My spiritual blog & articles - My Spiritual Coach

Is it possible to "fail" at understanding a Zen koan, or is every interpretation valid?

5/10/2025

I started reading Koans when I was a child of 12. I was intrigued by how cryptic they were. I didn’t “understand” any of them. But through the years, as I revisited them, they revealed themselves to me. As I developed more awareness of the differences between knowledge and spiritual insight, each Koan that had seemed so inscrutable, became clear to me.

For example, the Koan—”What is the sound of one hand clapping?” It took me many years to arrive at the answer. But in the meantime, it was sitting in my consciousness, letting its meaning marinate within me—until one day, many decades later, I got it. The sound of one hand clapping is silence. It’s a paradox because by definition, clapping requires two or more hands to produce the sound.

It dawned on me that all of life and the cosmos itself is an interrelationship. Nothing stands alone. Everything is interacting with everything else. Furthermore, silence itself is what makes sound and the rhythms of sound, including music, discernible. And it is only within the silence of the undisturbed mind that we can find the peace that is at the root of spiritual contemplation and awareness.

Not every interpretation is valid. Zen students have been chastised by their masters if they come up with an overly intellectual answer or try to be too clever. Koans aren’t a free-for-all in which any answer will do, either. Their value is in the way they impact our consciousness. It might be ironic or humorous to say, “The sound of one hand clapping is pizza.” But it shows a flippant attitude rather than an intent to understand.

Koans are designed so that we “fail” to grasp them with simple and pat explanations. They are beyond the cliches and life-hacks that numb the mind with their rote explanations. They are funny. Aimed to take all the pompous seriousness out of spiritual practice. It’s best to fail at understanding a koan and eventually allow it to do its magic as the life force within us shows us the way. Then our world can be rocked out of “correct answers” and into expansive and freeing insights.

What does the word "Buddha" mean?

3/7/2025

"Buddha" comes from the Sanskrit root "budh," which means "to know" or "to awaken." To most, Buddha means someone who is free from the sorrows and suffering of life because they see the bigger picture. This may be an unattainable state and could actually be a state of non-compassion if interpreted incorrectly. As if such a being was above it all, diminishing human suffering as something we can all rise above.

In reality, the aim of the Buddhist discipline is to manage and reduce suffering through understanding its cause and its remedies. Yet people have insisted on making idols to the man (Siddhartha Gautama), asking for favors, healings, and any other advantage they want at the time. It takes away from Buddha’s dying statement, “Be a light unto yourself.” It is off the course of his message of doing inner work, rather than depending on an outside agency to bring whatever it is that you think you need.

The way Buddha is portrayed is similar to all the great spiritual masters. It is in large, broad, strokes in which we know nothing about his day-to-day routine or quirks as a human (unless fictionalized as in Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha). We hear more of the dramatic events and milestones of his life. This leads people to think they will never be so saintly as to attain the title of “The Awakened One.” They could never sit under the bodhi tree doing inner contemplation for seven weeks in a row as did Buddha. They are full of aches, pains, gripes, bad memories, fear of death. But the unattainable Buddha surpassed all that and seekers may demean themselves about their shortcomings.

Thinking the title of “Buddha” as something to be attained as a mark of the highest spiritual realization is therefore problematic. It postpones permanent inner peace to the future, as a goal after a long journey of moral and devotional practices. The goal is to eliminate suffering and be in eternal bliss (Nirvana) knowing that all is perfect just as it is.

Everyone wants Nirvana, or endless bliss, but they are not finding it as they search through doctrines and religious methods. So they hope Buddhism will bring it to them. Hope is about the future. It is not based on knowledge. Buddha brought awakening through knowledge more than 2,500 years ago. The practice is more about uncovering the inner wisdom and understanding inherent in us all than it is about achieving the illustrious title of “Buddha.”

Do enlightened individuals have a sense of purpose to help humanity become more aware of their spiritual nature and evolution?

3/2/2025

Humanity has a huge uncovered resource of spiritual understanding. The enlightened beings who have achieved world-wide recognition, such as Buddha and Jesus Christ, have brought forward this potential through their communication and presence.

