Everyday Sublime Josh Summers

Compassion without wisdom can lead to emotional burnout. Wisdom without compassion can lead to detached apathy. Together they balance and complement each other on the path.

If the straight-ahead, conscious approach fails to render a solution, the "lateral drift" approach can be employed by allowing the mind to stop thinking about the problem which allows a solution to suggest itself.

From the safe experience of fundamental consciousness - a consciousness that is awake to, within and beyond the body - we can release and unburden the body's holding of trauma within the fascia.

As the Buddha said, "The rain could turn to gold and still your thirst would not be slaked." In many ways, the entire path pivots on the skillful relationship to desire.

The initial experience of awakening is not often one of calm, serenity, and bliss; rather, the initial encounter is one of waking up to confusion, uncertainty, and despair. We can map our own psychological experience to the mythological story of the Buddha's biography.

If you let it, reality will wake you up out of your drifting state into a naturally awake state. This transitional pivot is the key moment upon which the entire spiritual path unfolds.