“This was the era when Adam Smith famously insisted on the priority of consumption of goods, whether luxurious or merely useful, in all economic life. The cultivated and wealthy classes who alone purchased the former developed a sensitivity to discomfort by combatting it through spending, so that those who suffered from it the least became the first […]

A primary side-effect of koan practice: to detect when you have been hooked.

“STOP STRIVING!” the idiot screamed, shattering the other idiot’s samadhi. “Stop screaming,” said the other idiot. Then, together, they recited the Heart Sutra. Another day wasted.

At home a tiger, in public a pussycat. Step out the door. Notice the moment the tiger shrinks.

“At home a tiger; in public a pussycat.” The only true test. The insane decision never to stop, never to be satisfied, until pussycat and tiger have merged, vanished, dropped away. In that dissatisfaction, great peace. In that restlessness, the unsurpassed ecstasy of self-trust. Whether screaming in the streets or weeping in the arms of the […]