The power of an open question

Staying Open to Others

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 14:20:12 -0500

Question: What does it look like, for you, in practice, to accept another person's humanness without enabling dysfunction, in some instances, or without continuing to leave yourself to be open to toxic energy/ projections?

Response: It is my experience that when I am able to see the humanness of another, tremendous insight and compassion arise. I notice there is a difference between reacting to another out of a sense of habit—shoulds\shouldn’ts—and responding with openness.

Physical Awakenings

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:55:52 -0500

Question: Dear Elizabeth, I have been practicing the Dharma for the past two years now and slowly observe the awakening of feeling within my body. Now, I notice that the lower body (particularly the root chakra and area below the naval) are almost always stirring. My conceptual mind tells me this is the feeling of being "sexually aroused," however, this feeling begins to stir without any sort of stimulation. For example, I am at work, or in class, or practicing. I do practice being mindful to not label the feeling and to just let it be. But part of me begins to feel nervous or scared when these feelings come up...
Response: Thank you for your question. When I read it I thought how wonderful that you speak of the feeling of awakening in your body. This shows that the practice is working in you. We often think that practice involves just the mind (although how do you separate body and mind???) Practice transforms the body, our thoughts, emotions, our energy too...

The disturbing emotion of jealousy

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 19:46:56 -0600

I suppose, if we look at it in one way, it is good news that we feel disturbed when we feel jealous. This shows that we have a conscience – that in truth we really do want others to be happy and don’t want to feel uncomfortable about their good fortune. And yet we experience this inner-conflict.

What Happens When We Fall in Love?

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:40:36 -0600

Question: what happens when people fall in love?

Response:Dear Rudolf,

I’m not sure if this means “how” do we fall in love…or what happens after we fall in love…or what makes it possible for us to fall in love. But I love the question!

Practice is about letting life touch us

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:06:11 -0600

Question: A theme that seems to come up in the Dharma is nakedness. In my life, I have found it extremely difficult to be naked, to be exposed both physically and emotionally. I tend to enjoy quite a bit of privacy. When I am exposed, I feel very uncomfortable, quite agitated and it's times when I feel extremely agitated that I do not want to sit on my cushion. In fact, if I get to such a point of agitation, I don't sit on my cushion but do things to numb it out. Is there a way that I could methodically work with this type of situation so that I can systematically learn to gently unveil myself?

Response:Dear Friend,

Thank you for this wonderful question. I found it helpful to look into this experience of being exposed or naked. It always surprises me how finding specific words to articulate an experience – like “nakedness” – can evoke so much learning and illumination.

I want to begin here with a story about nakedness.

How Not to Judge: A Response on Goop Blog

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 12:37:39 -0600

Elizabeth contributes to Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop blog, and the following was a recent question to which she responded. Her response follows. Note: Elizabeth would like to thank those submitting questions for your patience, as she aspires to respond in a timely manner, but sometimes can only get to responding after a few months. Please keep submitting your questions!

Question: Often times when we occupy the space between right and wrong, it keeps us from seeing our own responsibility in matters. When we judge others' foibles and personality traits, what does it really say about us? What can we do to identify and get rid of judgment in ourselves and in our lives?

Response: What I hear in this question is a common concern for all of us: we want to be able to respond to our relationships skillfully, and with clarity...

Light Comes Through: Finding Our Basic Nature Beyond Confusion

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:35:19 -0600

In the teachings they say that our basic nature is free from confusion and full of qualities such as loving-kindness, compassion and clarity. It says that the confusion and suffering we experience is temporal or “adventitious,” which means that it is non-essential…not part of our basic nature. This is a lot different from the idea of original sin.

I have thought a lot about how this is so…how we can say this? How can we say that our basic nature is free of confusion when we see so much confusion in our minds and the world around us?

Choosing a Tradition to Practice In

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:54:37 -0600

My teacher, Kongtrul Rinpoche, once said: “In the dharma, there are as many paths as there are people.” What he means here, I think, is that each individual’s entry into the dharma is quite personal… and the way we approach our path is unique and we have to find our way with it. This includes the lineage we choose to join.

Leave the Circle of Humans and Enter the Circle of Dogs

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:57:16 -0500

One of my favorite Buddhist instructions of all times comes from the Mahayana Kadampa tradition. They said,

“Leave the Circle of Humans and Enter the Circle of Dogs.”

This means, that in the human circle there are so may beliefs of how we should\shouldn’t be, what success\failure is, good\bad. Giving up these notions or static ideas we enter the circle of dogs, which is the lowest of the low…so there is nowhere to fall. It’s like we take ourselves out of the system altogether and just allow ourselves to be genuine.

This is the spirit of the Mahayana – to give up any sense of special-ness.

How to Have "Pure Perception" in an Untrustworthy World

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:10:43 -0500

How do we reconcile discernment or distrust with the bigger view of pure perception? We often perceive distrust as negative or as in opposition to what we consider “pure”. But consider how the Buddha’s path is laid out: from the very onset of the path we are encouraged to distrust the unreliable world of things. This is not because the world or the people in it are “bad” but simply because the world is dynamic, rambunctious, open to interpretation, based on causes and conditions – forever a work in progress.