Pariyatti

For many years I faithfully sat two hours a day. This was my formal meditation practice. Two hours a day is a lot of meditation, I thought. I was wrong. Two hours a day is a lot of practice, but it is not a lot of meditation. Meditation cannot be measured....

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 4 minutes 58 seconds

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Without the ability to silently sit alone in a darkened room, we are destined to be a slave to our conditioned mind, reacting to self-imposed habitual preconditions, convinced that everything out there is awesome and everyone else is as happy as kings. So why, you wonder, am I so miserable? I have lost count of the number of times in a given day I start a sentence with...

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 4 minutes 03 seconds

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Happiness is not something to pursue. Like the truth, happiness too is not out there somewhere. Chasing it is like a dog trying to catch its tail. Happiness has been hijacked by old habit patterns which have convinced us to look for it under the bright lights. We are so busy frantically...

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 4 minutes 37 seconds

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The question remains, however, why is practice so difficult? To begin with, doing non-doing is by and of itself difficult because to be still and just watch goes against our very nature. This is especially true when...

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 5 minutes 01 seconds

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In large stores in Korea there is a greeter at the front door. He or she bows and wishes you well and a good shopping experience. Koreans are used to this formal welcome. They walk by without...

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 2 minutes 00 seconds

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You need to walk before you run. This much is certain. There is an old joke of a tourist lost in New York City who asked a passerby how to get to Carnegie Hall. He was told, “Practice, my boy, practice.” This process can appear to be slow going. This is quite normal, as the progress is incremental. (And meditation practice redefines incremental.) It can seem at times...

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 3 minutes 27 seconds

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“You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.” This was the great jazz saxophonist, Charlie Parker’s, musical lesson. But it...

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 3 minutes 15 seconds

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My father would go apoplectic when he was near gum chewers. He would physically recoil as they mashed away in complete obliviousness to the consternation they were causing him. Though I didn’t understand the reason for his meltdowns, over time I absorbed his attitude. Each time some unsuspecting gum smacker tried to engage my father in a conversation, I could feel my father do a slow burn. Like a tuning fork hearing a note played on a piano, I would commiserate with him, and my habit patterning would...

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 3 minutes 29 seconds

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The Buddha was also the first neuroscientist. He confirmed neuroplasticity, the mind's ability to change by restructuring itself at the neurological level. The Buddha altered his mind to such an extent that he transcended the final two complex, problematic stages of the thinking process. He declared himself enlightened, which is to say free from the shackles of greed, hatred, and delusion. This was proof positive, as James Olds, a professor of neuroscience, said, that the mind is not just plastic but “very plastic.” So much so that...

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 5 minutes 56 seconds

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The Buddha was more scientist than spiritual seeker. He wanted to understand human suffering using himself, his body, and his mind as his laboratory. After many years of ascetic practices, while sitting under a pipal tree in Bihar in northern India, he took a vow not to move until his experiment gave up an answer. As dawn broke so did the yoke that tied him to this earthly realm. Enlightenment. He was now awakened. He was now the Buddha. The one who knows. And what does he ask of us? Reverence? Obedience? Blind devotion? Not at all. He asks...

narrated by Ian McCrorie · 2022 · 6 minutes 16 seconds

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