Aging: Senescence as Creative Inspiration
[Exploring Life] It is strange to contemplate aging. The process of getting older often seems so gradual as to be imperceptible. The idea of getting older can create a sense of discomfort since the very mention of it requires us to come into closer proximity with the reality of our own impermanence. We have an [...]
Aging: An Acquaintance With Absence
[Exploring Life] Absence is an emotional state of awareness in which we feel a deep sense of loss; the death of a loved one or friend invokes the deepest sense of loss. The feeling of absence originates in the poignant contrast between the presence of someone or something and the impossibility of ever being able [...]
Spiritual Endeavour: Dark Night of the Soul – 5
[Exploring Life] A dark night of the soul is an invitation to our own renaissance. The curse of seemingly inescapable psychological and spiritual burdens is a threshold that immerses us in a dark unrelenting entanglement with our own spiritual-renewal. It is deep within the midst of our most intense struggles in life that we are [...]
Breathing – A Confluence of Body, Mind, and Spirit: Breathing Into Experience
[Exploring Life] Breathing Into Discernment: Breathing affects everything in our experience, and our first task is to be able to witness and observe how the flow of breathing is altered by the endless variations of moods, reactions, worries, behaviours, expressions, and attachments that conspire to shape our orientation to and presence in the world. Breathing [...]
Mental Degradation: The Five Afflictions of Mind
[Exploring Life] Mental Afflictions- The Origin of Discontent: The purpose of yoga is to provide a pathway out of suffering. All suffering originates in the mind. The mind and body are intimately interconnected, meaning that the intentions of our thoughts manifest themselves throughout the physical structure of our body. An acute painful thought creates a [...]
Points of No Return: On the Loss of My Parents – Last Words
[Exploring Life] Closure means to find a resolution to a significant event in a person’s life. With respect to the loss of a loved one, closure ultimately means to find contentment and gratitude as the final and most significant outcome of death. This is the twelfth and final entry I will dedicate to the series [...]
Emotional Terrain: Grief Transforms Time
[Exploring Life] Grief possesses great agility. It emerges subtlety yet its presence is potent. Grief, I am beginning to understand, cannot be equated to more distinct states of being such as the quality of sadness that results from loss. The dimensions of grief are far more extensive in nature. Loss and absence are, of course, [...]
