Change of Scenery

Birds lack the words to get tangled up in the whys.

Daron LarsonMay 12, 2017poetry, religion, spirituality, nature, freedom, liberation, language, changeComment

Who Would You Be?

"Isn't it funny how no baby is born racist, yet every baby cries when they hear the cries of another. No matter the gender, culture, or color — proving that, deep down, we were meant to connect and care for each other."

~ Prince Ea

To Tell the Modes Apart

Mindfulness practice doesn’t eliminate my personal narrative. It gradually changes my relationship to it.

Beginning, Clarity, Myths & MisperceptionsDaron LarsonJuly 6, 2015narrative, attention, intimacy, self, self/other, freedom, liberation, practice, awarenessComment

Feel Your Feelings for a Few Seconds

Thinking your way through unpleasant emotions takes time while a single repetition of any mindfulness exercise only takes a few seconds. The skills of attention strengthened by mindfulness practice enhance both the resolving of unpleasant emotions and the acceptance of them.

Tired of Yourself

"A lot of the poetic discipline boils down to getting tired of yourself, and I really believe that. When you get tired of yourself, then you change."

~ David Whyte

Feel In, Clarity, Equanimity, Practice in LifeDaron LarsonApril 21, 2015David Whyte, freedom, poets, poetry, writing, thinking, feeling, suffering, confusion, Mark Levy, creativity, selfComment

Freedom

"I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries—the realists of a larger reality."

~ Ursula Le Guin

MagnanimityDaron LarsonNovember 21, 2014books, writers, writing, reading, freedom, capitalism, money, Ursula Le GuinComment

Liberation through Intimacy

Transcendence isn't an escape plan, but an engagement strategy: liberation through intimacy. Transcending the self and the world begins with deeply accepting the self and the world. It grows naturally out of countless direct experiences of life as it is being lived and an intimate familiarity with how its composition constantly fluctuates.

The Myth of Permanence

"Contemplating impermanence can be a liberating experience, one that brings both sobriety and joy."

~ Sakyong Mipham

If We Didn't Try to Hold the Flux

“What both science and at least some philosophical and even religious traditions tell us is that the world is impermanent. Nothing in it stays the same. We don't stay the same. Our bodies don't stay the same. The people that we love and the things that we love don't stay the same. That's just the truth of the matter, that there's this constant impermanence, this constant flux. And some philosophers have argued over the years that we should just embrace that. We would be freer if we didn't try to hold that flux for a moment.”

Alison Gopnik

Daron LarsonJune 3, 2014Radiolab, children, emptiness, freedom, impermanence, liberation, love, parenting, philosophy, science, Alison GopnikComment

The Threads of the Ego Experience Pulled Free

Daron LarsonMay 23, 2014Michael Taft, Shinzen Young, ego, feelings, freedom, mindfulness, perception, self, senses, thoughts Comment

Changing the Plane of Focus

"Many longtime meditators seem completely unaware that these two planes of focus exist, and they spend their lives looking out the window, as it were."

~ Sam Harris

Daron LarsonApril 16, 2014Dan Harris, Sam Harris, Vipassana, freedom, illusion, liberation, meditation, mindfulness, practice, self, self/otherComment

Finding an Identity is Easy

Daron LarsonDecember 17, 2013Zadie Smith, choice, ddecision-making, freedom, growing up, identity, liberation, loneliness, self, society, writersComment

Orphaned Ones

Daron LarsonSeptember 11, 2013Matt Licati, childhood, discomfort, fear, feelings, freedom, pain, risk, suffering, transformationComment

Freed from the Factitious Urgencies of Earlier Days

Daron LarsonJuly 7, 2013Oliver Sacks, aging, freedom, identity, liberation, maturity, time, wisdomComment

Where the Work of Choosing Comes In

Daron LarsonMay 8, 2013David Foster Wallace, choice, freedom, liberation, paying attention, sacrifice, suffering, uncertaintyComment

Go Outside

Daron LarsonApril 24, 2013Felipe Luchi, Kimberly Streams, connection, freedom, liberation, prison, technologyComment

Able to Live in Two Worlds

Daron LarsonMarch 20, 2013Shinzen Young, complete experience, freedom, liberation, mindfulness, pparticle/waveComment

The Ego Will Be Asked to Open to Something Larger

"The ego wishes comfort, security, satiety; the soul demands meaning, struggle, becoming. The contention of these two voices sometimes tears us apart. Ordinary ego consciousness is crucified by these polarities. Again, the paradox emerges that in our suffering, in our symptoms, are profound clues as to the meaning of the struggle, yet the path of healing is very difficult for the apprehensive ego to accept, for the ego will be asked to be open to something larger than itself."

~ James Hollis, from Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up