I see that these recent solar flares and their earthbound solar plasma made headlines on CNN, although scientists are only concerned with the exoteric or outer ramifications of the influx. What about their effect on our psyche and inner life? That is too esoteric for science, and for that matter astrologers as well. Until recently, intense solar activity has been, astrologically speaking, totally esoteric. Astrologers have mostly ignored it. 

If you resonate to this solar flare information I have been posting, if it makes sense to you and you feel like internalizing it a bit, there is one major step you can take, if you can realize it. Understanding it is not hard, experiencing it consciously is a little harder, and realizing it can be difficult. It is worth the effort, so I will describe it to you.

To begin, I would like to share a few experiences and thoughts concerning the structure in space beyond our solar system and how it might be of value personally (or astrologically if you are an astrologer) for learning more about who we are and what on Earth we might be here for.

As a writer I believe that the hardest thing for me to author would be a dictionary. Can you imagine coming up with words to describe that many words? Yet in a way, we each do this internally and here is the problem with that. We use many words that we never even look up, but have just understood by osmosis from the context in which we hear them used around us. And the dangerous part of this is that with some words we end up not with the gist of the word, but perhaps the gist of the gist of the word, or worse just something we imagined it means. We really never sat down and thought it out. For me, the word "Compassion" is one of these. 

"That He Not Busy Being Born is Busy Dying"

A quote from Bob Dylan's song "It's Alright, Ma (I'm only Bleeding)." I can't speak to what Dylan meant by this line, but it sticks in the mind and illustrates a phenomenon pointed out to me very early-on by my first dharma teacher, that life is more of a parabola rather than just linear as most assume. In other words, life begins, reaches a high point (which extends for a time) and then goes into a gradually decline.

This is just a pet peeve that I have, so bear with me. I have raised my hand many times to question why Buddhism is classified as a religion when it does not really fit into the standard definition of the term. Using the Oxford English Dictionary, acknowledged as one of the best, the first definition for religion is:

Tibetan Buddhism -- In this six-part series, I have the rare opportunity to interview author, astrologer, entrepreneur, musician, and spiritual teacher Michael Erlewine and ask him questions about his life and various interests. Troy Wehner (videographer and documentary filmmaker)

Astrology -- In this six-part series, I have the rare opportunity to interview author, astrologer, entrepreneur, musician, and spiritual teacher Michael Erlewine and ask him questions about his life and various interests. Troy Wehner (videographer and documentary filmmaker)

The Dharma --In this six-part series, I have the rare opportunity to interview author, astrologer, entrepreneur, musician, and spiritual teacher Michael Erlewine and ask him questions about his life and various interests. Troy Wehner (videographer and documentary filmmaker)

Meditation Suggestions -- In this six-part series, I have the rare opportunity to interview author, astrologer, entrepreneur, musician, and spiritual teacher Michael Erlewine and ask him questions about his life and various interests. Troy Wehner (videographer and documentary filmmaker)

Meditation - In this six-part series, I have the rare opportunity to interview author, astrologer, entrepreneur, musician, and spiritual teacher Michael Erlewine and ask him questions about his life and various interests. Troy Wehner (videographer and documentary filmmaker)

In this six-part series, I have the rare opportunity to interview author, astrologer, entrepreneur, musician, and spiritual teacher Michael Erlewine and ask him questions about his life and various interests. Troy Wehner (videographer and documentary filmmaker)

I love to tell this story because it contains such an incredible truth, one that few seem to realize. I tend to be a completest. When I started reading Dostoevsky in high school, I didn't stop until I had read all 52 or so novels and what-not. Then I went on to learn Russian on top of that. And I will barely mention here founding the All-Music Guide, and compiling the largest database of music on the planet, literally all recorded music from 10-inch records onward. And there was the All-Movie Guide, one of the two largest film databases, and on it goes. There was the concert music poster database (donated to the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan), again the largest, and there was the largest astrological library that I donated to the University of Illinois last year as part of their permanent collection, and so on. So when I dig, I tend to dig deep.

TWO POINTS, ONE WARNING

Before some of you run out and drop acid to enable your meditation practice, think again. I suggest that you look two ideas right in the eye, as scary as that might be for some of us. And this first idea comes with a warning, so please take it in:

The primary thing that psychedelics did for me, that had never happened before, is that they gave me some actual "realization" that was not just another experience, but something that came and that never went away, even though it was only a taste or glimpse.

In that time of insight I understood, experienced, and finally realized the basic fact why our dualistic form of perception makes the Self so invulnerable to penetration, i.e. that what we see out there in the world and take verbatim as "real" is in fact very much a product of the likes, dislikes, bias, and prejudice that we hold "in here," in our own views and as a result of our own karma. In other words, the subject "me" in here and the "them and you" outside of me (and over there) are not a true dichotomy, not really separate at all, but are integrally related, one to another – a working unity. In other words, dualisms are an inconvenient fiction.

