wellness

Happy and not yet happy
Sad and not yet sad
Sick and not yet sick
Dead and not yet dead

Do you know what is going to happen in the next moment? If you do, let us buy a lottery ticket together!

We live our life hoping and expecting that only good things will happen. Death. Who needs to look at that? It is something that is going to happen in the far distant future so why think about it. Suffering. Another one of those things that are unpleasant so I don’t want to reflect on that either. If only we could live our life sheltered from these traumas. That can happen, but one needs to be dead or in a coma. And when something unpleasant happens we react with surprise and disbelief. It is as if it is an affront to you. Why would this happen to me? How dare this happen to me!

The reality is that there is the capacity for good and bad things to happen and for the most part we have no control over these events in life. Health and illness, birth and death, safety and trauma, beginning and ending of relationships. We need to contemplate on the fact that there is the potential for both happiness and suffering to occur in any moment. 

by Dr. Phil Blustein

*Reality is conditionally created
Every moment is a constant autonomous subconscious interpretation of perceived causes and conditions referenced against a personal arbitrary belief system to create a conditioned enduring sense of self.

*Attachment to self leads to suffering

*Non-Attachment to self leads to freedom from suffering
Can one rest in the awareness of the experience that contains the story of self rather than be the sense of self that believes it is having the experience?

*Transformation from self-referential judgment to non-self referential discernment is the segue to liberation
Can one reference experience against universal ethical and compassionate standards and not our personal belief system of unmet psychological needs?

*Choice is possible for skillful action

by Dr. Phil Blustein

We take such pride in being human. We are so advanced relative to any other living creature in the world. Just compare our mental abilities with a dog, cat, bird, elephant etc. However, are we really that superior to the rest of existence.

One of the main determining factors for our behavior is the biologic imperative of survival. We judge each moment against the marker of will it help one’s survival or not. We have a negative bias in that we are always scrutinizing whether the present moment is for our benefit or not. This historic primal evaluation of physical threat has now been replaced by psychological concerns. We as humans have “evolved” to a higher and different standard to reference all experience. There is no question we want to live but judging our existence against perceived psychological threats may actually limit our capacity to be present moment to moment with some peace and compassion. Just think of how our normal self-referential judging mind leads us to constant criticizing of our self, causing personal suffering.

Mindfulness is asking us to step back from this evolved instinctive reaction to each moment and rest in a new skillful relationship of awareness, stillness and choice. We are asked to De-evolve to a place that predates our apparent evolution to a conditioned created sense of self to non-interpretative knowing of experience.

by Dr. Phil Blustein

“Be one with self, Not the one that is self.“

Is the ultimate goal of mindfulness EGOCIDE? Do we need to kill our ego to be free of self? Who would you be in this world if you weren’t your sense of self? How would you navigate your existence? Pay your bills, have a job and family and interact with others. The sense of self plays an important functional role.

The key to freedom from pain and suffering is to understand the true nature of self. That it is a temporary conditional construct arising moment to moment dependent on one’s habitual patterning. It is the ability to live the paradox of self. To hold self as if it is real, but know that it is an illusion. Not true. To be present in life non-attached to the sense of self. It is a relationship of co-existence, not annihilation.

by Dr. Phil Blustein

Where is a thought? What is a thought?
Can you touch it?
Can you feel it?
Empty of form
When a thought comes does it hold you tightly? Invisible chains
Real as steel
Full of form
Thought is empty Thought has form
Is thought empty form?
Is thought formed emptiness?

What is true?

by Dr. Phil Blustein