In “Clearing the Path,” Nanavira Thera suggests that “it is not possible to get ‘outside’ avijja by means of reflexion alone.“ He uses the English spelling of the word “reflection,” and says that reflexion is the second layer of consciousness.
The brilliant Buddhist monk, Nanavira Thera, crafted the words “unscrewing avijja” in his monumental work “Clearing the Path,” a razor-sharp investigation and critique of what he concluded to be commonly accepted distortions and mistranslations in the early Pali scriptures.
Recently I was sitting in my dentist's chair waiting for a short procedure when her assistant came to tell me that the doctor would be a little late. "How late?" I asked, mostly only curious and not with much energy on the question. I had given myself a two hour space between this appointment and a session with a client. I really like my dentist who happens to have the same name as one of my dearest friends from my New York days, and I really like her quick intelligence. I love watching her work with such skill and kind assurance while I stare at her with gaping mouth and eyes fixed on her serious face. I once told her that she would have made an excellent psychotherapist, which is not a compliment that comes frequently from this VB.
Does the universe speak to you in metaphor? What does such a question even mean?
Lately, after the kangse bell on my Insight timer rings, I find myself instinctively reaching for the iPhone to check Apple News. I’ve been obsessed with reading the news about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: Russian soldiers fleeing across the border in panic from the onrushing Ukraine army northeast of Kharkiv (yea!).
In the early evening of April 29,1999. I loaded up my little Geo Metro with essential things and headed from San Pedro to Long Beach. I was moving into a new apartment on Roycroft Avenue in Belmont Shore, which is only one block from the ocean and just a few minutes drive from where I was interning at Family Service of Long Beach.