I will try to make this my last post on the psychedelics, at least for a while, and you would think these drugs would be polar opposites to the mind training that I work with now. However, believe it or not, mind-altering drugs like LSD have some natural affinity with Tibetan Mind training practices in that they both can reveal the actual nature of the mind (to some degree), something that other kinds of drugs (like marijuana) don't do or do very poorly. Marijuana is mind-altering, yes, but not really psychedelic, at least as I define the term.

LSD is obviously not merely an entertainment drug or, if it is, as our friend Bill Maher might say, it takes place in "Real Time." LSD entertains us completely, including swallowing the Self whole and without a hiccup. The Self is often the chief target (and victim) of psychedelic insights.

Anyway, when it comes to drugs LSD is a whole different story and here I ‘am’ very vulnerable. Let me preface my remarks by pointing out that LSD in my opinion was a generational thing, something that had its place in time and, although I am sure they still make it, I doubt that the experience could be quite the same today as it was in the early 1960s. And before I jump into LSD, let me say a few words about prescription drugs.

I don’t consider myself much of an expert on drug addiction, because I never did drugs all "that" much, prescription or otherwise. I also know that when I talk on subjects like this that some readers are uncomfortable. I apologize for this, but as it happened, drugs played a very important part in the direction and mind make-up of the 1960s, of which I am a child of. I am not about to white-wash that history. 

The Latin phrase "Ignorantia juris non excusat," is also true when it comes to karma. Ignorance of the law of karma does not exempt us from its results. That is why "awareness" is the primary key to Buddhist mind training methods. And that awareness extends to how aware we are of our thoughts.

When it comes to thoughts and thinking, what we are aware of can be almost nothing or almost everything that comes to mind, and that's a lot. For one, we have all these thoughts. Some days I find myself standing at the prow of the mind and batting down thoughts like unwanted mosquitoes that obviously have no future, thoughts that are just not worth thinking about further or, for that matter, ever. 

I am not always positive. I do my best, but every once in a while I wander into negativity and I seldom even see it coming. It seems to just happen and it is a bummer every time.

My teacher, Khenpo Rinpoche, gives the analogy of the pig who wants to get into the garden. The time to stop the pig is when he first sticks his nose through the picket fence. That is when a whack on the nose may keep him out. Once he gets in, it is very difficult to remove him and we tend to just chase him round and round while he tramples on everything. My negativity is like that pig. Once it gets in, it makes a terrible mess.

Most of the time I am pretty upbeat and positive but, as mentioned, every now and again I trip up and find myself on a downward spiral – spiraling down. And the nasty part of it is that I usually don't even know I am being negative until I eventually wake up to that fact, always too late for my taste. 

I am frequently asked where is the best place to start in learning the Tibetan style of mind training. More often than not my answer is to start with a technique called "Tong-Len," and a particular subset of Tong-len that I call "Reaction Tong-Len" or simply Reaction Toning. This practice is not limited to sitting on-the-cushion, but can be done anytime and anywhere, by anyone.

Their Inner and Outer Effects

32 Pages pages

By Michael Erlewine

Published on Sep 10, 2012

An 32-page article on solar flares, CME events, and related solar phenomena as regards how they affect us psychologically, spiritually, and physically.

With Local Space, here is no 'subtle plane,' but a personal landscape painted in bold and clear strokes and tailor made to fit the psyche of each individual. Here is a world where the modern man is learning to move across the face of this earth in an endless dance of adjustment and tuning of his radix -- of his self. Individuals driven in particular directions on a checkerboard world, unable to resist travelling toward a goal that is no particular place on earth so much as it is a direction imprinted within them, the direction of a force or planet, 'There! Where Power hovers,' to use Don Juan's expression.

With Local Space, here is no 'subtle plane,' but a personal landscape painted in bold and clear strokes and tailor made to fit the psyche of each individual. Here is a world where the modern man is learning to move across the face of this earth in an endless dance of adjustment and tuning of his radix -- of his self. Individuals driven in particular directions on a checkerboard world, unable to resist travelling toward a goal that is no particular place on earth so much as it is a direction imprinted within them, the direction of a force or planet, 'There! Where Power hovers,' to use Don Juan's expression.

This is an in-depth discussion of the concepts involved with looking at the various coordinate systems in astrology, ranging from the Earth-Moon-Sun, to the solar system, and onward to the Local System of Stars, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Local Group of Galaxies, on to the Supergalaxy. Sound technical, but the accent is on the potential for conscious awareness of these distant systems. Hosted by Michael Erlewine.

With Local Space, here is no 'subtle plane,' but a personal landscape painted in bold and clear strokes and tailor made to fit the psyche of each individual. Here is a world where the modern man is learning to move across the face of this earth in an endless dance of adjustment and tuning of his radix -- of his self. Individuals driven in particular directions on a checkerboard world, unable to resist travelling toward a goal that is no particular place on earth so much as it is a direction imprinted within them, the direction of a force or planet, 'There! Where Power hovers,' to use Don Juan's expression.

