Insight March 2025
March 2025
The insights offered here are collected as I read through materials and take notes of quotes I find interesting or moving. Some insights are my own. This material is also shared on The Insight Center Blog and @theinsightcenter.bsky.social. I am no longer sharing may material on any meta platforms. Please feel free to share with others.
After the U.S. Nov. 2024 election, I did free readings with clients to help them
have some scope and cope. What I said about the U.S. then, based on the astrology chart for the country, is that there will be chaos, and that the U.S. is ignoring its karmic north node - not caring about values and resources of others (instead acting in greed and self-interest), and many other countries will cut off the U.S. Sounds about right …. I do not do predictions, look at politician’s charts or regularly look at the U.S. chart, but it’s fair to say things are not going well and there seems to be no end in sight. It has happened fast, and it feels scary with the uncertainty. Welcome to Pluto in Aquarius!
My advice for clients is to first look at their own life and their own karma. What is your life about and how are you living it!? We don’t want to ignore this.
And then we do our best to live in the midst of chaos, destruction, and death.
And my final question was/is, “What is your role?”
Please see more below, under “Engaged Buddhism” and as a Buddhist teacher and activist who I like, Ethan Nichtern, said, “What is your protest?” And “Make your protest a practice.”
Announcement: I will be taking a break to read, reflect, and write, from April 9 – May 20. I will be in France; for clients in Europe, we can do a reading in your time zone and if you are in southern France we can do a reading in person.
Awakening
“Suffering opens us to the possibility of awakening.” Cortland Dahl
“Attachments to things [and people!] drop away when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.” Eckhart Tolle
"It's ok
that you don't know how it will happen quite yet.
The momentum is in place.
The river is moving.
The charge is alive.
This constant unfolding.
Stay with it.
Stay in it."
Victoria Erickson
“A radically different way of living in the world is possible.” Cortland Dahl
AWAKE
“Not causing harm requires staying awake.
Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say & do.
The more we witness our emotional chain reactions & understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain.
It becomes a way of lite to stay awake, slow down, & notice.
PEMA CHODRON
“We can see in everyday life what a difference there is between people who are completely preoccupied with themselves and those whose minds are constantly turned towards others. The former are always ill at ease and dissatisfied. Their narrowness of mind gets in the way of their relationships with others, from whom they have a hard time obtaining anything at all. They never stop knocking on closed doors. The latter, on the other hand, who have open minds and are very little concerned about themselves, are always focused on what might be best for others. They enjoy such strength of mind that their own problems hardly affect them, and others are always ready to listen to what they have to say, whether they want it or not.” Matthieu Ricard
“When you become uncomfortable or frightened, remember that difficult emotions are your most profound teachers.” Ruth King
“If you can’t be brave in this moment, rest.” The Insight Center
"Take stock of the reasons you give yourself for engaging in activities that take you away from your aim to be at peace and attain liberation. Resolve to return, again and again, to those actions that will help you along the path." —Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
“You find yourself within yourself.” Bhante Gunaratana
Healing
“Pay attention to your nervous system. What can you do to ease, heal, and allow your nervous system to be clear and well?” The Insight Center
“Society praises healing and celebrates resurrections but often forgets to mention their brutality-the way healing requires you to revisit sharp wounds, speak aloud what happened, and give space to emotions that feel too big for your body.
Coming alive again means feeling everything you once shut down to survive shedding tears that waited years to fall. It's not easy. It's not gentle. But you're doing it. And that in itself is proof of your strength.” Vex King
“Forgive yourself for having created through ignorance what has been painful.” Tom Jacobs
Buddhism and Vipassana Meditation
“Vipassanā is a great practice to see what has your attention and what you let go.”
"All change in nature is incremental, and according to Buddhist teachings all transformation is gradual. Patience and diligence are powerful tools for personal internal change and can be used just as effectively to bring about global external change. " —Andrew Olendzki
“Meditation soothes the hot coals of inner rage and helps us suffer less. Through meditation, we teach the mind to ride the energies of rage without battle so that we become aware of what we deeply know and need in order to heal. When we meditate, we are training the mind to stop feeding a pain pattern—our disguises of rage that have been conditioned by how we’ve been touched by life’s challenges.
