What comes to mind when you think of enlightenment? Saints glowing with divine radiance? Gurus with unfeasibly long beards chanting incomprehensible mantras? Endless do-gooding and lots of smiling? Floating on a cloud of bliss while dispensing otherworldly wisdom? Enlightenment is often seen as a one-off event that changes your life forever. Darkness is banished and… Continue reading Myths About Enlightenment
Following my epic article on the Dark Night of the Soul, I wanted to go into a little more detail on the symptoms of the Dark Night and strategies for surviving it. I was going to include this information at the end of the previous article but it was already too long. To summarise: the… Continue reading How to Survive a Dark Night of the Soul
On a dark night, Inflamed by love-longing- O exquisite risk! Undetected I slipped away. My house, at last, grown still. Secure in the darkness, I climbed the secret ladder in disguise- O exquisite risk! Concealed by the darkness. My house, at last, grown still. That sweet night: a secret. Nobody saw me; I did not… Continue reading Songs of the Soul
A Dark Night of the Soul always arrives uninvited, yet it could be the best thing to ever happen. It’s a sacred initiation into the underbelly of the soul that will make you feel cursed and blessed at the same time. Dark Nights of the Soul are all the rage these days. Our civilisation is self-destructing… Continue reading Love’s Ordeal: The Dark Night of the Soul
The Four Immeasurables are four virtues that are cultivated in meditation practice. They’re also called the Brahmavihara, which means the ‘abodes of Brahma,’ and they can be found in various Buddhist texts as well as the Yoga sutras of Patanjali. The four immeasurables are unconditional and so are boundless. They consist of: Loving-kindness, or metta… Continue reading How to Meditate: The Four Immeasurables
Vipassana comes from the Therevada Buddhist tradition and is also known as Insight meditation. It was the form of meditation practised and taught by the Buddha in order to attain enlightenment. It involves looking into the true nature of the mind to overcome suffering and discover who you really are. The word has two parts:… Continue reading How to Meditate: Vipassana
Jnana is a Sanskrit word that means knowledge, particularly of the spiritual kind. It is used in many different Indian traditions. Jnana isn’t knowledge in the usual cognitive sense, but refers to knowledge embedded in the experience of the true nature of reality. It isn’t something that can be understood with the intellect because it is… Continue reading Spiritual Glossary: Jnana
Nirvana is Sanskrit and means to be extinguished or to blow out (as in blowing out a candle). It’s often interpreted to mean blowing out the flame of illusion, or the self. In Pali nirvana is spelt nibbana. Hinduism and Jainism also talk of nirvana as the state of moksha. Nirvana means freedom from suffering.… Continue reading Spiritual Glossary: Nirvana
Satori is the Japanese term used in Zen Buddhism to refer to awakening and the realisation of the true nature of the self, or Buddha nature. It is sometimes also called Kensho, where ken means ‘seeing’ and sho means ‘nature’ or ‘essence’. Kensho is generally understood to be your first experience of realisation and is often a tiny glimpse of Buddha… Continue reading Spiritual Glossary: Satori
Jessica Davidson 