The Astrology of Space takes a look at modern astrophysics and deep-space astronomy in relation to how the new objects like black holes, quasars, pulsars can be understood and interpreted in the natal chat. Until recent history we have only studied the pinpoint lights of the fixed stars in the visual spectrum, said to be less than an octave if compared to the audio spectrum. Suddenly both ends of the visual spectrum have opened up, both the low frequency radio and infrared waves and the high frequency ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray waves, allowing us to see the actual shape of the universe itself. Michael Erlewine pioneered this fascinating world for astrologers with his publication of the book Astrophysical Directions in 1976, and continues to do so today.

The Astrology of Space takes a look at modern astrophysics and deep-space astronomy in relation to how the new objects like black holes, quasars, pulsars can be understood and interpreted in the natal chat. Until recent history we have only studied the pinpoint lights of the fixed stars in the visual spectrum, said to be less than an octave if compared to the audio spectrum. Suddenly both ends of the visual spectrum have opened up, both the low frequency radio and infrared waves and the high frequency ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray waves, allowing us to see the actual shape of the universe itself. Michael Erlewine pioneered this fascinating world for astrologers with his publication of the book Astrophysical Directions in 1976, and continues to do so today.

The Astrology of Space takes a look at modern astrophysics and deep-space astronomy in relation to how the new objects like black holes, quasars, pulsars can be understood and interpreted in the natal chat. Until recent history we have only studied the pinpoint lights of the fixed stars in the visual spectrum, said to be less than an octave if compared to the audio spectrum. Suddenly both ends of the visual spectrum have opened up, both the low frequency radio and infrared waves and the high frequency ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray waves, allowing us to see the actual shape of the universe itself. Michael Erlewine pioneered this fascinating world for astrologers with his publication of the book Astrophysical Directions in 1976, and continues to do so today.

A remarkable technique developed by astrologer Michael Erlewine using traditional planetary aspects to interpret a natal chart. This technique can be used for charts with or without a birth time with equal ease. Full-Phase aspects have been suggested by many great astrologers, including Dane Rudhyar. Here is an easy to follow, illustrated, tutorial on how to understand and use Full-Phase aspects in chart interpretation.

A remarkable technique developed by astrologer Michael Erlewine using traditional planetary aspects to interpret a natal chart. This technique can be used for charts with or without a birth time with equal ease. Full-Phase aspects have been suggested by many great astrologers, including Dane Rudhyar. Here is an easy to follow, illustrated, tutorial on how to understand and use Full-Phase aspects in chart interpretation.

This is a new way to look at astrological aspects as developed by astrology pioneer Michael Erlewine. It is a unique and easy way to determine a great deal about the make-up of an individual. Erlewine was the first astrologer to program astrology on microcomputers and make those programs available to astrologers all over the world.

A remarkable technique developed by astrologer Michael Erlewine using traditional planetary aspects to interpret a natal chart. This technique can be used for charts with or without a birth time with equal ease. Full-Phase aspects have been suggested by many great astrologers, including Dane Rudhyar. Here is an easy to follow, illustrated, tutorial on how to understand and use Full-Phase aspects in chart interpretation.

A remarkable technique developed by astrologer Michael Erlewine using traditional planetary aspects to interpret a natal chart. This technique can be used for charts with or without a birth time with equal ease. Full-Phase aspects have been suggested by many great astrologers, including Dane Rudhyar. Here is an easy to follow, illustrated, tutorial on how to understand and use Full-Phase aspects in chart interpretation.

Here in a single book, expert astrologer Michael Erlewine lays out the phenomenon of retrograde motion in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. More than just abstract theory, this is a hands-on way to interpret retrograde planets in your natal chart.

A podcast of the landmark Ann Arbor Blues Festivals in 1969 and 1970 by Michael Erlewine, author of the book by the same name. Erlewine interviewed by audio and video most of artists who played at those festivals.

The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins introduced the

concept of "inscape" to the English language, a word

he coined to indicate our access to the beautiful and

profound, the way into allowing the mind to rest

naturally. Scholars tell me Hopkins keyed on this

concept from the work of Duns Scotus, another of my

favorite poets. I can't say I agree with most scholars

as to their interpretation of what Hopkins meant by

"inscape." I have my own understanding and will use

that.

Inscape to me is a natural sign (a signal in our busy

life of distractions) that gets our attention and carries

us within to rest in the nature of the mind, however

briefly. That rest is crucial.

The history of thoughts is an old story, one we all

have been following for a long time. Thoughts go on

forever and are more than just their content and

meaning. They share a common nature, and that

nature can be seen and looked at in itself. Our

thoughts often end up in sentences and words. What

makes sentences work is that words have gaps

between them, an ocean of emptiness in which words

float.

