I don't think desire is painful. I think desires come and go. I think if desire is painful, it is we who create the pain related to desire. I think it is the letting desire pass or not being attached to it that gives rise to satisfaction. I met desire with compassion and a satisfaction in momentary beauty when I recognize it as a passing experience, and when I realize that it is not good for me such that it will mess up my life to a small or large degree. What helps me is seeing that pain is provided by life, and suffering or my way of dealing with pain is provided by me. I am the cause of how I suffer pain. I don't weed out the cause of my suffering because that would be me weeding out me. What I do when I do it is make an effort to weed out grasping desires that aren't good for me and weed out suffering that is ineffficient for me.

I agree with the notion that affirming and accepting ourselves lowers the perfectionism bar. Problem is, really affirming and accepting self in a way that makes much difference is difficult. Not accepting self is deeply ingrained, and intellectually reminding self that we're good is too superficial and doesn't penetrate to where not accepting comes from. As for perfect, we are perfect when we allow our real self to be and express -- I believe our real self is our God self. I'm always able to love myself unconditionally, but I don't -- times of loving myself unconditionally are few and far between. I think loving myself unconditionally ended by age two, which I think is true for most of us. One big help for me in accepting me is loving and positive responses from others.

My understanding is that explain means to make something clear by flattening it out. To explain is also to defend. To sing is to use one's voice to produce musical sounds. I think we exist to live and blossom, and we can let our feelings in living be expressed in singing, and we are not here to flatten life in order to understand it better, not here to flatten ourselves, and not here to defend ourselves. When my father died, I sobbed like I don't remember having done before. As far as I know, my sobbing was my grief and was the seed of sobbing about many additional sadnesses that I felt and was sobbing at the birth of a new chapter in life. For me, faith is accepting that life is unknown and always changing, which helps me prune back regrets that life isn't known or set, and that lets faith grow further.

I am sorry you lost your brother. I am glad you got to see his I shining forth in all innocence.

My view seems to be pretty much the opposite of the view of Jac O'Keeffe. For me, there is no mind-body split. Mind-body is a unity, a continuum. I don't see mind as the boss in charge of body and using body for its own purposes. There was a time that I thought mind and body were real and separate and the two of them together made 'I'. That changed, and I awoke to seeing 'I' as real and as the only real. For me, 'I' is not ego or personality. 'I' is real and is essence, and mind-body is 'I' in form, is an experience of'I'. If anything exists in imagination, it is mind and body, not 'I'. Mind-body is what gets addicted. I agree that nothing outside of 'I' can make 'I' feel happy or whole. I'm not beyond the 'I' story; I am beyond the story of mind and body being two separate entities that comprise 'I', and beyond seeing 'I' as imagination. For me, 'I' is all that really is, and mind-body comes and goes.

For me, Blackstone's references to inhabiting the body imply separation between me and my body, and I have difficulty with that. I believe unitive consciousness embodies and there is no separation between being and body. The time is now that I see oneness, more than connection, between my perception and my physiological process. I think, similarly, that there is no separation between tree and what tree is made of, or tree perception and its physiological process. What helps me maintain inward contact is a sensation or some experience in my inner space catching my attention and my going with it. Belief in inner space and unitive consciousness help me to allow or embrace some amount of unitive consciousness at times. It helps me to sometimes get a little bit outside thinking and language which separate.

My associations about passing through the gateless gate are 1) that it's not a place but a state of consciousness, and 2) no one allows me in but me and no one keeps me out but me. For me, passing through the gateless gate means to wake up, remove the cataracts, see a broader slice of what is, be less in the world and more not of it. In my early waking up, I saw a commercial in which an American Indian was looking out over the territory and said to a little boy next to him, "It's all alive." I related to that and still do. I see more often and more clearly that all existence is one and is alive and I am a part of of the one. What helps me is I'm stronger and I think more elusive in being awake, still I'm careful with showing however much being awake I am, and I'm aware of awake me being always present even if off stage somewhere in the background.

I relate to what Chelan Harkin writes. I learned prayers and said prayers to a separate God out there. It is only in the past 15+ years that I became aware that all is one and all is God in form. Since that awareness, my prayer is from that awareness of oneness and intimacy of all, and my prayer seems to slowly enhance that awareness. I think dissatisfaction with prayer and religion that I grew up in helped me search and be open to seeing the connection of all that is. My reading, discussing, and reflecting help me see and sometimes feel my connection to all that is. The connection I am aware of with self, with others, and with the world increases and I think is itself a prayer.

I recommend you express your care and concern with the whole family present so that it might be a family discussion that everyone is in on.

Taking my mind-body unity seriously means to me living in truth. My mind-body are one, and we separate them in our thinking and in our ignorance. I was probably 20 when I started to become aware that my way of being and my feelings affect one another. At that age I started going in a direction in my life different than what significant others, especially my mother, wanted, and I knew that was the origin of the stress and turmoil I was suffering. What helps me investigate how I live my life is knowing that how I live is very involved in how I am physically and emotionally. That all existence is one and is totally interrelated is a big part of my spirituality. Attending to how I live my life supports and is part of my spirituality, and my spirituality supports and is part of my attending to how I live my life. I take seriously the unity of mind-body and the unity of my way of living and my spirituality.