Buddha’s chosen purpose was to find a path to relieve suffering. He focussed on the acute mental anguish that is part of the human condition. He saw that so much suffering is due to our hard-wired fear-based mental patterns and emotional upset over loss, change, death, and physical pain. He saw so much suffering around him and he, himself was so uncomfortable with day-to-day reality, he sought a way to deal with it all. When he found it, he communicated it though his Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path. His purpose was to alleviate suffering and that is also the purpose of Buddhism.

Jesus Christ was also about alleviating suffering, superficially his emphasis looked like it was on physical healing, raising the dead, and other miracles. The masses came to him because they were sick, their loved ones were dying, they themselves were afraid of death, and they were also afraid of possession by demons. Because he could heal them, that became his fame, but he was really here to teach love, forgiveness, mercy, kindness, and integrity, as he communicated in the Sermon on the Mount.

Both of these enlightened beings were driven by the enlightenment process itself, to communicate it. They were willing to pay the price for sharing their revelations. Buddha gave up a life of pampered luxury and Jesus Christ was crucified. Yet they had to set things straight with people who were going on all kinds of paths that were off base when it came to the revelations of divine consciousness.

Buddha told people they didn’t need to do drastic painful penances, live like ascetics, or punish themselves. These people thought they could earn enlightenment through extreme practices. Jesus Christ told the hyper-religious hypocrites that their’s wasn’t the path either. Buddha and Jesus were spiritual coaches. But not everyone wants a spiritual coach or someone who can show them a path to the harmonious laws of the universe.

Therefore, though there are many people who have grasped the deepest aspects of spiritual consciousness, only a few have been recognized globally. Some people live quietly enlightened lives and do not feel compelled to teach or tell anyone about it. Others say they are enlightened, gain huge followings, and show that they are power-hungry—such as John of God, capitalizing on human suffering.

In general, enlightened beings don’t feel or need a purpose. They put aside the anxious human mind and see that all is well just the way it is, as long as we keep an open path to divine energy. They communicate this because they are driven by the higher consciousness that took them over to do so. Their individual needs are set aside. As Jesus Christ said, “I can of mine own self do nothing: because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”

It is why I am writing this now. Since I was four years old my obsession has been awareness of higher consciousness. Every human live human being has the potential to discover this and it came to me at a very young age. The expectations of my family were that I would be arm candy for a wealthy man. If I fulfilled that, then I fulfilled my purpose to them. They were dismayed that I began a lifelong devotion to cosmic consciousness, beyond the day-to-day. I sent away for spiritual classics: Predominantly zen, Hindu, Sufi, and Christian mystics starting at 12 years old.

Never did I think I was here to set people right about their suffering or their mistaken, primitive tribal religious ritualisms. But people started coming to me in boarding school when I was 11 for spiritual counseling and to find their inner light. In that sense, an enlightened being is here for everyone but not everyone wants an enlightened being. Therefore, I am not here to help people just because it’s nice to help. Yet I am compelled to alleviate the suffering of those who come to me and are willing to work it out, just like a coach.

What factors contribute to people becoming more "spiritual" as they age? Is it a result of maturity or other influences?

12/2/2024

On one level, age has nothing to do with spirituality. I have met very evolved spiritual beings who were young children. My understanding is that we are all born with an inherent spiritual sense and cosmic consciousness. Then life experiences and the development of our ego minds cause us to cover over this light like a lightbulb covered with masking tape.

We lose our way to the Soul within and think we must survive at all costs as time goes by. People hurt us, we are in unavoidably painful situations. This causes many to form protective callouses that surround our inner light. If these callouses grow too thick, age only forms a greater barrier to spiritual understanding as we pile them on through the years. Then we are amazed that a person has lived so long and is nothing but an old grouchy, self-righteous, bitter, and regretful person who envies the young and puts them down for their ideas while they are still growing.

But if we maintain our connection to the inner light that is a reflection of the Source of All, then age is definitely a plus. Older people have a chance to experience more and see how it all turns out. We see that things we worried about never happened. We know we are capable of handling whatever comes up. We see life as a huge adventure, with moments of joy, moments of pain and that they alll pass. We are emotionally mature and don’t have tantrums because the world doesn’t bend to our wishes.