The arrangement of letters in single words is fixed,

but the arrangement of words in a sentence is not.

The placement of words, one up against another,

creates meaning. Arranging words carefully alters

meaning and involves the clash and friction of

consonants, and the smooth ease of vowels. This is

why spoken poetry is so powerful. A simple

rearrangement of words on the page changes the

meaning.

How much time we devote to meditation practice is a

conundrum, one that has all kinds of answers

depending on how we approach it or who we ask. It is

not unlike the salesman who asks "How much do you

want to spend?" Of course, just starting out we tend to

have no idea. How can we know what we don't know?

We are just beginners.

No matter how you dice it, practice is practice, and

that goes for dharma practice too. Enthusiasm for

what (in the beginning) amounts to rote practice is

almost an oxymoron. If you aren’t enthusiastic, where

is it to be found?

Well, how do you find joy right now in anything in your

life? What gives you joy? Start there. People typically

use a pebble or a stick for an object to focus on in

basic Shamata meditation, and most often the breath.

In themselves, these are not holy objects. You get

extra points for using an image of the Buddha, but

that is beside the point that there is no "right" object of

meditation. We are welcome to pick an object we love

to work with and concentrate on, especially if it helps,

so make it easy on yourself.

I am sorry to say that it took me many years to get the

following concepts through my thick skull. Not sure

what I was thinking or even if I was thinking, but I kind

of let it go in one ear and out the other. Somehow it

seemed like too great an effort or I felt that it was just

not necessary for me to actually do it as suggested.

Perhaps I don't like following directions. Anyway, that

was a very big mistake on my part. This has to do

with how we begin and end our dharma practice for

each session (any practice), whether sitting on the

cushion or in post-meditation out walking around.

I am sorry to say that it took me many years to get the

following concepts through my thick skull. Not sure

what I was thinking or even if I was thinking, but I kind

of let it go in one ear and out the other. Somehow it

seemed like too great an effort or I felt that it was just

not necessary for me to actually do it as suggested.

Perhaps I don't like following directions. Anyway, that

was a very big mistake on my part. This has to do

with how we begin and end our dharma practice for

each session (any practice), whether sitting on the

cushion or in post-meditation out walking around.

The

point of this series of blogs is to help make the

"intangible" tangible, to become familiar with some of

the more subtle Buddhist concepts. While intellectual

distinctions of this kind may appear on the surface to

be overly conceptual, these particular concepts

translate rather quickly to the sphere of action, where

mistakes on our part have real consequences. As an

example, it can be important to understand the

difference between accumulating good karma and

accumulating merit. They are quite different.

Karma of any kind always has to do with Samsara

(this world of cyclic existence) and never with

enlightenment, while merit pertains to our eventual

liberation from Samsara -- enlightenment. It is said

that the accumulation of karma is certain, like a

shadow following an object, and always leads to a

higher or lower rebirth within cyclic existence. Our

karma, even the best karma, will never liberate us, but

only determines the kind of our next rebirth. Karma is

inextricably bound to this world of cyclic existence. 

For years I have listened to students asking Rinpoche

why are they not progressing faster in their dharma

practice, and the answer almost always is: you need

to accumulate more merit first. Merit, indeed, is

cumulative, but we don't accumulate it like in a merit

storehouse in the sky somewhere.

The word "accumulate" is misleading in that it

suggests stockpiling merit. It would be more accurate

to say that merit is cumulative. Its result adds up, but

its effect is to reduce our obscurations. We could say

that merit helps us to accumulate less obscurations, if

that sentence makes sense. I warned you that the

word "accumulation" was misleading.

Meditation training is still quite new in this country. We

are just getting the word out, so most of the emphasis

is on the actual physical meditation technique itself,

the bare bones, but there is more. Aside from the

basic physical technique, there are what I sometimes

call the "intangibles' – everything else. There is so

much emphasis on learning the basic techniques of

meditation that these intangibles are usually ignored

until later on down the line. The problem with this is

that these so-called "intangibles" are not just

supplementary add-ons -- afterthoughts. Quite the

contrary, they are crucial to the success of actually

learning to meditate properly. That's the rub.

I am seventy-two years of age, but inside this aging body is the consciousness of a 25-year old. For some reason, it seems I stopped aging on the inside on May 12, 1967. I can remember the day and the hour, after which I somehow froze in time at that particular age. I believe we all do this. Let's look at this topic.

Clock time may be static, but real time, the kind you and I live, is dynamic. It not only varies in perceived speed and quality, but it varies individually. We can both look at our watches and share the same clock time, but beyond that, time for me may be condensed and for you expanded, or vice versa. Just as you can’t tell a book by its cover, we can’t know what kind of time folks are having internally, but we can sometimes get a sense of it.

