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 are the differences between Taoist and Buddhist philosophies? Can a lay person practice both without any contradictions?

12/14/2024

Taoist and Buddhist philosophies are the same in one major aspect: Neither of them mentions a patriarchal God that punishes people according to how obedient they are to God’s commands. There are other similarities as well, such as non-violent, peaceful living.

Buddhism concerns itself more with human suffering than does Taoism. Buddha discovered that all all life is suffering. And this suffering is the result of wanting thing to be the way they didn’t turn out to be according to our desires. He tells us how to alleviate our suffering and that of others by following the Noble 8-Fold Path.

Taoism is more about the cosmic forces underlying everything that exists. It is the Eternal Way. It could be called God if you wanted to but it is not the old man in the sky doling out punishment and gifts because we performed certain rituals. It is an energy field in which all else has its being. Tapping into this field allows us to live a life of inner peace, no matter what is going on around us.

Both of these systems are excellent for the lay person who wants answers to who we really are, apart from the disappearing body. They require practices of a different kind than the explicitly religious ceremonies. The practices are about mindfulness and appreciation of what is, rather than wanting things to be different. The last thing Buddha said to his disciples when he crossed over was, “Be a light unto yourselves.”

Neither Taoism or Buddhism require the lay person to do penances to God. Instead they both encourage observation of how beautifully nature flows and how destructive the untrained human mind can be to happiness and well-being. But you have to discover it for yourself.

How does the concept of "no-self" in Buddhist philosophy reconcile with the Western psychological emphasis on developing a strong sense of self?

10/7/2024

In Western psychology we are busy building up a special person that we represent to ourselves and to the world. This person has needs, wants, and desires—especially to survive. It is restless or dissatisfied with how things are and is always looking for ways to improve, get better, do more, be more, and make a mark in history, or at least in our families or our work. This person, or sense of self, notices what’s wrong and does things to fix them. Only to find that the solution becomes a new problem.

In Buddhism, we are all individual reflections of the Self of the Universe, like many leaves on the same tree. This Self is the source energy from which all visible and invisible things emerge and then return to. It is perfect, whole, and complete and does not need to be fixed. It does not need to survive because it is all there is and all that ever will be. It does not have to prove anything to gain recognition, acknowledgment, or adulation. It is not the voice in the head that is constantly judging.

We can call the human sense of self, the “little me.” The Universal Self is the “big me.” The little me can also be called the “ego.” It needs to be special. Fear is a big motivator with the little me. It lives in an anxiety of churning thoughts and defensive behaviors. “Look at me, aren’t I fabulous because I can do all this stuff?” Or, “I’m a mess trying to hold it all together, I hope no one else notices. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have done that.” It doesn’t bring peace and it leads to suffering. So, developing a strong sense of it is not a solution to unhappiness.

Once, when the Dalai Lama was at a gathering, someone asked him what Buddhists thought of the human ego. He asked what it was because he didn’t even know what it was. And after they described something similar to what I wrote above, he said something along the lines of, “We don’t such a thing.” But at first he didn’t even know what it was.

Once he understood what ego, or the little me is, the Dalai Lama said that the ego is the enemy of compassion and that the purpose of practicing the Buddha's teachings is to eliminate ego. He has also said “The greater the ego, the more vulnerable a person is.” In other words, developing a strong sense of self opens us to more suffering.

He also said:

“A person grows stronger as the ego becomes more transparent".
"Selfishness is short-sighted and narrow-minded. The more you dedicate yourself to others, the happier you'll be."
"There is nothing inherently wrong with pursuing one's own interests but being excessively self-focused can make your instinct for self-interest negative."
"A narrow perspective (on the little me) can lead to frustration and seem unbearable".
“Beings who know they aren't special don't suffer. They don't suffer because there is no ego to defend.”

The Western concept of the separate little self doesn’t work and is one of the root causes of all the interpersonal strife in this world. It is a sign of weakness because it is not aligned with the Source of All that Is. In All that Is, everything is special and nothing is special, especially the little me that thinks it exists apart from the powerful forces of the Universe. It disappears anyway at the end so it looks futile to keep strengthening it.

Therefore, the Western sense of self does not reconcile with the Buddhist understanding of the Eternal Self, or Soul, of the universe. In Buddhism, it’s wonderful to express every talent we have and keep growing in our skills. But ultimately, if it is not for the glory of the One, higher Self, it will be destructive and lead to misery. Not just for the individual, but everyone on the planet, as we can clearly see in the daily news.

Can two people be spiritually connected before meeting in person? Are there any examples of this?

9/29/2024

The Spirit or Soul is eternal. That is why we can be connected with someone who is important in our physical life long before we actually meet them. That connection is a Soul Mate connection and is not bound by time. We have been together in many physical lives as well as when we did not assume the shape of a body. We have been together forever and we take on a separate body temporarily to work out our own Soul’s expression.

Soul Mates are not always peace and love relationships. Sometimes they exist for reasons of our natural growth and expansion (in the expanding universe) and can actually be difficult or painful. But they are necessary for our Soul’s innate joy in learning and growing. We might have concepts in our heads about what Soul Mates are. Maybe we will resist the person who shows up again after we have already met them. When we meet them may not be what our imagination wants to envision.

