EP332: No-Self in Direct Experience

The title of this week’s episode is also the title of a book by Sailor Bob Adamson. This is the book we’ll be exploring in the Summer Book Club. In this episode, I share some quotes from the book that have stood out in my initial reading. As the author says, this book “is not about The post EP362: What’s wrong with right now?: If you don’t think about it appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.

Let’s talk about the experience we call anticipation. It seems like we’re looking ahead to something that’s almost certain to happen. And it seems like it’s very likely to happen the way we’re imagining it. The way it’s likely to go feels like sound logic – of course it might not happen that way, but The post EP361: Anticipation is Imagination appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.

Shortly after I recorded last week’s episode, The Biggest Irony, someone shared an experience on one of our forums that perfectly illustrated what I was trying to express. Today’s episode shares that illustration and expands on the idea that all of our teachings, pointers and understandings have a singular benefit – presence in and as The post EP360: The Biggest Irony – Part 2 appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.

It seems that of our learning, understanding, talking, expressing and sharing are for one thing, and one thing only: to help relax into this. Not to help relax into some abstract emotion or to make things easier “someday”. And definitely not to have an insight or see something new. It’s all so that we can melt into, The post EP359:  The biggest irony appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.

This episode is a portion of a recent community guest speaker call with Chris Niebauer. Chris came back to the community to discuss what I love to talk about – imagination versus reality. Chris talked about the complete made-up-ness of words. Words, especially ones like ownership and success, are massive abstractions that are not here in The post EP358: Abstractions and Reality with Chris Niebauer appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.

Notice that the more attention is in abstraction, the harder things feel. More abstract, more problems. Really, all problems are abstractions. You can’t find a problem outside of abstraction.Me-and-my-life is the ultimate abstraction. When we live with attention there, as we so often do, life feels extremely hard. Even when it’s good, it’s not that The post EP357: More abstract, more suffering appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.

In this episode, we’ll look at breaking down experience – seeing beyond abstract words, descriptions and meaning to touch into what’s really going on…or something closer to it, anyway.  I use the example of the feeling of needing to get up and do something productive. What is this experience? What’s it made of? What’s actually The post EP356: Breaking down the experience of needing to be productive appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.

Today’s episode offers a challenge: let everything be exactly what it is.  This is how life gets really simple. It’s what we’re all looking for, except we often have no idea this is what we’re looking for. We think we’re looking for something different. Better. Improved. So we live in abstracted ideas of how that might The post EP355:  A challenge: Let everything be exactly what it is.  appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.

This episode shares a guided meditation I created for the Resting in Restlessness course.  The guidance will help you feel into sensations and sound. I recommend using this guidance as a starting off point, then exploring silently on your own. The post EP354: Guided Meditation: Feeling What Is appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.

Marie experiences extreme reactions to certain noises, sometimes referred to as misofonia. This makes life very hard in many ways, especially at work and in close relationships. If this is neurologically-based sensitivity, can Marie’s experience of it change? Absolutely. Everything is made worse by our resistance and suppression. I’ll share how Marie can be in these experiences The post EP353: I experience extreme reactions to certain noises (misofonia). Is there anything I can do about this? Responding to listener’s question.  appeared first on Dr. Amy Johnson.