What may not yet constitute facts or “science" to the general population may be considered facts by the relative few whose experience or awareness allows them to be able to resolve them from what can appear as chaos. In other words facts, like everything else, (especially in the soft sciences) are often discovered over time. They emerge.

Another way of saying this is the concept of what constitutes a fact itself changes. What once were not considered facts gradually come to be considered

facts, and vice versa. What once were considered facts may be perceived differently over time and finally seen as not factual at all or as incomplete truths. 

Meditation and the practice of meditation, two different things. I have written here many times how meditation is first about building a habit and only later can it be said that we are “meditating,” much later for most of us. Like the scaffolding on a building, meditation “practice” is just that, practicing meditation, and not meditation itself. The practice or habit-building part of meditation has to eventually be let go of or removed, leaving room for the actual meditation itself. In order to learn to meditate, we must practice the process of meditating.

As I get older, I pay more attention to these unannounced impulses that arise spontaneously in my mind. Suddenly, there they are, a thought or a vision of what is to be.

No, I am not talking about the U.S. constitution or the Monroe Doctrine. And I am not even talking about the doctrine of signatures used by herbalists and doctors all the way back to Galen. I am more referring to how mystics like Jakob Böhme used the term “signatures,” that everything signals or is a sign of its own nature and use. And I also am leaning toward what in the East is called the Great Seal, also called Mahamudra or Dzogchen or Maha-Ati, that the natural world itself is a gesture and perfectly reflects the true nature of the mind.

Every idea since time immemorial, every invention and book idea, not to mention every last thought came from the mind. By itself that should be enough to point out to us that the mind is a treasure trove, if only we know how to mine it. The Buddhists call the mind the “wish-fulfilling gem,” which is totally telling, if we think about it.

And every once in a while, each of us manages to find a good idea or two in the mind. Yet, it seldom occurs to us that the mind is evergreen, and always fertile

If you ask a Tibetan where their mind is, they don’t point to their head, but to their heart, actually to the middle of their chest. Here in the West, we point to our heads.

Of course, the mind can’t be in two places, one for Tibetans and another for westerners, which is a good sign that the mind is not somewhere, but more like anywhere. The mind is not physical and has no one physical home.

The main (and hardest) part of learning meditation is building the habit of mindfulness. That is what it is all about. This typically involves sitting (often on a cushion) in some quiet place and practicing the basic technique of meditating. It does take time. The emphasis is on “practice” and the purpose of practice is to learn (make a habit of) mindfulness. We need mindfulness in order to meditate and we need (at least I do) meditation in order to see clearly and respond skillfully to life.

What I am finding out is that many people have no idea what meditation actually is, although they think they do. There are hundreds of opinions on what meditation is in this country, and most don’t jibe with the authentic types of meditation taught for thousands of years in Asia.

In a word, basic meditation is about mindfulness and it is quite simple. Do you know what it is and understand how it works?

Perhaps we are not supposed to talk about the excellent and wonderful qualities of meditation, because indeed it is a long slog from learning the basic technique and habit of meditation to experiencing the fruits of actual meditation, other than as some quiet time in a day.

For me this took many, many years, but not because it had to, only because I was not doing it right and thought I was. But if you have ever learned to type or play an instrument, it is no different. We have to practice, and practice is not meditating, for the most part.

… in learning meditation, that is. Otherwise, it would take a book or two. Here are just a few of the many things I didn’t get right. This has to be a little bit humorous. Otherwise it is too depressing, but it might be useful if you are just starting out.

In those thirty years of practicing, as regards the results of sitting meditation, apparently the only thing I accumulated was more dharma toys. In the beginning I had no toys. I had no shrine, no statues, no mala (beads), no nothing. I had a little piece of paper with my dharma name and a line drawing of the Buddha on it. That was my shrine and I placed it on a little shelf at eye level while I practiced meditation.

But while I sat there for thirty years, although I didn’t accumulate any real meditation results, I did manage to accumulate an incredible amount of dharma “stuff.”

If we will look closely, we will see that we react (one way or another) to almost everything, constantly. Substitute "react" for the word "suffering," and what the Buddha was pointing out may be easier to understand, the First Noble Truth then reads "The Truth of Reaction or Reacting."

The reason is that the 'self', as Buddhists know it, is nothing more than the sum total of our attachments, positive and negative, at best a kind of general secretary for our life, and not any kind of permanent 'being' or vantage point. The assemblage (montage) of what makes up what we call our "self" changes as our interests change. Like an onion, the self has no permanent core. When we die, the self is gone, but the mind is not. This is an audio-blog about putting the self out to pasture.

A personal history and the story of how I discovered Buddhism and ended up actually practicing it. 

My guess is that in the Buddhist view, addressing the 'self" is just talking at the symptoms, without reaching the core. In other words, true to their philosophy, just as Buddhists don't consider the personal self as having permanent existence, they don't bother to address their criticism to it either. To make a joke, the self to them is a non-entity. Their view is much deeper and I believe better than that, and I have to take a lesson from them and reorganize my own thinking on this topic.

