become this channel of energy, and identify with it’s form. If we fixate to long on the form of the energies within us, manifest to our conscious mind…