This channel offers weekly talks on mindfulness, meditation, and living a mindful and awake life.
In my books and teaching, I have discovered that, probably due to my functioning as a psychologist, I explain and extrapolate the wisdom teachings and practices in a way that is useful to many people. I have found that the idea of enlightenment and the recognition of it as a fact of existence are self-evident and are usually seen relatively easily by most people.
Unfortunately, once enlightenment is understood, there is a pervasive misunderstanding that the recognition and relief involved means that there will be an immediate transformation and a blissful existence. This magical notion is the source of frustration, confusion, and years of seeking and being dependent on gurus and traditions from another era and another part of the world.
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You are free the moment you renounce your personality. Why not relinquish your persona? You can still eat dark chocolate in the morning. You can still drink a cup of coffee during the day. You can still have a delicious healthy breakfast. Not to mention that anyone can have a respectable job. The bonus is that any job you hold can't grip you-the source of suffering disappears when you're no longer dominated by the mind. Any job is satisfying since you are not subjected to any system of beliefs. All you must do is refuse to engage with the mind as the lens through which you see reality. I'm not complicit in the generated content of my neurotic mind. I'm just a spectator or a witness of whatever is randomly created in my mind. I'm still happy even if there's lots of fear that I must process-I know I have nothing to do with that fearful thought. Frightening thoughts are not mine. Any dreadful mood is of the ego, and therefore it is not mine.
The most difficult challenge I had was to turn off the mind-it was wandering most of the time, even when I tried to put myself in the present moment by being hyper-focused. I'm 31 years old and I still think about my future. The reason for thinking about the future is that I want to make a contribution to the world. I want to solve problems and earn a living. Nobody wants to be a vegetable or just have a boring nine-to-five job. Enlightenment does wonders but it's not enough because you want to earn a living and make the world a better place-you don't want to change the world, for that would be impossible. You rather change your mindset-you shift it into believing that you can make a difference. You simply want to learn a skill without being neurotic or plagued by the 'ADHD' mind. I resented learning because it was painful to read or focus on learning a skill. Or recalling was a nightmare for me. The hippocampus didn't work properly. Nicholas Charr brilliantly stated that with an expansion of our memory comes an enlargement of our intelligence. There's so much neurosis going on in the minds of people. They have dreams but don't know how to transcend their limitations. Life doesn't work as a personality.
About 2 months ago I started meditating 40 minutes every evening. What's happening now is I almost feel like one of those electric water kettles - you know, if your tap water is hard and you use the kettle a lot, eventually layers of minerals will accumulate at the bottom of the kettle. And then you put a bit of citric acid into it and some water and let it all boil, and those layers sort of dissolve and you're left with this pristine kettle again. Well I feel meditation is doing that to my life. As if my mind has been foggy from being calcified from decades of useless thoughts, and now I'm finally putting citric acid over it and letting all that calcification dissolve. As a result I feel lighter, more clean-headed, less stressed, more authentic, more focused at work, less concerned with the state of the world in general. It really is an amazing gift and I can only thank David's lessons on RU-vid for inspiring me. I always knew meditation is amazing but I've never tried doing it consistently over time. I'm never going another day without meditation, I cannot imagine anything more important in my life. Thank you.
I can see this in two ways, this illusionary life is hell if I believe it's real, or I can choose to see it as what ever were we thinking that allowed us to accept this craziness as life. Thank you David now I see the light. 😊😊😊
This is fantastic, David! I am indeed being stupid. Although, I am at least trying to wake. I’m just unsure how. You really resonate with me. Which of your teachings would you suggest?
You’re supposed to bring the happiness and introduce it to your mind and the rest of your life, if you don’t then you’re fighting with your mind and the rest of your life
If the personality that I keep trying to identify as were not imagined to be who I am, NOTHING would ever bother “me”.The Self is unbotherable. It laughs at delusions.
I was in hell just a few years ago-life was a nightmare almost daily. I was uncomfortable getting out of the house. I was socially anxious and painfully awkward in my interactions with friends or strangers. I was self-conscious when talking to people; it paralyzed me verbally. Sometimes, I can't believe I woke up. Wow! What a journey!
@@ovidiudrobota2182 yes, you described your suffering, but did you change your actions in any positive way or start meditating or something? Something must have made you start to feel better .
@@nexion222 - yes. I was letting go of anxiety, awkwardness, and self-consciousness. I didn't repress my feelings. I don't suppress any emotion that bubbled up. I was allowing the hell to come up and subside at its pace. Because resisting doesn't work-what we oppose persists. It takes years to overcome toxic shame or any form of neuroticism. We must be determined to overcome the mind-at all costs. Year after year. Even if it feels like we're not making progress, we must be persistent.
@@nexion222 I heard an enlightened fellow talk about this once. There's no way to say how when or why enlightenment does actually occur. Eventually the gates open up when they do. Everything just is.
🚨 I had many decisions where I could decide otherwise. So I had a choice. !? I heard NO and said YES. Something horrible happened. So I fucked up. Stupid.😢
@@ZenPsychAnyway your helping a lot!💜 As a Kid I believed in something like faith. Then I believed in Free will. Now I'm confused 😅 I'm not stopping until I get it.
My life is pretty good though. I do tend to keep my mind mostly quiet through the day, maybe that’s why. On the other hand, I fear that it being good is something that will hold me back from desiring the truth.
Well, you can love but not get it in return. Sounds like a good way to get destroyed by narcissists. David has mentioned he been married / divorced a few times, so I’m sure he or his wives have experienced this behavior You can give, and it’ll never be enough for some. Some people will take advantage of this “love”
That is so odd. I found happiness in 2022. I changed my inner to peace and happiness. I no longer feel anxiety and depression. When i fasted this year i heard god. God told me i found enlightenment. It told me all kinds of things including my purpose on earth. What you are saying is so accurate like its crazy to me. I did not try i just did. I made myself happy thats how i found it. It was not hard it just took years but it wasnt hard. I did nothing spiritual tho i didnt meditate, i did yoga like once. I was an alcoholic actually when i found my happiness. I just didnt try i just did every damn thing i wanted. Its so nice to hear someone who explains what i did.
If you truly believed in predetermination then you would realize that the worrying is also a part of that. You cant have both, thats just not how it works