Download or read book THE VIRTUAL SELF Beyond the Gap in Buddhist Philosophy written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has been my experience and observation of students of Buddhism, that after an initial period of enthusiastic practice, they get stuck. They come to the edge of a gap, and can’t go back but are stuck going forward. The edge of this gap represents the boundary that defines the results of their efforts so far. Serious effort has been given to practice and to incorporating the fundamentals of the Buddha’s method into their lives. Nevertheless, the practitioner I have in mind feels not only stuck but somewhat disheartened perhaps. Having exhausted the youthful enthusiasm that naturally arises upon discovery of the Buddha’s path, one now feels a lack of joy. Looking beyond the boundary line of the gap, there seems to be a vast space between where one is now and the ultimate goal of enlightenment. The Virtual Self: Beyond the Gap in Buddhist Philosophy offers some suggestions for renewing one’s inspiration and a way to joyfully navigate that sacred space beyond the gap.

Download or read book On the True Nature of the Soul Essays for the Seriously Curious written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a compilation of essays written mostly to family members and friends in response to their questions and comments to my other books. These essays were written in over a period of two years and can be read singly, although I have grouped them to try to achieve a cumulative effect. Many people seem satisfied with the childhood information about the soul that they carry into adulthood. Some people just find the subject beyond them, even though the soul is their most intimate companion. Everyone agrees that proper feeding requires accurate information about the animal or person being fed, and yet the spiritual nurture of the soul is not examined with the same critical eye. Much that I have to say, therefore, has to do with the proper feeding of the soul based on a critical examination of the true nature of the soul. As in all my books, I am indebted to the methods of examination from the Buddhas spiritual technology toolkit.

Download or read book Applied Spirituality Seeing Through the Illusion of Our Separateness written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2015-10-14 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a compilation of six smaller books that were published between 2012 and 2014. They were written as though I were taking dictation. Some higher power unlocked the gates of inspiration and articulation, and I wrote almost continuously for three hours every day without ever fi rst composing an outline for any of these books. Instead of coming out as gibberish, they form a coherent, and I feel, cogent whole, and so I have grouped them together in one volume. Performance excellence in any fi eld requires, among other things, a clear goal that can be methodically approached incrementally in manageable steps and stages. Without a clear goal, there can be no cogent methodology. Accomplishment in the practice of a spiritual discipline that leads to excellent results is no diff erent. Together these books off er a clear goal and method for accomplishing what I feel is the universal target of every valid form of spiritual practice, namely, seeing through the illusion of our separateness. This goal is universal to every form of spiritual aspiration. The methods outlined in this book, therefore, bypass every form of sectarianism. They can be applied and practiced by anyone of any faith who is sincerely motivated to deepen in the spirit that unites us all.

Download or read book The Translucent Imagination written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores a dimension of mind that is only a potentiality at birth. This in itself is not so unusual as all adult capabilities are only developed with time and practice as we grow. The translucent imagination is different, however, in that it usually goes not only undeveloped but completely unnoticed throughout the entire course of life. It differs in how it functions once it is noticed and developed. The imagination we are all familiar with I call the reflective imagination. It functions at the confluence of memory and motivation, and allies itself with the self promotional strategies of self nature. It is reflective in that it configures or images the world in accord with the conceptual outlook of the ordinary mind. In this sense, it reflects the beliefs and fictions of our conceptual world view. By contrast, the translucent imagination at first appears subversive. It arises and allies itself with a dimension of mind that is not structured or limited by concepts. This dimension of mind is our pure and natural timeless awareness. Once the translucent imagination has been developed and is fully functioning through expert tutelage and disciplined practice, it functions to see through the conceptual fictions of the ordinary dimension of mind. It is subversive because it subverts the self promotional strategies that ego would have us believe are in our best interest. The translucent imagination unites aspects of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, and is a powerful tool that offers a way out of the chaos that contemporary consciousness creates for itself.

Download or read book The Influence of the Imagination on the Knowledge of God written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2016-01-13 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most adult believers would acknowledge that the absolute reality of God is unimaginable, and yet the ordinary mind cannot think about divinity without creating images of that reality. This book explores a variety of ways in which our imagination influences what we believe and think we know about God. Even as some theories and the methods behind them yield better results in practice, so certain forms of the imagination yield a truer connection to the divine. Curiously, cutting-edge scienceoften viewed as inimical to engagement with the divineis itself creating new images for a conception of divinity that intimately penetrates all that is. Frontier cutting-edge science will thus become one of three interpenetrating streams that impact the influence of the imagination on the knowledge of God. The other two are the conceptual dimension of mind and what I distinguish as the awareness dimension of mind. The application of my theory about the influence of the imagination on the knowledge of God is whether the reader can make practical connections to their experience of suffering in the world and find some diminishment of that suffering. If that does not happen, I apologize to my readers for wasting their time.

