At a time when, as a baby, I had learned how to sit…my mother left me sitting on a chair for three quarters of an hour. I was minded by a family friend who told me years later.
During that time I was not upset but just sat upright on the chair on which I had been placed, calm, unmoving and completely impervious to her attempts to engage me in the way that a baby would normally be engaged. 
She found this very disturbing!
I had a red mark, a nevus, which I never saw (no mirrors), right in the centre of my forehead… which was removed as a child. 
I found that a rupa of the Guru had been in my house since before birth.
I always wished, on the one wish that we were allowed on eating birthday cake, that all of the family could be happy… (this was a rare occurrence) .
My reason for going to medical school was to help reduce the pain in the world.

So far so good? Well maybe, but we haven’t got very far…

But then the winds of karma blew… and my aspirations shrank…
I married and had a child and life revolved around the happiness of a very few.
I wanted my family and friends to be happy… and the world which had been opening out in my late teens gradually shrank… and shrank… and shrank to the point where, if the dharma hadn’t turned up in such a big way a few years beforehand…I probably wouldn’t be here now. 
There was a lack of clarity…and a non-availability to others in any way which could truly be called helpful, beyond the relative, for decades of my life.

Why am I saying this to you? 

I am saying all this because, even if perhaps we come into a re-birth where our bodhisattva or other vows are not blown away in the death process, the karmic consequences of dualistic engagement, in the past and present, mean that until we are fully established in the truth of ourselves we can so easily get lost before we know it… and this lostness will be normalised quick as flash – everyone around us confirms a dualistic view –
then every move we make can strengthen the karmic bind.

So how long will it take us to find our way home when we do get lost… some months? some years? some lifetimes? some aeons?
One thing we can be sure of is that tension arising from having a sense of an individuated self brings suffering along with it…
Without recognising its cause we keep trying to scratch this subliminal yet perpetual itch…and we look for completion, for satisfaction, for ease, for relief, in that which cannot offer resolution…

If the dharma truth, the unchanging uncompounded ground of our being, is not sought or encountered… in our daily lives, moment by moment, how will we see ‘things’ more clearly… so how will we not suffer?

We have such a short time before death, that it is very sad not to make the most of this opportunity, this precious human re-birth (transiently!) complete in our faculties, and engage in the dharma without reservation.

Anyone reading this is likely to already know that we are truly lucky to have encountered such a clear and unadulterated river of dharma, presented for us, for our time, for our culture… for the particular tendencies and confusions particularly common to, but not limited to, those in the west.  
The most recent teachings James gave are linked here to texts with vimeo link below the texts… or direct to vimeo here…
They are the first of a series of three… and have just become available on the simplybeing website…and seem to me to be extraordinarily valuable!

I was going to post some ‘small beer’ stuff about dependent origination in duality, maybe something about that difficult point in meditation where we could go deeper or return to the familiar… but life is limited and listening to these teachings if they speak to your condition will surely bring you much more benefit. 

If you have listened already, listening again will surely help this to go deeper, note-takers can re-relate to what was said… 
I know from experience that we miss so much on first hearing and that although the refreshing shower of truth feels great and warming…it is engagement and ‘inward digestion’ – reflection and questioning – and application…which gives optimal potential for effective maceration!!!

Painting by artist Stewart Edmondson