Mind

Beginning students will often be preoccupied with trying to “answer” koans, not understanding that the questions posed by koans aren’t the kind of questions that have answers. Instead, koans are stories designed to help us see beyond the dichotomy of questions and answers, to enable us to stay with what seems like an irresolvable paradox, to stay

The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings the past and the future are not as real, but more real than the present. The present cannot be lived happily unless the past has been “cleared up” and the future is bright with promise.

Chanting, flute or drum playing, and dancing in demilitarized patterns are ideally natural forms of yoga-meditation, because they silence the hypnotic chattering of thought and give one a direct feeling of shabda—the basic energy or vibration of the universe. This is why Gregorian chant, for example, gives the sense of eternity so absent from

However, the default state also has a downside. For many of us, the mind’s default has a negative bias. Its most familiar habits are to ruminate on past hurts, criticize ourselves or others, and rehearse reasons to worry. The default state can also become a mental trap.

When we lose our mind—our thinking brain—even temporarily, we make space for our soul, our emotions, to flourish. We experience the world directly, without interrupting thoughts.