Download or read book Spirituality in Disguise the Imagination as Bartender written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mr. Bottiglia runs a bar called The Wandering Nomad. He practices and represents a disguised spirituality. Its right out in the open for all to see yet almost no one does. The fact that it is disguised doesnt make it any less effective. In fact, it seems that his spirituality is more effective because it is disguised. In the persona of Mr. Bottiglia, the imagination is a secret ally and a practical theoretician. The imagination as bartender is an acute observer of the human scene. It is silent, keeping its own counsel, until asked. The imagination as ally offers concrete suggestions to advance any situation. It sets the barraising or lowering it depending on the situations concrete circumstances.

Download or read book Dying to Be Reborn written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013-11-15 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores some of the many similarities and parallels between the birth and death process. It does not rely on the testimony of people who have had near death experiences. Neither does it base its argument on the kind of mystical experience that is not available to most people. The exploration of this material requires only the active critical participation of the reader. Therefore, neither faith nor the testimony of some authority is necessary; only the willingness to suspend judgment until the deeper resources of ones own experience can be critically examined. My view is that in many ways culture in the West has it upside down and backwards. In my own small way, I am trying to counteract a cultural bias, that in its narrow definition of wisdom, has virtually nothing to say about soul cultivation and the process of dying to be reborn.

Download or read book The Other Side of Suicide written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2015-01-21 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I write this book in a social milieu where telecommunications can make a very private act globally public in a moment. A question I dont consider is whether and to what extent the publicity attendant on a potential suicide inclines one toward or against the follow through. I suspect that it figures in, but what it amounts to in the end differs widely in each case. What I do have in mind is a rather full discussion and consideration of a host of questions I dont hear being asked in the discussion of suicide today. In fact, I find the comments from most media talking heads to be either sincerely trite or politely banal. But then, one shouldnt expect an in depth exploration of any side of the suicide question from the popular media. Where one should expect a more thorough investigation, however, is from the spokespeople representing our cultures philosophical and theological traditions. What I hear most often has been said before, often in a context where the authoritative spokesmen for the Church issue blanket condemnations backed up by the written codes of civil law, canon law, moral law or natural law. Authorization for this outright condemnation of suicide, ipso facto, has always been backed up by law of some kind and its interpretation to the people in the pew or the public at large.

Download or read book Applied Spirituality written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2024-06-23 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The three self-contained works in this compilation are: No Urgency: or How We Fiddle with Eternity Complete, Not Completed Why This Ignorance? These works build on the earlier books in Volume I, and they are more challenging. They provoke--at least I hope they do--a more energetic pursuit of soul depth for the sake of spiritual depth. Like all my books, they openly rely on the spiritual technology of the Buddha. However, they can be on confrontationally read. Because they are non sectarian in the sense that they don’t require or promote a “conversion” to a religious viewpoint, they can be practically incorporated by anyone practicing a sectarian or non sectarian path. That’s the nature of this “spiritual technology”--Tibetan Buddhism doesn’t even have a word for “religion” in its lexicon! The reader is cautioned to take their time and read these books slowly, not hesitating to “stay where there’s fruit.” In fact, if one reads more than one chapter a day, that pace will miss much. As the pithy Latin expression (“non multa sed multum”) has it: “It’s not knowing many things that satisfies the soul, but knowing a few quality things deeply.”

Download or read book Demystifying Mysticism written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013-05-09 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jesus gave the key to the Kingdom and to life more abundant when he gave us the example of children. This book explores the idea that people are most themselves when they achieve the seriousness of children at play. When folks are most themselves, they naturally experience the beginnings of mystic perception. The demystifi cation of mysticism starts as simply as the focused attention of children at play, and takes small steps that, slowly but surely, lead to a life changing relationship with the Divine and the entire universe. Although this book is not intended to be a how-to manual, it nevertheless brings the demystifi cation of mysticism down to daily experiences that can be practiced by anyone. Mystic perception just penetrates beyond their surface appearances. Once even the fundamentals of mystic perception become clarifi ed in practice, sacred space opens up as one’s natural environment. Within the environment of sacred space, gratitude as a gift giving exchange becomes the natural relationship one comes to enjoy with the entire universe.

Download or read book The Little Book of Better Questions written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2013-12-13 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without a question to hook onto an answer, even profound information can just breeze on by. From his previous six books, all of which explore diff erent aspects for how to deepen in the spirit, the author has selected about 90 of the most provocative questions. Th ese are grouped into three parts: 1) the good beginning 2) the good middle and 3) the good end.. Lots of space on the page between questions is meant to encourage refl ection and perhaps a written note, because the author believes that it is not the quantity of information that satisfi es one’s soul, but the quality and depth one achieves by going deeper following those questions that truly engage the heart. Th e author calls question like this “pathfi nder questions.” Good questions lead to good answers, better questions to better answers, and really good questions lead to superlatively good answers. He hopes that every reader will engage at least one superlatively good question that will, in eff ect, become a path to follow to ever greater spiritual abundance.