We have enough experience to see that things clear up over time. Or we accept them. Or we walk away from them. It’s not a big emotional rollercoaster and drama production. We know that we don’t have that much time left in the body so striving to fix things that are beyond our control or trying to create a spectacular life that fulfills our fantasies is really pointless. We can relax and let life unfold and take delight in all the manifestations of physical reality.

Society, as usual, has it backwards. Being older is the best time of life—as long as we are fit and maintain contact with our inner light, or Soul. Otherwise, we are a mass of aches and pains, stiffness, insomnia, poor digestion, facing some horrible form of death. If we don’t know we are more than the body—that we have a body but are Eternal Soul watching the show—then age is no advantage at all. Thus the time-worn expression, “There’s no fool like an old fool.”

What is the purpose of spirituality if there is no tangible outcome after reaching enlightenment?

7/21/2024

Spiritual enlightenment is a way of looking at and experiencing life. It is not goal-oriented about achieving anything in the physical world. It is about going deeper into our consciousness to acknowledge the background of our lives instead of the activities that consume our days.

Humans think that achieving tangible outcomes matters. Or we may think spirituality will ensure our comfortable place in the afterlife. Spiritual enlightenment has nothing to do with our getting things, getting things done, or ensuring our survival.

Humans have been producing tangible outcomes for centuries. In the process of all this activity and getting things done, we have destroyed each other and huge sections of the planet. We think getting things done is progress and it will be profitable too. For example, the highway systems that cross the world now. They are great conveniences for getting things done. But what has happened to all the forests and farmlands, mountains that had been blasted through? They will never be the same again as we continue to pave the land and use it to get things done.

The byproducts of these progressive highways are pileups, traffic jams, gruesome fatalities, shredded nerves, road rage, self righteousness and condemnation of other drivers.
Enlightenment does no harm. It does not transform matter into other forms of matter. It acknowledges the background that is always there from which all the physical manifestations emerge and into which they disappear. It is a peaceful state that remains, even if on the surface our emotions have been ruffled.

The only purpose of enlightenment is to relieve human suffering. That is how the Buddha defined enlightenment: The end of suffering. If we want to go through life kicking and screaming, resisting what is and being ungrateful for its multifaceted magnificence, be my guest. But if we need to enjoy life, spiritual enlightenment is the way to go because it is based on eternity. It cannot be destroyed while all else passes away.

Is it possible to differentiate between an ordinary man and an enlightened man based solely on their words and actions? If so, how can we do so?

5/20/2024

As an enlightened woman, it is difficult when people speak of the “enlightened man.” And in some religions, such as branches of Buddhism and Jainism, men are the only ones entitled to enlightenment. They hold that we must be born in the body of a man before we can even qualify for Nirvana, heaven, or any form of higher consciousness.

I understand that “man” can also stand for “mankind” and therefore includes everyone. But other beings are enlightened as well, such as babies and animals. So we don’t want to say that only humans are enlightened. If we look at human behavior, we can see that it is ego-centered and based on dominance and proving ourselves right, either on a personal or or a political scale. How much more enlightened is a baby, a dog, or a cat, who live only in the present moment and do not fret over the baggage of the past or anxiety about the future.

Enlightenment is a context in which we experience and view life. It is not a big fanfare of peak experiences, emotional fireworks, and do-gooder behavior. Enlightened people may act the exact same way as they did before the light went on in their consciousness about the interconnectedness of the entire Universe and the power of Source Energy. We still can get angry and cry, we may not be saintlike, we still feel things the way humans do—but we have an unshakeable inner peace that is not affected by changeful outer circumstances.
Entertaining displays of magical powers and having a cult following has nothing to do with the inner knowing that accompanies enlightenment. Words, of course, mean absolutely nothing. Anyone can spout words and sound good. They can say what people want to hear and thus be validated. Politicians have been spewing all kinds of great-sounding fluff for centuries. Televangelists have been raking in the chips with their rhetoric and end up showing moral and financial corruption in their lives.

