I'm now able to switch my experience from me having a life, past, and future to one of just being here and now. It is mind-blowing. Peter keeps talking about the importance our life story has for us, but I didn't get it for a long time. Until the spring retreat, where I got how much my experience is shaped by "knowing" who I am (in the ordinary, self-image and life story way), where I am, and why I am there. And that my experience of the very same event becomes radically different when I drop all of them and "don't know" any of that. It sometimes helps me to create contrasts, so I imagined Brandon was an orthodox pastor lecturing us about the inherent sinfulness of humanity and the evils of sex, instead of being the down-to-earth, skilfull facilitator at a Ralston workshop. It is the same physical body being in the same room, only my (past & future based) thoughts about it are different, and the experience is very different. It is then also easier to drop both of them and just be now. When I switch back from me being here and having a particular physical experience to me having a life story, past, and future, it feels like a huge weight descends on my shoulders. All the stuff I have to do, problems to manage, responsibilities to fulfill, and all that crap. Yet I can simply switch out of it again and none of that exists. As the Scottish guy said, it is just a thought! Of course, it isn't practical for me to live this way, but playing with the fundamental difference of experience between the one and the other is insightful in itself. I know there is more to get here, so I'll keep exploring.

Peter talks about aligning with principles - such as honesty, mastery, etc. - instead of living from one's own "small self" (my framing), driven by fears and desires. It feels to me that love is also a principle. What I mean by love is doing something purely for the benefit of others, without any expectation of a reward. I am not really sure I can frame it as a principle, I suspect my understanding is still too vague. But there is something. I'll keep you posted :)

Context: I'm at a dance intensive in Paris right now. It's fun. Nothing Cheng Hsin or consciousness work related. Just a freestyle dance workshop with a world-class teacher. Here's what I've been doing and it's producing great results. Every time the teacher explains some concept or framework that they have going on in the world of hip-hop, I simply try and unpack it and figure out what is the experience that they are trying to communicate is and get it for myself. For example today they were talking about "dancing IN the music and dancing ON the music". Which, as you can imagine kind of melted my used-to-Ralston ears. What the heck do they actually mean?! Well... Instead of just sitting there and silently demanding that a Ralston-like teacher shows up and communicates it in a language that I understand better - I asked myself "okay, figure out their experience of what they are talking about". Then I just sat and watched the demonstration as openly as I could manage. The teacher danced and was demonstrating "IN the music" first. What is he relating to now? What is his experience like? Where is his attention? How does his body feel? How does he perceive himself in relationship to the music? I got something. Then he showed "dancing ON the music". Similar process. Then noticed I was making up answers. Dropped those and kept listening, observing and questioning. And then I actually got it. Fast contemplation. When he's talking about "IN the music", he meant that his primary relationship is to the music itself. He is expressing the music. When he was dancing ON the music, he was just taking a hint from the music on what the experience that the artist who was creating the music was actually pointing to. And his primary relationship there was with the 'experience' sitting "ON TOP" of the music. The one that the music is an expression of. So he wasn't expressing the music, but was expressing what the music itself is expressing. (Excuse my less-than ideal framing of the insight, I'm sure there are better ways to articulate it)

Hello everyone! I've just noticed that Ending Unnecessary Suffering only had 3 reviews at Goodreads, which makes it harder for people to find and pick. Since it was transformational for me, I put in the effort and wrote a review myself, to motivate potential readers. With this I want to challenge you to star and possibly write a review for the books you benefit from, so that others can also benefit! :-)

I constantly find application for the lessons of Ending Unnecessary Suffering and those of the Increasing Consciousness Group, especially with respect to getting things done. Case in point: I've recently organized an introduction to consciousness workshop, which could be seen as an abject failure. Only a single person showed up. (Though we had a really good time together.) I could have worried before the workshop whether anyone would come. But I knew it to be pointless (at the point where nothing could be done about it anymore.) And I could have felt bad about it afterwards - but what for? It would be just like rubbing salt into the wound. My mind is helpfully suggesting rather unhelpful courses of action, such as not organising a workshop ever again. What would that achieve?! (Aside of protecting my fragile ego, obviously.) I need to be clear on what I want, and why. The intelligent course of action is to learn from the failure and change my approach so that I will be more successful next time. It is kind of fun to watch what the mind (or rather the "small self") is trying to do, and figuring out what I should actually do instead. The two key lessons I am applying here is 1) knowing what thoughts only cause unnecessary suffering and not engaging in them; 2) not allowing emotional turmoil and the fears and desires of the self to take control, instead, staying clear on purpose and seeking an intelligent way towards to goal. As Peter wrote: "Breakdowns or negative thoughts and feelings regarding actions toward a committed goal, are not inconsistent with commitment. In fact, they are likely to arise in contrast to the reality of committed action. What is inconsistent with commitment is remaining with these breakdowns — ineffective behavior, despair, resistance, upset, fear, incapacity, etc. — not whether they come up or not. They would not arise without one taking a stand in the first place. Commitment is what moves us through them, rather than have them stop us."