I took part in a Zen meditation circle last year. Not so much because I see myself as a Zen Buddhist, but because I was looking for a quiet community to pursue my practice. During the Dokusan, I got involved in actively exploring my questions. I gave up a lot and left a lot behind. It was surprisingly easy. The 'teacher' made [...]
An intense month comes to an end. Moving, spatial separation, friends parting, the love of godchildren, new friendships, longings, waiting... I could write a screenplay about the last few weeks in Provence. Every day filled with pain, compassion and love - collectively in different constellations. But I don't want to tell these little stories, even though Marcel Pagnol [...]
The Kena Upanishad describes how the self as such does not exist. Who sees in seeing, who hears in hearing? This cannot be answered. In the Christian tradition, a self has been constructed for this purpose. I see, I hear, cogito ergo sum, imago ergo sum.... What is this cogito (I think), the imago [...]?
Today I heard a quote from Sri Aurobindo. He said that each of us has several selves. That was clear to me. It has been my experience for decades that the different aspects of a personality are many and that the idea of a subjective identity is a construction. I always saw the principles of construction as ideological, which [...]
In Europe, we have an idea of enlightenment as something where an individual recognizes that he or she is living under externally imposed constraints. It is then a matter of overcoming these constraints and placing oneself under a greater law. A light comes on and shines in all the dark corners, so that what is not yet [...]