Actions may be based on ulterior motives, such as, if I do this, I will ensure my place in heaven at the right hand of God. If I do or say this, other people with think I am awesome. And I’ve been baptized and saved because I got dunked in the river. And you’re not saved because you didn’t do that. And I also give lots to charity, so you should know how generous I am.
Enlightened people don’t care about what others think of them. They do not have to put on a show or be holier than anyone else, thus putting them down. They do not make others feel “less than” because no one can measure up to their saintliness. They may appear quite ordinary and even less spectacular than people who put on an exhibit of their holiness.

Alan Watts was an enlightened being, yet he was an alcoholic and chain smoker. Just because people have habits that are associated with the body doesn’t mean they don’t live in the divine splendor of inner radiance. Assuming that an enlightened human isn’t working through challenges because they have it all figured out is delusional.

If you have a spark of enlightenment in you, regardless of the words or actions of anyone, you will recognize their vibrational level. I walked through the majority of India and I only found one enlightened person. I only saw him for an hour or less. But that was enough. It wasn’t about his words or actions. It was strictly vibrational. I felt it when I was with him. I don’t even know his name. He was a hermit in the forest of Rishikesh. That one hour of being drenched in his powerful vibrations, was enough to last for the rest of my life.

What does it feel like to be without a mind or ego?

12/18/2023

A student once asked His Holiness the Dalai Lama, how does he handle his ego. The Dalai Lama asked him to explain what the ego is. After the student explained that it was a level of consciousness that we must be special. That we must survive no matter what. That we must make ourselves better, especially better than others. This ego—tendency is hard-wired into the human mind. It causes unrest, unease, discomfort, and a lot of anxiety about the past and the future.

The Dalai Lama’s response was they didn’t have that concept in his practice. He really didn’t know what the ego was because he never felt he was someone special. He didn’t feel the overpowering need for his physical presence to survive. He said in The Book of Joy:

“I always consider myself personally one of seven billion human beings. Nothing special. So, on that level, I have tried to make people aware that the ultimate source of happiness is simply a healthy body and a warm heart.”

When he said this, the statistics were at seven billion. But now it is more like 8.5 billion people on the planet—all thinking they are special, with their dreams, ambitions, and goals to make something out of themselves and make the world a better place. The Dalai Lama doesn’t have such lofty aspirations. He’s very simple. Alleviate suffering in yourself and others as much as you can. That’s it. You don’t have the be the holiest, most self-sacrificing monk in the world either. Or come here to fix the world that was doing fine before we meddled in it.

Imagine that you are a cat curled up by the fire, or a fish swimming smoothly through water. Do you have the kind of mind to create worry and upset? No. All animals are without the ego mind. So if you want to know what it feels like not to have an ego-mind, picture yourself as any animal, plant, or rock in nature—living harmoniously, dying or dissolving when the time has come, with no struggle involved.

The azalea isn’t saying, “I hate that yellow daisy over there. Yellow should be banned in nature. And look at how fresh and young that daisy is too, while I’m on my way out. It’s not fair. I should live forever. Because I’m special and above all others. Maybe, in my next life, I’ll reincarnate as an orchid.”

The deer isn’t saying, “When will I get married? I don’t want to be the one deer left behind in the thousands of herds.” The street mutt isn’t envying the pampered lapdog and planning a rebellion against the forces of nature that landed her in the streets. The snake isn’t protesting about not having legs and demanding compensation.

Imagine yourself as part of nature (which you actually are), with forces acting on you beyond your control, and you will know what it feels like to be without an ego mind. It is the only time, as a human, that you will feel free.

What is enlightenment? Is it just a myth or can it be achieved by meditating deeply?

6/27/2023

Enlightenment is not living in a fireworks display of ecstasy and spectacular mystical experiences. It is freedom from the constant onrush of fearful thoughts and feelings that disturb our peace and make our lives miserable. It is being in tune with the underlying energy and harmony of the Universe and it is directly experienced through the soul, heart, and gut—-not the mind.

