Week 3 – Nov. 19, 2024 This covers Session Two in the A-Tri text and includes sections 1.4.1.2.2 – 1.4.1.2.2.3.3 The session starts with this statement: Generating bodhicitta and taking refuge has three subdivisions: generating bodhicitta; taking refuge; and confession of negative deeds. Virtually all of this week’s session...
Week 2 - Nov. 5, 2024 This covers Session One in the A-Tri text and includes sections 1.4 - 1.4.1.2.1.3. This lesson on impermanence is intended to develop the skillful means to turn away from attachment. This is text from the meditation: “All appearances arise as illusory. The...
Week 1 - Oct. 29, 2024 The emphasis for this first week was on Section 1.3 of the text, which entails advice concerning finding and establishing a relationship with the teacher or lama. Translated in today's terms and Western culture, this is often seen as advice to: ...
This winter (2024/25) while participating in a dozen on-line sessions covering a newly translated Bon (Tibet/Nepal) text on awakening/enlightenment, I plan to comment on each lesson using Western ideas and terms appearing in McGilchrist’s work. My basic idea is this: McGilchrist urges his readers to adopt...
McGilchrist says that while the self is needed for our development and individuation, we must eventually transcend the self. He points to a value that will lift us to a higher Gestalt. It is a remembrance – or is it a knowing? – of a...
The hemispheres must work together, as opposites fulfilling each other, but they must not be considered equals. The right hemisphere is the only one that can produce wide and deeply resonating truths....
McGilchrist’s work takes on big questions, in fact, the biggest questions. This is especially helpful when trying to bridge the divide between mind and matter. Chapter 25 of The Matter with Things is an 83-page exploration of matter and consciousness, seen from the opposing views...
She points to a trinity -- a life force power, the right hemisphere consciousness and the left hemisphere consciousness. I have been surprised at how well this correlates with other trinities in Eastern spiritual traditions....
The corpus collosum embodies the hemisphere hypothesis. Surprisingly, the majority of the neural fibers in the corpus collosum are involved in the inhibition of the other hemisphere. This is needed for each hemisphere to specialize, work separately and more quickly. The corpus collosum holds them...
By embracing consciousness as fundamental, I believe McGilchrist has laid a foundation for building a bridge between the West and Eastern spiritual traditions. The Matter with Things makes extensive use of Western neurology, physics and nearly forgotten Western philosophy that support this deeper understanding of...