Ultimately the key to happiness and freedom from suffering is a direct experience of the emptiness or suchness of all experience. None of us wants to be miserable; we all want to be happy. But we can’t achieve this aim if we stay stuck in biased, narrow-minded thinking. No matter how much we long for joy, it will elude us if we continue buying into concepts of right and wrong, good and bad, acceptance and rejection. What ultimately frees us from these constricting patterns is to stop reifying our experience, and to connect with the ineffable, groundless nature of all phenomena.

There is no better use of a human life that to realize the unfabricated non conceptual freshness of our mind. This is the source of all wisdom and all compassion.

~Pema Chodron

these pretty little quips tell us the story of our doubts and insecurities….

inquiry for today~ listen for ways to tumble down the bricks and let the wild roses grow……

rose after rose

Philosophy is the art of making meaning through logic and reason. Religion is the art of making meaning through myth, metaphor, and ritual. Science is the art of exploring nature. Spirituality is the art of exploring your nature. Borrowing from the sixth century Bodhidharma, I would say of spirituality that it is a direct apprehension of reality outside of words and scripture; a direct pointing to reality and seeing into one’s tru nature. We humans have the capacity to be creative in all four dimensions- science, philosophy, religion, and spirituality- and should do what we can to be literate in each.

~Rabbi Rami Shapiro