Our need to survive has caused us to evolve into anxious, fearful creatures. The happy, unwary human contemplating the sunset was quickly consumed by the sabertooth tiger. The paranoid, wary human, who was startled by the rustling in the bushes and was constantly on the lookout for possible predators, lived another day. And so, through time, our minds enabled us to rise to the top of the food chain. Our nervousness and planning for all possible dangerous outcomes allowed us to dominate the planet but also not be happy while doing it.

Our minds, though brilliant problem-solvers and repositories of knowledge, create an enormous amount of distress and resultant physical ailments. Part of the problem is that the mind either abides in the past, thinking over hurts, bad experiences, and times of emotional turmoil. Or it rushes into the future, generating cascades of fear about what might or might not happen. Only the Soul, the inner connection to the perfect harmony of universal Source Energy is the gateway to the underlying peace of the eternal Now.

Enlightenment is finding our path to our Soul and abiding in it regardless of the changing circumstances of our lives. It is the direct experience of the eternal Now.

Many people think that enlightenment is some sort of mystical trance that allows us to be numb to all the difficulties of life. And that for the enlightened person, everything cooperates to create perfect physical comfort. They think that only a few people with spotless karma can reach it. Or that they need to take some mind-altering drug to get there. Or that they need to meditate for many hours a day in excruciating positions to achieve it. All this comes from a mistaken idea that enlightenment is “out there” and we have to go through the paces to “get there.”

It’s not “out there.” It is within—but few people can sit quietly enough to find it. As Pascal said, "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." We need a constant onrush of companionship, input from social media, the news, whatever. Anything but be alone with ourselves. We can’t abide it. We can’t endure it. Yet being alone within ourselves is the gateway to inner peace, or enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not the result of a recipe for the “perfect life” with all the physical comforts taken care of for the duration. It is a context in which we experience our lives—no matter what comes our way. And it is our capacity to live in and appreciate the present moment—instead of thinking it is somewhere else—just not here and now.

It is simple but not easy.

Not easy, because the mind is automatic, repetitive, and thinks it’s helping us with its constant stream of “what ifs” from the moment we wake up. It justifies itself, wants to prove it's right all the time, and is looking out for “what’s wrong with this picture?”. It can be brilliant, but it does not know the way to happiness because it can’t live in the Now. Only the Soul abides in that eternal Now state. So enlightenment is finding our path to the Soul and then staying there. That is my definition of meditation, however we get there—mantras, music, being in nature, mandalas—it is the solitary contemplation of the Infinite.

It doesn’t come through any major activities or accumulation of knowledge. It comes first through a recognition of the human time-bound mental obsessions. Then it comes from finding that pathway to your inner heart, where all is still, at peace, and wise. The way I do this is to sit quietly, pay attention to my breath, open my palms upward on my lap, and say, “I am open and receptive to all vibrational levels of eternal joy and harmony.” I watch my thoughts as they cavort around but I realize that I am not my thoughts. They are just being generated by the automatic mind. They are not me.

Enlightenment does not mean that life is solved once and for all. Or that the mind won’t continue with its acrobatics. These activities are hard-wired into our minds and bodies. It also doesn’t mean that we have turned into perfect saints. We will still feel anger and all the unpleasant emotions—but we notice that these upsets will diminish as we practice abiding in inner peace.

Earthquakes, fires, and illness will still happen. The death of loved ones, cruelty, and war will still happen on this planet. This is the endless activity of physical existence and no amount of enlightenment will stop a tsunami. But if we are caught up in the inevitable, we can view it from the standpoint of the Eternal Soul and therefore not live and die in agony and terror. We understand instead, the eternal aspect of us, which is not separate from the unchanging and immortal Energy of the Universe, which has no beginning or ending.

Finally, enlightenment is being in touch with eternity. We don’t fear physical death. We don’t fear the end of this collection of memories and conditioning that we call our personality. It is a state of emotional freedom and it has nothing to do with being a devotee of a particular set of religious beliefs. It is the way out of suffering that all the great beings with spiritual insight have discovered. They have pointed the way but we must find our own path.

Who is Eckhart Tolle? Why should we read him? What is his background?

