Energy, Ego and the Spirit

Please, for the love of God, nail your attention and intention to the body in the present moment. Don't worry. When you're grounded in sensation, ego will eventually go quiet. Don't waste energy on behaviors and beliefs that offer short term benefit at long-term cost. Anything that divides the human family (so that individuals can get an elitism fix) is a tremendous drain on the part of you that's quiet and bouyed up by life alone. Everything driven by ego-energy leaves anxiety in its wake. The stimulus/ response loops of fulfilled desire are certain to create attachments if you leave no room between them. The rough part is this: if you can hear this, you can't un-hear it. Egotism is nothing but an originally-helpful cocktail of brain chemicals that's long since costed more than we can afford. To those who can accept that the Lord God has opened the ear of all flesh, serenity depends on skillful use of what energy we have available, and you and I are on the hook for ideals and behaviors that forge our present moment into tiny little unmanageable hells. ...

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The Whole Way There: on Finding Accurate Maps

Nature abhors a vaccuum, and today is a vaccuum. Even if we were to give up self, (as a dog returns to its vomit) the ego would reassert itself. We who are on the Way only speak of method--of a programatic way of taking up the Cross and following--because our track record with humility leaves something to be desired. The whole method of Christian Tantra can be summed up in 50 words: "In the logos’ paradox, learn discernment. Then, give up self: Reparent, reframe, recapitulate. Listen Breathe, Feel sensation at thought's expense. Focus attention and intention on sensation. Imitate, be intimate with, and internalize the Guru. So that the body and the spirit--not the mind-- can lead the process, offer mantra." This is the tallest of orders, and we are suspended between "not knowing where to start" and "not knowing when to quit." Uncomfortable with the tension, averse to most of what we see in ourselves, we imagine something better for ourselves precisely by internalizing the Triune God. ...

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When Prayer isn't Thought: Steps to Practiced Selflessness

Both Christ's pierced heart and the Holy of holies in the temple were utterly empty, and the same is true of the mind of Christ. Reacting to our fundamental vulnerability, though, our own panicky minds churn out thought all day long, and we anesthetize ourselves with fulfilled desires to compensate, to make thought sit down and shut up. Buddha was right when he said "life is suffering." Jesus, too, has more to teach about suffering consciously than we've previously been willing to admit. ...

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