Life is a lot like a Freecell game. ((In an upcoming article I’ll share what it cost me to learn through life, instead of simulation. Quite an educational story… sad though… :-())
You make lots of decisions… which card to move, which card to leave alone.
In a very short time when you find yourself with no cards to move… it is mighty hard to retrace your steps. And even if you could, undoing the steps
The allure to jump into doing is very strong. Or alternatively waiting… and doing nothing.
But “They” say: without action nothing happens. Some say: take lots of action, imperfect actions.
But no one is talking about looking, no one is talking about conscious awareness.
Conscious awareness is what separates a human from an animal.
When you are operating from the mind, you are not using conscious awareness.
The smoother a teacher ta
THE ANCIENTS SAID:
“(SELF-)CULTIVATION TAKES AN UNIMAGINABLE TIME (WHILE) ENLIGHTENMENT IN AN INSTANT IS ATTAINED.”
IF THE TRAINING IS EFFICIENT, ENLIGHTENMENT WILL BE ATTAINED IN ONE FINGERSNAP.
IN DAYS GONE BY CH’AN MASTER HUI CHUEH OF LANG YEH MOUNTAIN, HAD A DISCIPLE WHO CALLED ON HIM FOR INSTRUCTION. THE MASTER TAUGHT HER TO EXAMINE INTO THE SENTENCE: “TAKE NO NOTICE.”
SHE FOLLOWED HIS INSTRUCTION STRICTLY WITHOUT BACKSLIDING.
ONE DAY HER HOUSE CAUGHT FIRE, BUT SHE SAID: “TAKE NO NOTICE.”
ANOTHER DAY, HER SON FELL INTO THE WATER AND WHEN A BYSTANDER CALLED HER, SHE
One step in the 67 step program is to look what area of life isn’t integrated into your life… At first I could not think of anything, but then I had an insight: I started to look at what doesn’t get done… and I saw that anything that is not integrated into my life… doesn’t get done… or if it is, it’s a chore, drudgery.
cleaning, throwing stuff away, etc.
Why? Because your life has a purpose, probably hidden from your view. And that is your life, the life you want. The life you consider life, living… And everything else is death…
So before you integra
I mean this article to be the first installment in a series.
The underlying principle is the Anna Karenina principle
The Anna Karenina principle
The Anna Karenina principle is: good systems must meet simultaneously a number of requirements. All good systems are alike, bad systems are bad in their own way
Tolstoy said: Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way
Aristotle said: success/failure: …it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the class of the
The fox and the hare tale: Why does a rabbit run faster than a fox?  Because while the fox is running for his dinner, the rabbit is running for his life. All of life works the same way…
I have noticed that take-away, as a manipulation technique, works exceptionally well on me.
Here is how the technique works: you show something, and you state that it is only available at this price for a limited amount of time.
I find myself scrambling to get it.
I could also have made the title: your horoscope and your ego’s role in it, or your soul correction and your ego’s role in it.
There is a lot of different ways people define ego, but what if the ego is none of those. Not what Freud called ego, not what gurus call ego.
What if the ego is simply the mechanism by which the Selfish Gene perpetuates itself… like an old dog that is un
I saw something really important this morning.
One of my students is planning to build a business that he can do while working for a big corporation full time.
He knows what he wants to do. He knows why he wants to do it. He has the skills: he is good at it. If he gets a client: the client will be happy.
But… having a product, a service, is one thing. Selling it is another thing.
To sell anything doesn’t need you to be good at doing the service, or creating a good product.
Selling is a whole other business.
You either need a partner who can sel
Did you notice that we are not talking here about IQ? About ability?
No, the behavior ascribed to the stupid and the behavior of the wise can and often come from the same IQ.
The ability to do things differently can’t be accessed without a modicum of humility. Modicum means: a little bit.
Humility is a capacity, an attitu
Let’s look at the role of discovery in growth… your growth… if there is no growth, there has been no discovery.
All the steps of the 67 steps program are nudges for you to discover something that you haven’t seen.
Of course, like with everything, your tendency is to go to your head for the answers, and not look at all outside of your head.
The step (Step 5) where the homework is to list what you see about poor people and rich people is a great step to show your relationship to growth.
If you think you are rich, you go and tell me how what you do, how you think,