Download or read book Real Presence written by Robert Colacurcio and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2012-11 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is written with Christians principally in mind, folks whose spiritual life has been nurtured by the sacraments. The Christians I have in mind are also seeking a practical way to enter more deeply into the sacred mystery of the divine presence on a daily basis in their walk-about lives. The sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Penance and Eucharist are considered from the viewpoint of the method they reveal for developing an habitual state of mind and heart that gives entry into a deeper daily connection with the mysterious presence of the divine in all things.

Download or read book Beyond the Self written by Thich Nhat Hanh and published by Parallax Press. This book was released on 2009-12-10 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the Buddha's most central ideas is the importance of transcending "either/or" thinking to avoid the trap of extremist views. In Beyond the Self Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that we can find tranquility by embracing all aspects of life, instead of focusing on what we like and dislike. The book contains Nhat Hanh's original translation of the Sutra on the Middle Way, as well as his commentary on how we can use this teaching to better understand how to navigate our difficulties and find peace of mind. By changing how we see the world, Beyond the Self helps us transform ourselves.

Download or read book Beyond Personal Identity written by Gereon Kopf and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Applies Dogen Kigen's religious philosophy and the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro to the philosophical problem of personal identity, probing the applicability of the concept of non-self to the philosophical problems of selfhood, otherness, and temporality which culminate in the conundrum of personal identity.

Download or read book How to Find Your Self Without Looking written by Geoffrey Windham and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-11-02 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his second book, Geoffrey Windham continues to explore what is means to be a human being, and what the being of being human might be. He synthesises ideas from Buddhism, Kabir, Krishnamurti, Lao Tsu and Werner Erhard in a style that points out both the joy and the absurdity of life. Brad Warner, the Zen Priest and Author, comments in his foreword, "Geoff's concept of 'Usual Me' is a great way of explaining one of the most difficult aspects of Buddhist philosophy in concrete, real world terms, and should be of great use to anyone who finds the Buddhist idea of 'no self' baffling." Windham's central theme is the challenge of alienation. We are all strangers in a world that we make strange by insisting on our individuality. We localise ourselves and yearn to be whole. The attempt to regain a sense of wholeness while maintaining our individuality results in much of the suffering we all experience, as we make the mistake of believing ourselves to be self powered and try to fill the gap with stuff that we imbue with meaning both material and abstract, with the ultimate goal of wholeness. This desire, by its nature can never be satisfied. Even though we are not self powered, we do have the power to make and receive effects. The way we make and receive is a moment by moment choice, where we can choose whether to do the right thing or not and the act only exists in its doing. So the realisation is getting that trying to fill the gap at all is futile, but at the same time, moment by moment, circumstance by circumstance, filling the gap with as much of the right thing as we can muster.

Download or read book Beyond the Self written by Matthieu Ricard and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Buddhist monk and esteemed neuroscientist discuss their converging—and diverging—views on the mind and self, consciousness and the unconscious, free will and perception, and more Buddhism shares with science the task of examining the mind empirically; it has pursued, for two millennia, direct investigation of the mind through penetrating introspection. Neuroscience, on the other hand, relies on third-person knowledge in the form of scientific observation. In this book, Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk trained as a molecular biologist, and Wolf Singer, a distinguished neuroscientist—close friends, continuing an ongoing dialogue—offer their perspectives on the mind, the self, consciousness, the unconscious, free will, epistemology, meditation, and neuroplasticity. Ricard and Singer’s wide-ranging conversation stages an enlightening and engaging encounter between Buddhism’s wealth of experiential findings and neuroscience’s abundance of experimental results. They discuss, among many other things, the difference between rumination and meditation (rumination is the scourge of meditation, but psychotherapy depends on it); the distinction between pure awareness and its contents; the Buddhist idea (or lack of one) of the unconscious and neuroscience’s precise criteria for conscious and unconscious processes; and the commonalities between cognitive behavioral therapy and meditation. Their views diverge (Ricard asserts that the third-person approach will never encounter consciousness as a primary experience) and converge (Singer points out that the neuroscientific understanding of perception as reconstruction is very like the Buddhist all-discriminating wisdom) but both keep their vision trained on understanding fundamental aspects of human life.

Download or read book Psychoanalysis and Buddhism written by Jeremy D. Safran and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2003 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Psychoanalysis and Buddhism" pairs Buddhist psychotherapists together with leading figures in psychoanalysis who have a general interest in the role of spirituality in psychology. The resulting essays present an illuminating discourse on these two disciplines and how they intersect. This landmark book challenges traditional thoughts on psychoanalysis and Buddhism and propels them to a higher level of understanding.