According to the Buddhist view, our personality and "Self" is nothing more than a composite image or montage of attachments, all our personal likes and dislikes. I mean, it's right there in the word "persona" if I would just read the dictionary, often defined as social facade or mask, but masking what? And what is behind the mask?

For me, writing prose about spiritual experience is like carrying water in your hands. In the end you have a waterfall of words and very little sense. Some experience is beyond words, but not necessarily beyond poetry, which sometimes can freeze-frame a moment in clarity. This audio-blog is about words, meaning, and language.

Learning meditation is a little like a cowboy roundup and then the rodeo. You have to tame the mind before you can ride it. And there is a bit of the carrot and the stick involved, only in reverse order, first the stick and then the carrot.

 Learning meditation takes practice and practice (for most of us) is no fun or at least not much fun. So in the beginning it is hard to get folks attention enough for them to actually do the habit-building work of learning to meditate.

The more seriously we take the problem of attachment and the self (the more airtime we give it), the stronger our self-attachment gets in response. There is a definite mirror reflection here, which is kind of humorous, like looking at our self in a mirror.

 So the bottom line is that struggling with our self, by punishing, admonishing, hating, or about any other approach to the self we might take will never work, and this: on principle. We are just feeding the fire.

The Tibetans point out that at both New and Full Moons the subtle inner energies (what are called the winds and the channels or chakras) line up or come together within us more exactly than at other times, and when a New or Full Moon is also an eclipse, that inner lineup is about as perfect as it can get. In fact, the Tibetans set these very special days apart as "days of observation," when perhaps the best thing to do is to allow the mind to rest and observe our own mindstream. That is how we learn.

This is a audio-blog about my doing nothing. That's right, doing nothing or as little as possible. Dr. Dolittle here, busy learning to do less all the time, and that takes work.

Things I ought to do, should do, must do, and of course what I have to do. They haunt me every day, and I'm always looking for a time when I actually feel like doing them. And with me that can be a long time.

The problem with great moments (or insights) is that I tend to naturally want to repeat them, to have them happen again, just as they were, or even better. That wish on my part is like a death sentence, a sure sign they will never come again, at least not like that. And it gets worse. This audio-blog is about micro-karma and how it is recorded in our mindstream.

Core change of this kind, for me, is more like setting or rearranging the sails on a boat, taking a different tack or approach. These inner adjustments, once made, eventually result in our going in an alternate direction. In other words, inner change marks a change in attitude or approach more than a sudden outside event. However, failure to note and adjust our attitude can result in physical consequences, i.e. external events.

Beyond words is the life experience that words can but refer to, point at, and we each will have to go deeper into life to have that experience for ourselves. We can stand as long as we want with our toe in the swimming pool, but sooner or later (and it will happen) we each have to take the plunge.

Eclipse times (and also times of intense solar activity like flares, etc.) are moments when change can be more obvious for us to see and feel the urge of, if we will just time-out a bit and let the mind rest long enough to pick up on it. The highest Tibetan lamas tell us that inner alignment is there at eclipses.

If I look up the meaning of the word "change" in the dictionary, it is defined as the "process of becoming different." We are all kind of familiar with change, or should be by now, with one provision, and that (unfortunately) is that many of us tend to view change as something external that just happens to us. This is a little bit masochistic on our part, seeing ourselves as somehow the victim of change. Passivity.

When we study intense solar change or the possibility of change at eclipse times, we are speaking of 'internal' change, and not so much external change, so we might want to modify the above definition of change to something like: change is "the process of how I become different" and… still remain the same.

The problem is that we are protected from witnessing inner change by our own social conventions, by what is called "sanity" and, for that matter, social sanitation. We do everything we can not to come into contact with our conflicting emotions, and all of the rest of the stuff that may be festering in our psyches. In reality, our internal worlds have no fixed boundaries and can include more than a little chaos and all manner of undigested experience – paradoxes that we have come up against but have failed to assimilate, especially relating to our "self." The "Self" does not like to be embarrassed.

As they say, "disappointment is the salt of life," and the big disappointments in life can be, indeed, earth-shaking, but they sometimes can serve as a wake-up call. However, the steady rain of quiet disappointments has less to recommend itself and potentially is even more dangerous to our mental health.

 With the big disappointments, and I have had a few, the best advice I have given myself is not to add insult to injury. It is bad enough that I have been disappointed, that I took a turn life gave me in a hard way, but it is much worse if then I add to that perceived injury the insult of following it with endless regret and, worst of all, bitterness. Bitterness is a real life killer.

Tibetan Buddhism is energy efficient to an extreme degree, aerodynamically designed to fly even in the worst psychological weather.

