How the Tarot Works

The Tarot is where the past and the present meet, where pictures and stories come together—that is how it works its magic. We tell stories about our lives constantly—both to other people and ourselves. Just remembering what happened last night or talking about your day involve storytelling. What's more difficult is understanding what is going on below the surface of these stories. One of the most difficult things any of us can do is to get a perspective on our lives from outside of our co...

 Regard All Phenomena as Dreams

This slogan is another contemplation on absolute bodhichitta, our innate, ongoing wakeful state that is an expression of emptiness—the central Buddhist doctrine that reveals the phenomenal world as having no tangible, self-existing, or substantial nature. This world is said to be like a dream, a mirage, a magical illusion, an echo, or a reflection on water. That same world, when purified of our obscurations, is seen to be an ornament of our natural awareness. For when we awaken to ever-pres...

 Mindfulness VS Awareness

Mindfulness (Skt. smrti; Tib. dran pa) and awareness (Skt. jneya; Tib. shes bzhin) are distinct but related features of the mind. Mindfulness is something we apply more or less deliberately in order to become more cognizant, while awareness is a gentle way of simply being present. The meditation literature describes mindfulness as the opposite of forgetfulness. The Tibetan term dran pa means “remembrance,” as in the ability to focus and pay attention to the object of meditation in an unwa...

 Life is Short, Train Hard Now

Our lives are short and we only have limited time to bring about any real and lasting change. If we fail to separate the essential from the nonessential, we will lose ourselves in everyday preoccupations and petty pursuits, and when the time comes to die, it will be too late to change. While we have time, instead of harping on our dissatisfactions, we should reflect on the favorable conditions for practice and resolve to make the most of our opportunities by inscribing the following thought p...

 How to Prevent Others from Making You Angry

Peace doesn't come by stiffening against life, but by realizing there's no one to stiffen. The waves rise and fall and the ocean never minds. In the same way, anger, irritation, frustration, they come and go, but they are not you. To be unbothered is not to build a wall around yourself, but to see that there was never a separate self to defend in the first place. You see, when something happens, a disrespecting word, a sudden disappointment, a rude interruption, there's a tiny instant before ...

 Meditation Strengthens Focus

This practice of meditation itself sharpens your mind and improves your memory, qualities that are certainly useful beyond spiritual practice, whether in business, engineering, raising a family, or being a teacher, doctor, or lawyer. This practice also helps on a daily basis with anger. When you get irritated, you can concentrate on the nature of the anger itself and thereby undermine its force. Another benefit of such mental training emerges from the close connection between body and mind. ...

 Locke Divided Experience into Sensation and Reflection

In his exploration into the nature of belief, seen from the psychological point of view Locke divided experience into two categories—first, sensation, or perception of external objects, and second, reflection, the activity in which the self observes its own state of mind, its own feelings and thoughts. According to Locke all human experience is embraced in these two categories; but the second, reflection, is based in and arises from the first, sensation. Sense impression of the external wor...

 Cartesian Methodology Applied to Personal Intellectual Gr...

...Cartesian methodology calls for intellectual individualism; it emphasizes reason as the common possession of all men. The reason that people disagree is that their reason has been perverted by the wrong kind of education, or poisoned by superstition, or vitiated by preoccupation. Descartes held that all men had equal and natural ability to make sound judgments, and to distinguish the true from the false, until and unless these abilities were crippled or stunted by improper education or by ...

 Aristotle Considered Experiential Knowledge of Lower Value

Aristotle gave the name experience to change which is irregular, and differentiated this from scientific knowledge, or rational knowledge. The only changes that could come within the scope of science were those which moved in the direction of, and which were governed by, final cause——the chick and the oak, again. Typical of the things which Aristotle regarded as certain, and therefore admissible to the realm of science, were the stars of the heavens which could be counted and which moved ...

 Chess VS Go

The philosophy behind chess is to win decisively. For the winner, victory is absolute, as is defeat for the loser. In chess, both players have the same clear and overriding objective―capturing the opposing king―and accomplish this objective by decimating whatever opposing forces are standing in the way. In go, total victory usually happens between two mismatched players. That kind of victory, as Sun Tzu puts it, is not the pinnacle of excellence. In a go game between two well-matched play...