I have had numerous incidents in this life of people showing up after I have dreamed about them. Other times it is the feeling of deja vu. You know you have known this person before, even though you just met. You feel familiar and they even look familiar. You even said the same things as before to each other. This is one portal into the ways of the Spirit. They are uncanny and it is best for us to not try and figure them out, for they are miraculous.

Dreams are one channel through which my Soul Mates have prefigured themselves before I met them. I had dreamed of a very important person in my life, long before I met him. I saw him in detail in many dreams. Then one day, I was in a crowded tram in Pittsburgh, I saw him walking out of Kauffman’s department store. The next day, he was sitting in my college dormitory. This was an all-girls school, so for him to be there was unusual.

A few weeks later, I randomly attended a gathering at Carnegie Mellon University, and he was there, walked up and introduced himself to me. And we completed the connection, which was life-changing for both of us.

Meeting the Soul in one body and then many years later meeting that Soul again can happen too. This occurred enough for me to take notice of the pattern, with the people even having the same names. An example: My best friends through different times of life were named Andrea.

Dear friends when I was a child showed up later as doppelgangers but with completely different backgrounds. Yet they expressed that same quality of Soul that I recognized from before. They looked like identical versions of themselves but were older.

People that fascinated me for no apparent reason, showed up later in my life to have significant impact on my growth and spiritual understanding. I never understood why, when I was 12 years old I was intrigued by a humble little man who did menial work for my father. When he’d come up the path to “borrow” money from my dad I stared and stared. Why would a child of that age be so absorbed with this insignificant-looking man that had nothing to do with her? Because later in life, Spirit arranged that we would meet again. He became on of my most cherished teachers and looked like his twin!

The quantity of these experiences brought further awe and wonder at the ways of the Spirit. They confirmed my understanding of unseen forces that do not conform to our ideas of how the world works. Many people would say what I have related is delusional or some kind of whacky chemical or neuronal/electrical reaction going on in my brain. But no. This happened too many times for it to be just a self-generated fluke. This is has been my recurrent experience and I am deeply grateful to be open to it.

What is the difference between Buddhists who believe that there is no end to enlightenment and those who say that everyone eventually becomes enlightened?

11/5/2023

The way the human mind interprets “enlightenment” is that it is an end point. Like the end of a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Once we are enlightened, then all life is solved. We won't have any problems, there will be eternal peace of mind (an oxymoron), and we will never experience suffering again.

But enlightenment is not an end point. It is a context in which we view all of life and death. It is a space from which we perceive all the manifestations of life. It is not a state of perpetual bliss and ecstasy of escape. It is ability to be in the present moment no matter what is happening or what we are doing. That is what enlightenment was to Buddha and that is what he revealed.

He also taught how to live so the present moment reveals itself to us in profound ways that enriches our inner being, our Souls. He understood that our Soul is always and eternally Here and Now. The future, or enlightenment in the future, is not going to bring us anything. It is all about the Now because the Soul is ageless and doesn’t have anything to do with time, or any of the other human ways of measuring experience.

Let’s look at the word “believe.” “Believe” means we are willing to follow because we are not sure but it makes sense to us. “I believe it to be true,” is different from “I know it to be true.” We believed in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy when we were kids. Then, when we grow up, we know that Santa was a wonderful invention to make kids happy at Christmas. We don’t “believe” in him anymore.

Buddhism is not about following beliefs. It is about a proven method of alleviating suffering, both mental and physical.
Believing that everyone will eventually become enlightened is just one more statement saying, “I’m not sure but this guy sounds good so I’ll go with what he says.” That time is necessary to be enlightened.

The Soul is already enlightened, for it is not time-bound. It is eternal and doesn’t have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That is what defines the Soul, as opposed to all the other things that come and go, including our bodies. Finding our way back to our Soul and deep inner peace has nothing to do with hoping (believing) that someone is right because it makes us feel better about where humanity is going.

There is no end to enlightenment, as there is no end to Source Energy of the Universe. It is always Now. It’s not like we have to work our way into heaven. Our Souls are already there. So to “believe” that everyone will go to a heaven of enlightenment is a nice fairy tale to adhere to, but enlightenment has nothing to do with believing what other people say or any religious system that will supposedly get us there.

What are some reasons why the book "The Awakening of Intelligence" by J. Krishnamurti is highly regarded?

4/27/2023

I am glad to hear that J. Krishnamurti’s The Awakening of Intelligence is highly regarded. For I was under the impression that people have moved on to more spectacular gurus, that offer more entertainment.

Krishamurti was serious about understanding what is really holy about life and all its permutations. He wasn’t about ceremonies, dancing and writhing around in ecstasy, and putting on a dramatic display of how “enlightened” we are. He was more like what Jesus said when someone asked him how to pray. He wasn’t for the big public grandstanding of the ego, showing how religious one is and how one is going to “heaven.” He said,

“When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”
—Matthew 6:5-6

Krishnamurti is about the inward journey towards finding out what is really true for us. Not what others tell us, not what we believe because we were brought up that way, and not because it is a trendy lifestyle to be caught up in Bikram yoga and Osho’s sexual pyrotechnics because we are lost and lonely.