When we run out of good things to do, we can start looking at and absorbing all the so-called bad things, one by one. They contain their own demise, and more important, they contain the energy needed to fuel us on to greater awareness. If you read even a little in the Buddhist literature you will come across the Three Poisons or the Five Poisons

It should not surprise us that the Tibetan Buddhists have a special practice designed just to handle our reactions. This practice is distinct from any sitting meditation we might do and is called Tonglen, which in English translates to something like "Taking and Sending," and it has to do with gradually becoming aware of our reactions, our likes and dislikes, and disarming them.

Tonglen practice is perhaps the easiest and most-intuitive approach to meditation training that I have come across, at least for westerners. It was the first practice that my teacher Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche pointed out to me many years ago. I didn't think this fact was that important at the time, but now that I think about it, of course Rinpoche knew exactly what he was doing. Trying to learn standard sitting meditation is much more difficult, at least it was for me. With that in mind, let's look at tonglen together. I will try to go slow.

The tonglen practice is about taking and sending, breathing in and breathing out, and typically is introduced by asking the practitioner to breathe in all of the suffering in the world, take it on (and inside oneself), absorb it, and then breathe back out (on the out-breath) all of the goodness we have within us. And continue to do this until some kind of equalization occurs. This audio-blog looks at how to resolve oppositions and dualities.

I have heard for many years from Asians, astrologers from India in particular, who do not understand the western concern of the self. Why? Because they are somehow inoculated at an early age against what we call self-ishness. How can this possibly be so? Here is an audio-blog about the concept of self.

X-Class flares are the largest class of solar flares and we have not had one for quite a long time. This particular flare was not facing Earth and the CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) that it hurled into space will not hit us. Nevertheless, this is some very intense solar activity, and as this flare turns the corner and begins to be apparent from Earth, we may not have heard the last of it.

Of course I am fascinated to look at the government sites and at the various photos, movies, graphs, and data streams detailing this event. Yet I also know to turn my gaze inward and also stare a bit in there at what is going on. The outer and inner should match up, and they usually do. And remember that my take on intense solar activity like flares is that they are a game changer. What does that mean?

An audio-blog on solar flares and the self. The self (our self) is tireless and elastic in the extreme. It bobs, weaves, and bends over backward to avoid the tides of change, willing to do almost anything rather than to give up ground or admit a mistake. When it comes to matters of our self, most of us are perfect conservatives. The self does not like to be embarrassed, upset, or disturbed. But then, that self is not the real us, but only something we created or at least have allowed to happen. And as I have pointed out here endlessly, we identify with the self at our peril. 

The solar influx (sunshine) each day on the quiet sun changes the self, but gradually. We never notice it. Intense solar change, like we get with these recent strong solar flares injects change into our mindstream in quantum leaps that cannot easily be assimilated. We tend to notice this level of change, but we may not have identified it properly. Some of your comments tell me that you are still looking for change outside yourself, when I keep pointing out that with solar flares it is our own self that is changing. And who is there to monitor that, Me, Myself, and I? This audio-blog looks at inner changes.

The great solar flares run deep in the mind just now and they flutter the dovecote and stir things up, myself included. Since I can't sleep, it has me thinking back to my very first dharma teacher Andrew Gunn McIver and his main teaching. Andrew was a traveling initiator for a Rosicrucian order. I met him in the mid-1960s. He was the first human I met outside of my family that cared for me more than I knew how to care for myself. He tamed me and I became his student. When he died in 1969, it was I who saw to his burial and designed his tombstone, the symbol of the Sun. I include it here.

Earth is bombarded, alternately, by solar radiation and then cosmic rays, every five and one/half years. This follows the 11-years sunspot cycle and affects our creativity and psyche.

There are usually lower-level solar flares (C-Class) taking place on the sun, and these flares affect our consciousness, mindstream, and especially our sense of Self. Like the Sun itself, our self is in flux with the changes on the sun

 Can you imagine what pours through our mindstream (stream of consciousness) even in a single day? Mind stream? It's more like a mind river or at times even a storm surge. And what remains? Not much, some impressions and selected memories. This audio-blog is about the self and change.

Buddhism really clicked in for me when I first came across what are called the “Four Thoughts,” more officially called “The Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind Toward the Dharma,” and most commonly just called “The Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind.” These are the thoughts that turn the mind away from our busy day-to-day distractions. This audio-blog is about that 4th thought, that cyclic life is undependable. We will never get our ducks all in a row. Not ever.

By definition, change of any kind marks instability of the status quo. Life is once again in flux, and that fact impacts the way things are. This means that things will not be going on the way they have been going. Things are changing. I am reminded of the line in Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man," "Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" This audio-blog is about changing the self and what that involves.

Beyond words is the life experience that words can but refer to, point at, and we each will have to go deeper into life to have that experience for ourselves. We can stand as long as we want with our toe in the swimming pool, but sooner or later (and it will happen) we each have to take the plunge. This audio-blog is about the transference of consciousness for self-preoccupation toward knowing the true nature of our own mind.