5/30/2023

Let’s begin by saying that nobody “should” read anything. Either what someone has written resonates within our consciousness and inner being, or it does not. No one is saying we should read or listen to anyone. However, if what someone is imparting to us leads to a new understanding of life and who we are, then we will want to hear what they are communicating. Either we see that the relief Tolle is bringing is of value to us, or it isn’t.

Eckhart Tolle is a well-educated man who is fluent in several languages and studied Psychology, Philosophy, and Literature at the University of London. He also was in a postgraduate program at Cambridge towards his PhD, from which he dropped out.

But his education, and even his intelligence and ability to write and speak effectively, have nothing to do with the insight he brings to the human condition. Knowledge and education were of no comfort to him during the fretful nights and anxious days that plagued him for many years. Education, learning, degrees, and credentials have nothing whatsoever to do with grasping what he came here to teach.

His teachings focus on the power and beauty of being in the present moment. This awakened state of consciousness goes beyond the unfortunate tricks of the ego and its non-stop tangle of thoughts. If we are going to survive as a species and not wreck most of the planet in the process, this awakening is the essential next step in human evolution.

All the ancient spiritual communicators have brought this same message. Tolle just relates it to our times. He chronicles how the human ego, unique only to humans, causes untold suffering and destruction—as witnessed by history. With 110 million estimated people who have been put to death under communism alone, the rest of the death toll resulting from humans inflicting violence on each other is monstrous. So he is putting this ancient philosophy in the context of historical as well as modern developments that affect the peace and well-being of each one of us.

So, nobody “should” read his reflections on how the ego-mind works just because he is the latest authority on how we should live our lives and win the game of life. But if we passionately want to find a way out of the knots the ego-mind, which cannot abide in the present moment, then he is there to guide the way.

I don’t understand Eckhart Tolle’s work. Am I supposed to be numb to everything like a zombie instead of feeling human emotions?

5/13/2023

It does seem confusing because Eckhart Tolle points the way to emotional freedom yet it would seem that the path is just dulling out all the emotions that terrify us or cause us to be depressed. It seems logical that if we have no feelings at all, we won’t be subject to the upsets and disappointments that inevitably happen to every human alive.

But we can’t just cancel out all the bad-feeling emotions and keep all the good ones. It just doesn’t work that way. Like the front and back of a piece of paper, you can’t have one without the other. If we didn’t recognize the horrible feelings we would not be able to recognize the happy feelings either.

These feelings come from our minds. First come the thoughts, then come the feelings. We see something we judge we don’t like. We think first. We judge first. Then come the feelings. We see someone hurting a puppy. First comes the thought, “This is wrong.” Then come the feelings of anger, upset, and outrage. Maybe to a sadist, it wouldn’t be wrong. Seeing it would make them happy.

The problem comes when our thoughts are constantly in a state of judging and commenting on life with a negative bias. In our need to survive, everything can become a threat. The fearful and negative bias that kept us alive and dominant as a species is also what poisons our lives and causes us to be anxious or sad animals—unlike any other animals on the planet.

So it’s really the mind’s fearful antics that Eckart Tolle addresses. The emotions are a bi-product of our churning thoughts. To escape from the uncomfortable emotions, people will try all kinds of things. Eckart Tolle points to how the mind works so you won’t be hurled around by it or be kept on an endless pursuit of fun and temporary relief through substances and distractions.

He doesn’t mean to dull out our emotions so we won’t feel anything. It’s more like he’s telling us to dull out the aspects of our minds that cause unnecessary pain and suffering for ourselves and others. He’s not suggesting that we be like zombies, mechanically going through our days accomplishing tasks and surviving. He is letting us know that we need to use techniques to get control of the ever-racing mind and its chatter so that we can clear the way for the peaceful emotions.

The way to do this is by living in the present moment. In this moment we can feel whatever comes up and not hide from it. We can feel our emotions deeply but they don’t pull us around. Feelings come and go. They are not who we really are. We can feel one way about someone one day and then next we feel completely differently. So just like our minds, which come and go, our feelings also appear and disappear on the horizon of our waking consciousness. They guide us through life and let us know our happiest and most fulfilling path, but they are not who or what we are.