Triks and Traps

Tricks and traps along the spiritual path:

Trick: True Perception - Put your conceptual thinking, paradigms and intellect aside and try (do) the following trick: pick an object in front of you. Where is this object in relation to You, where you are, as awareness. Now pick one behind you, then see where it is (the memory) in relation to You. Now, close your eyes, and scratch your nose. Where is this happening, in relation to You? Scratch the back of your neck. Look closely, where is this taking place, in relation to You? Hint: having a double arrow of attention is imperative: one pointed towards the object; one back inwards toward the Unknown.

Trap: Visualizing the thought of “now” and projecting it to the exclusion of all other thoughts, and believing this to be the actual present moment, or “being in the now”. This mistaking of a projected memory for the “now” simply leads to frustration as it soon collapses and leaves one worse than before, forcing a new round of projection as the circle of mind, memory, and imagination continues to spin.

Tusen biter

All we are is a raw open wound. We spend years trying to patch it up with this or that because we believe that it is a problem to be fixed. But actually feeling the wound, and letting it bleed openly without struggling anymore, is such a freedom and relief. You are the openness that you long for. Let Life crack you open and rip you apart.


Den vi er er et åpent felt, tomheten åpenheten ingentingheten. Vi bruker  våre liv til å forsøke å lime oss selv sammen, lime sammen ingentingheten. Vi er som en vase som har gått i tusen knas som vi forsøker å lime sammen, bit for bit. Vi tror vi er et problem som må repareres, at vi kan forbedre oss, at vi kan bli noe fast, noe eget. Det å føle det åpne såret - tomheten / ingentingheten, la de blø, la det være som det er, uten kamp, uten forsøk på å dekke til, er det egentlige, dette er frihet og lettelse. Du blir og er den åpenheten du ser etter. La livet åpne deg. La livet få rive deg opp slik at du blir helt åpen.

Beggar or Emperor

You trye to attract others attention, you dress in a certain way, you try to look beautiful, you behave, you are polite, you change. When you feel what type of situation is out there, you change so that people pay attention to you and this is begging. A real beggar is one who asks for and demands attention. And a real emperor is one who lives in himself, he has a center of his own, he doesn't depend on anybody else.

Buddha sitting under his bodhi tree and if the whole world suddenly disappeared, will it make any difference to Buddha? -none. It will not make any difference at all. If the whole world disappears, it will not make any difference because he has attained to the center. But you and me-, if the lover escapes, divorces you, goes to somebody else, we are completely shattered - because someone gave you attention, caring, loving and helped you to feel that you were somebody. Your whole empire is lost, you are simply shattered. Why? Because you don't have any center of your own. The lover was giving you the center; the family was giving you the center. This is how people exist. This is how people become dependent on others. It is deep slavery. Ego has to be a slave and it depends on others. Only a person who has no ego is for the first time a master, no longer a slave. Try to understand this and start looking for the ego - not in others, that is not your business, but in yourself. Whenever you feel miserable, immediately close you eyes and try to find out from where the misery is coming and you will always find it is the false center which has clashed with someone.

Happy People

1.     Repeat to yourself, “Life isn’t an emergency.”

2.     Be aware of the snowball effect of your thinking.

3.     When in doubt about whose turn it is to take out the trash, go ahead and take it out.

4.     Get comfortable not knowing. 

By learning how to let life happen and respond calmly, rather than trying desperately to control what happens. Since then I’ve noticed that that’s the basic difference between happy people and sad people: the happy people concern themselves with what they can do on their end. Sad people concern themselves with everything else.

Beliefs = Agreeing

Try to see personal beliefs as agreement,- nothing is true to you unless you agree that it is. If, in your eyes, you’re no good, you have agreed at some point that you are no good. You will live this truth until you stop agreeing. We typically don’t realize we’re constantly making these agreements, yet they define your personal world, which is the only world you’ll ever live in.

You must identify and challenge the agreement you’ve accumulated, and toss them out in favor of agreeing to four commitments: Be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best. If you make those agreements it’s almost impossible to let yourself down, feel guilt or give in to fear. They short-circuit virtually all self-defeating human behaviors. These days, rather than trying to be perfect each day with each agreement, I work the agreements backwards when things seem to be going wrong. Any time I feel stuck, it takes about five seconds to identify which of the four agreements I broke to get there. Either I’ve been untruthful in some way, I’m making assumptions, I’m taking something personally, or I’m cutting corners. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten myself into trouble in any way other than those.