Deep now is a miracle medicine.

There are times a plenty that I have a flash of awakening, sometimes triggered by something someone says-does and sometimes not, and I see differently, see outside the box, outside the narrow bandwidth of existence I have been bamboozled and squeezed into, just like has happened to you. Such experiences are eyeandme opening, newlifing, resurrecting. What boosts my courage is increase in age and not-give-a-damnness -- I've been damned and damned me enough, and I have accelerated my freedom giving to myself to see and be my way, all of which is exciting meaning beyond searching for meaning, and beyond seeking much of anything. Find more, seek less. Be more, try less. Who knows, I may freebe any day now.

Being contextually relevant means being relevant to the present context I am in, that is, relevant to the present times, people, and events. I act in solidarity with Life when I am open to and listen to others and to myself, when I am in solidarity with my truth, that is with what I am experiencing, thinking, feeling, and when I am responsive to and not reactive to what is happening. What helps me engage in the work without feeling the obligation to complete it is my belief in doing the work, which I have some control over, and not in outcome, which I don't control. What also helps me is my belief in what I am doing and my belief that there is always more that can be done. What helps me not feel obligation is that I've pretty much given up operating by obligation in regard to anything. I do what I do out of believing it it and believing it is the right action.

I guess bear witness means to stay with the feelings from a traumatic event, feel the feelings and reflect on them rather than quickly run from them. When I bear witness, what has helped me is trusting the process that is happening, knowing that I can learn from what is happening, being more self evaluating regarding what I contribute to my problem, remembering that confusion often accompanies growth, knowing nothing lasts. Life has revealed what I just said plus emphasizing that life does to me (or at least it feels that way) as well as I do to life, emphasizing that change is always and the duration of anything or anyone is very brief, and have more fun and joy. The loss that comes to mind is the death of a mentor I relied on, and the coming home is coming home to me and relying on me which is an expanded and deepened me that includes him.

My business partner and I worked together for 20 years never having a legal contract or any written agreement between us -- we were dear friends and what we had, did, and built was based on our relationship. That was business with heart, and we consulted our heads. We integrated heart and head, with heart being primary. We discussed, agreed, fought, and worked together. We had wonderful, creative, alive times, and we had difficult times. My assessment in hindsight is that the best times were primarily heart, and the difficult times were primarily head. What helps me remain aware of the need to integrate heart and head is knowing they are different but not separate aspects of one whole, they each provide important contribution, and they integrate best with heart having priority. Head makes a valuable servant and a terrible master.

I believe it's important to be careful, and no matter how careful we are, there is no way to avoid risk; there is no guarantee. Anais Nin said, "And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful that the risk it took to blossom."

Reminds me of I think it was Rumi who asked why do we keep ourselves in prison when the door is wide open? Why do we keep ourselves chickens in the chicken farm when the sky is wide open?

In my experience, it's not so easy as in the story to take away reminders of past conditioning and become more authentic. The conditioning is well established, internalized and often unconscious, and words usually aren't enough to make a difference -- it takes an experience that is more penetrating than words to be an awakening and freeing experience. Choosing to leave an educational program that I had wanted and been conditioned for was very difficult and positive for me to do, and it awakened me to listening to and trusting myself, my strength and my truth. By paying attention to my feelings I realize that I'm trapped. What helps me realize what is trapping me is honest soul searching or reflection. More often than not it is me that is trapping me and then it is for me to come to terms with myself and stop trapping me.

I think the author is saying survival language is the language of the culture, the language we are conditioned into, and is the language of conditioned me, and I better understand that language to survive in the culture. Sacred language is the language of real me, the language of my truth, and I better be aware of sacred language to thrive and not be a robot of the culture. In my twenties, when I began finding out who I am compared to who the culture says I am, I began paying attention to the language I use. I see language as important. Language is the vehicle of me. Language defines me and I want to express me accurately. Language also defines the world to me, and I want language that accurately does that, which means I often dig into word etymology to get more accurate meaning. I want language that is based in truth, not disconnected from truth.

I think it's important that basic wants can be expressed with non-social, not anti-social, self-centeredness. I think it's also important that a child start learning at an early age (maybe by 4 or so) that the world isn't there for him -- if he doesn't learn that, he may grow up to be president but he's a big problem to society. The world doesn't always hold, accept, or love us -- to me that's reality. Connection to my authentic self has been up and down. I do know connection to my authentic self has been helped by acceptance from others. I think unconditional acceptance ends by the time a person is 2 or 3 (Winnicott may have said that too), and I think any acceptance or amount of acceptance is helpful. What helps me balance the need for authenticity etc is accepting that my want is authentic and accepting that many of my expressions are lacking skill and not done well.