I am not surprised that Krishanmurti has stood the test of time. I am just surprised that in this period of mass amusement, passing as spirituality, that he would be embraced at all. He is not kidding and he is not nice. He outright tells us to look within and find the wisdom that resides in silence and stillness. It’s not effortful. It’s a quiet space that discards all the trapping of what everyone else tells us is “the Truth.”

Why did Buddha say, "All things are impermanent" or "Everything is changing" in his first teaching?

3/10/2023

Buddha discovered a system for alleviating human suffering. He also discovered that one of the major causes of human suffering is that things change. Because we cling to things in the desperate hope that they won’t change and try to control them so they will remain permanent, we are frustrated and frightened. We recognize that, underneath it all, clinging and control don’t work when everything is in a state of flux.

Buddha saw that we cling passionately to our loved ones. And if they die, we can be in mourning for the rest of our lives. Their physical presence is gone. It is not coming back. And we loved them so much, the world looks dimmer and more hostile because of their absence. Who will love us now? Furthermore, this is going to happen to us too. Every cell in our body has changed or been replaced over and over again as we grow, age, begin to weaken, and finally disappear.

This realization causes enormous pain and fear in people and they obsessively fight all the changes: Plastic surgery, large accumulations of wealth beyond what anyone could ever spend, fanatical dietary practices, rigorously dangerous exercise routines, and hoarding all kinds of material goods to hedge against an uncertain future.

The past is not bringing any consolation to our minds in this swirl of change, either. We remember our beloved persons or pets who are gone and the sadness begins again. The recollection of the past, with all of our family sitting together during the holidays or our pets curled up in our laps, underlines the vacuum they have left as the world continues on its inexorable path of transmutation.

An so Buddha told us not to be in denial about this. If we don’t face it, we will be in a constant scramble of trying to keep things the same. And we will always be uncomfortable. We will go through life kicking and screaming over things that are not in our control. We will try to cling, but it will all slip out of our hands. Therefore, we must let it go, let it be the change that is a constant, and follow the Buddha’s suggestions in his Four Noble Truths and The Noble Eightfold path. He gave us a to get out of our misery. If we really adhere to what he presents, we will find a way out of this endless suffering due to clinging to what is constantly changing.

What is your opinion of Baghwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho)? Do you think he was a real spiritual leader or simply a psychological trickster? What is your personal experience with him/it?

3/2/2023

I was in India when Rajneesh, or Osho, was ordered to leave. The government had opened investigations into multiple allegations of criminal behavior in connection to Osho. These included charges related to Osho-sanctioned prostitution, international drug trafficking, gold smuggling, money laundering, and tax evasion. It affected me because I had loved his earlier writings and felt he was pandering to the undisciplined party atmosphere Americans and some Europeans desired.

Ordered by the government, Osho had to pay back taxes, a major blow to his reputation that greatly angered the Rajneeshees. In 1981, the year he left for Oregon from India, more criminality took place. Referred to as one of the most terrible cases of a bio-terrorism attack in America, Osho’s followers reportedly poisoned half Wasco’s county’s voters (in an attempt to take over the county) by pouring or spraying Salmonella-tainted liquid on salad bars of ten popular restaurants. A total of 751 people were affected by the poisoning and hospital beds were full of patients in critical condition.

Obviously, there is nothing spiritual about killing people, or trying to kill people for the sake of power. Also, Osho’s goal of having 365 Rolls Royces for every day of the year did not denote a life of simplicity in the guru lineage. Furthermore, Osho’s ruthless deputy Sheela attempted to have his physician, Dr. Andrews, killed, ordering an accomplice to poison him with a shot of adrenaline to the buttocks. By this time, Osho was a regular Nitrous Oxide user (administered by Dr. Andrews) and it wouldn’t have looked good if word got out about this addiction.

Finally, for spiritual enlightenment or awakening, we don’t need to go into extended periods of ecstatic dance and indiscriminate sex to get there. This appealed to Americans, who wanted to party hearty and still have the trappings of spirtuality. Osho’s theory is that we must overcome our inhibitions to get into the deeper layers of our consciousness. But sitting quietly and centering on the Higher Self through conscious breathing is a much more effective method and truer to the yogic path. All that sweaty dancing around and orgiastic behavior may be fun, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with understanding the non-dual aspects of the Universe.

Hatred, killing, poisoning, and sexual exploitation are the paths to chaos, not to any kind of spiritual realization. At one time Osho spoke beautifully of love and I admired his way of expressing eternal truths.

“Love is a spiritual experience – nothing to do with sexes and nothing to do with bodies, but something to do with the innermost being.”

“I teach you to be more conscious. And love will come as you become more conscious: it is a guest that comes, that comes inevitably to those who are ready and prepared to receive it.”

But somewhere along the line, he got twisted, as so many “gurus” have. It then became all about ego, greed, power, sexual exploitation, addiction, and destruction. Osho’s ego-mind overcame and counterbalanced all the good he brought to the spirit-based life he had passionately proposed in his early practice.