Disappointment is something that happens to all of us, and they can really throw us for a loop. This is a story of disappointment and recovering from it through dharma practice.

The idea is that intense solar events (solar flares) are instruments of change, change injected suddenly into our mindstream that we have no choice but to assimilate, hopefully creatively, but you can be sure these flares will change our life direction in significant ways, even if it takes some time for those changes to be apparent. This is seed change.

 And don't look for outward signs because you would miss my point. Strong solar change is as inward as we are ourselves. As I keep pointing out, with solar change it is we, ourselves, who are changing, and that is hard to observe if we are what is changing, and that is the case here. We kind of have to ride it out and tend to lose awareness at these times quite easily. We are rocked (or knocked) to sleep by the shockwaves of solar change.

I would like to talk about what we call "spirituality." The whole concept of spirituality is so confusing in these modern times. Here in America we consider our spirituality as "private," perhaps based on First Amendment rights and, sadly, meditation is lumped into the concept of spirituality. It is considered politically incorrect to ask about someone's spirituality. We don't go there. That is considered personal and private. It would be funny if it did not also have consequences.

And we have it ten, 100, 1000, probably thousands of times a day, the choice of how to react. Our self is by nature reactive. It is a tight cluster of intense likes and dislikes, and also less-intense "druthers." Although the self is part of us, it is not the whole of us, and certainly not the boss of us, although many here may have forgotten that.

 The self is something most of us have to work around, because it is not intelligent on its own. It is a dummy. Like the ventriloquist, believe it or not, we animate the self with our various attachments and then watch it dance. This audio-blog addresses this topic.

Practicing something like traditional tonglen, while very good, can be too abstract, with ideas like taking on the sufferings of the world or those of another individual and sending back our love and energy. There is a more immediate kind of tonglen that is designed for reactions, and it is much closer to us than the sufferings of the world or those of another person. To begin with, it deals with our own reactions and only eventually extends outside of us. It is called it "Reaction Tonglen."

The Sanskrit word "Buddha" just means awakened or aware, and a Buddha is one who is aware and points out awareness and the path to achieving it. That's it.

There are all kinds of medicines and therapies. Some really help, but most all of them are what the Buddhists call relative truths. They can help us on our journey get from here to there, but most therapies address the symptoms (and removing them), rather than the cause. Buddhist teachings address the cause and offer a method for removing the cause. And the cause is always our ignorance (what we ignore), and our lack of awareness. Removing the cause means waking up to our innate awareness. This audio-blog addresses this.

Dharma and its practice is pure do-it-yourself territory. No one, not even the Buddha himself, can enlighten us. We each have to do it ourselves, just as he did. This audio-blog examines this topic.

Well, probably a subject that is a taboo, but here is an audio-blog that examines the role of LSD in the 1960s, and its eventual effect on dharma and its development in that period.

In the Tibetan teachings, a treasure finder who finds a mind treasure and grasps its nature, must first fully absorb not only its concept, but also practice the essence of that mind treasure (often for many years) before sharing them with the community. This audio-blog examines the terma tradition with a focus on how it affects modern astrology.

Many of us are involved in one kind of meditation or mind-training technique or another, but we may not have had the opportunity to study the roadmap for our path to awakening. This audio-blog provides an overview.

We usually think of feng-shui in terms of sensitivity to the outer environment, rooms, homes, etc. I learned the essence of what I know about feng-shui from His Eminence Tai Situ Rinpoche, one of the four main regents of the Karma Kagyu Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. But our home and property is not the only area where feng-shui can be used. The mind, with all of its real estate is a ripe field for the principles of feng-shui. This audio-blog takes a look at that.

Anger is what the Buddhists call a “Klesha” or obscuration. When we have it, our mind is obscured or darkened by its presence. It dims our light and we can no longer see clearly. We stumble around.

And anger always has an object, something we are angry about or at. Where there is an object of our anger, there is always a subject, which would be us. It is always “our” anger, not the object’s anger. We are angry. This audio-blog takes a look at anger and how to respond to it.

This audio-blog looks at Buddhism and the shamanic tradition, comparing how we approach this subject here in the west and how the Tibetan Buddhists consider it. What meditation techniques will be most useful for our journey beyond this life.

"Preparing the Mind" here refers to preparing it for our eventual death and what happens to us beyond death as we enter the bardo states. What dharma practices will be useful and why. Also covered is what is called "Pure-land Buddhism," a practice that hopes to skip the bardo realms altogether and become realized when we enter the bardo states.

Death is not something this society likes to dwell on. More often than not, it is just swept under the carpet and socially best forgotten. However, the Tibetan Buddhist masters are all about what happens when we die, and have answers for question we have, but don't dare voice.

This audio-blogs looks at what happens after death, describes the various kinds of bardo states, and goes on to describe how we can best prepare for this journey that we all will take.