No matter what we may think, no matter how we appear, we always have agency. If we appear passive, we have chosen that. And we chose passivity for a reason: we believe that it is a viable strategy. Passive Active No responsibility Burdened with responsibility Many years ago, I knew someone who was an abuser. And when he was called …
Knowing What We Bring to the Table….
If we are going to undertake spiritual practice, then we have to know what we bring to the table. Until we are clear about our own systems, we can only go so far in sadhana. We are required to know what we bring to the table and discern how appropriate it is at any moment. An important element that people …
Humoring Our Humorlessness….
Humor is so necessary for spiritual practice. In order to have humor—genuine humor, not caustic wit—we have to be disentangled. We have to be able to laugh at ourselves, not just in a superficial way but from the depths of our being. When we have no sense of humor, we demonstrate that we are attached to and identified with the …
Victimhood: the Way of the World….
This is going to be the final blog in this series. I want to address something that is going to be uncomfortable for many readers: attachment to victimhood. This subject can be raw, and it can trip a wire that may bother people who have not faced that attachment in themselves. It is crucial to recognize that I am using …
We are our own worst victim…..
It is not my fault. It is your fault. This view works for me. The only time this does not “work” is when both of us claim the role of victim. Then we have a competition. When this happens we can have a standoff for hours or even days. We are committed to our small self as a victim, and …
Dismantling the Victim and the Bully….
We have become a nation of victims and bullies. Everyone is encouraged to adopt one role or the other. We seem to have lost our sense of character and of the honor of taking responsibility for our actions. Our media and public officials have taken to name-calling rather than discerning what actually may be going on. We are all so …