Bill Walz's Blog (9)

To be free of the endless commenting, reviewing, anticipating, and frequent chaos in the mind, a remarkably effective strategy is to shift the focus of awareness from thoughts and emotions into the immediate sensory experience of what is seen, heard and felt in the immediate here-and-now. Bring attention to your body and the physical world around you. Include in this special attention to the sensations of breathing. Do this for fifteen to thirty seconds and see if you don’t experience a…

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What do we want from life?  Universally, people want happiness.  The problem is that all too often what people think will make them happy fails to do so; it may even end up making them miserable.  We are looking for happiness in things and circumstances…

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COLUMN - JUNE RAPID RIVER MAGAZINE

“Who we are is the moment arising in…

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“We need one more thing to make us happy.  One thing leads to the next, perpetuated by our desire to have final satisfaction.  But the next experience feels uneasy, and we still need one more thing… The desire to feel satisfied is a continual process that drives our lives, and the end result is suffering… it’s just what ends up happening when we are driven by negative emotions.  -  Sakyong Mipham (Turning the Mind into an Ally)

 

What do we really need? …

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“Our ordinary sense of practical reality…is a construct of socialized conditioning and repression, a system of selective inattention whereby we are taught to screen out aspects and relations within nature which do not accord with the rules of the game of civilized life.” - Alan Watts – from This is It



While meditation is commonly understood to be a practice of calming the mind with certain techniques, and entering into a self observant, relaxed yet very alert awareness, in… Continue

AMERICAN ZEN

By Bill Walz



Zen is waking up out of the unconscious patterns of our lives and into heightened presence, awareness and clarity - then, living life right here as it is. Nothing special, and, oh, so special.



I teach and guide people in a way of living that draws on the wisdom and skills of Zen Buddhism, yet is thoroughly contemporary. I call it American Zen because America is the contemporary culture in which I live and teach. It could be European, or Asian… Continue

A CONTEMPORARY BUDDHIST PSYCHOLOGY

By Bill Walz



Western clinical psychology focuses on the personal experience and history of an individual. As such, it explores a person’s distortions and confusions in perceptions, thoughts, emotions and behavior. It examines a person’s sense of self in relationship to their internal mental experience and their social interactions. Collectively these experiences comprise the personal egoic identity, a person’s sense of self-in-the-world as a… Continue