Pleasure and Pain

It is a mistake to believe that the pursuit of pleasure will lead to happiness. Pleasure is ephemeral and overindulgence quickly leads to satiety.

But even more important to our understanding of what road leads to happiness is the realization that pleasure has a stronger sister--pain. And pain trumps pleasure.

How many people claim to be happy when they are in pain?

Since pain is unavoidable in life, the road to happiness does not lead to pleasure, but rather to the perception of meaning. It is only when we perceive our lives as meaningful that we can accept the transient dance of pleasure and pain.

In truth, the road itself is meaning. It is the ground of existence that is essentially meaningful. To make this discovery is to find true happiness.

Alcoholism

Alcohol releases the intellectual brakes on behavior. We need the emergency brake of meaning if we are to avoid a car crash.

It is the existential vacuum, the feeling that our lives are meaningless, that opens the door to alcohol and drug abuse.

Parables

This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.--Matthew 13:13

Christian parables are similar to Zen Koans. In order to comprehend the spirit that flows between the words, you must listen with a quiet mind. Their true meaning cannot be grasped by the ego.

The True Cost of Capitalism

Those who think that Capitalism is a kind and just social system have not peeked behind the curtain at the human misery found in our prisons, hospitals, asylums, and even homes.

The Key to Freedom

Do you want to know how to attain the freedom of your being?

Learn to love your insignificance.

Opium

If in past times religion was the opium of the masses, television is the preferred drug today. It is watched by those who have despaired of ever learning how to live a full life.

Once we give up on life, only death can save us.

Weak Defense

It is often our weakness that makes us fear the future. For when we are strong, we fear no fate.

But when we are weak, and we cannot rely on our courage in the face of adversity, we can then only hope that things will turn out all right.

Such a hope is a pitiable defense against "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."