Meditation is recommended here not as a way to eradicate our rage but as a way to become fully present to its energies. When you become uncomfortable or frightened, remember that difficult emotions are your most profound teachers. The more we can witness our experiences without judgment, the less suffering we will experience in our lives. We eventually learn to rest in the ebb and flow of the present moment, experiencing it as pure, often pleasant, and ever-changing. We begin to trust in the knowledge that what feels frightening and intolerable does not last forever.” Ruth King
“Meditation gives you agency over intention.” Susan Piver
“No enemy can do as much harm to you as your harmful thoughts.” Bhante Gunaratana
“Aligning with your personality’s intentions with your soul’s intentions is Divine empowerment. Because then your conscious personality is no longer fighting what your soul is trying to do.” Tom Jacobs
“What is your soul trying to get done?” Tom Jacobs
Astrology
Eclipse yesterday, March 29: Do not take it lightly. Everything is changing. Keep that in mind. Make plans to do all the best self-care things for today and next week as it wanes. Bookstore. Nature. Cafe. Cheeseburger. Reading time. Let is open and flow through you. Be open to all change. Do not resist.
March 29: The planet Neptune (ideals, visions, dreams, spiritualized) moves from Pisces (sensitive, benevolent, empathetic) to Aries (assertive, brave, impulsive). This is a big deal. The last time we had this energy was 1861. How will you fight for what you believe? Vision meets action. Aries is impatient, direct, engaged, courageous, and optimistic. There will be bold and radical action – spiritual warriors will engage – willing to take risks for what they believe.
Where and how will you be bold? How will you align with Aries energy and revolt?
“Being a spiritual (Neptune) warrior (Aries) is not necessarily about charging out to the battlefield (although it could be). It's about being wise enough to choose one's battles, to see oneself as a traveler through time and space, discerning what is important (or not), and being brave enough (and aware enough) to do one's personal calling. Let Spirit take care of the rest. We all just need to do our individual (Aries) part. The world only changes and matures if people do so personally.
That's the work now.... are you inhabiting your most awakened (Neptune) and resourced self (Aries)? If not, what are you going to do about it?” Eric Meyer
Pluto in Aquarius exercise: (Remember, Pluto/power is now in the sign of Aquarius/revolution for 22 years.) Look at where the 3 degrees Pluto is transiting in your chart. Look at the house where it is transiting. This is your current empowerment journey. What are the key words for that house!? What are the key words of your empowerment?
“Pluto will do it’s work. Wake up to it and let it.” The Insight Center
Grief:
“From the moment we are born we are marching toward one inevitable destination. We are born with a one-way ticket. We cannot go back even one fraction of a second. A medical miracle may delay death, but eventually each and every human life ends in death.” Bhante Gunaratana
Relationships
“Staying mad at someone is a great way to punish yourself for their mistake. I don’t get mad anymore, I just lose interest.” Timber Hawkeye
Aging:
"I want to tell all women that getting older is actually about becoming fully embodied.
It's not about preserving who you were. It is about owning the ocean of who you ARE.
It's not about shrinking•
It's about deepening into the ancient wisdom of your cells.
Magnetism has never been about age.
It's been about PRESENCE all along, full and vibrant and whole."
Victoria Erickson
Engaged Buddhism:
not good
not good at all
keep pushing
show up
do not give up
Roshi Joan Halifax
“Is it right action?”
You can say, “I don’t want to play with you anymore.”
“It’s very powerful to protest.”
“Is it a nonviolent protest?”
Talk to friends: “What are you doing? What is your protest?
“What if we did something different?”
“Do your actions come from a place to make a different/better world for everyone else?”
No eyeballs on Meta.
No purchases on Amazon.
No $ to Tesla.
“Make your protest a practice.” Ethan Nichtern
Check out this great program:
“WHAT IS IT TO REALIZE OUR BASIC HUMANITY AT THIS TIME, to speak truth to power, to take action in the midst of futility and even apathy
To connect, foster community and solidarity, to affirm our vows, and to engage with the truth of suffering and transforming suffering, personally and institutionally.” Joan Halifax
Resources
Free Grounding exercise and Free Astrology 101 webinar slides are available here.
I also have a Recommended Lists: Reading, Websites, Podcasts, and APPS on my site. Scroll to the bottom of any page and click on Recommended Lists: Reading, Websites, Podcasts, and APPS
All prior Newsletters are posted at Blog. You can search on this page for any topic, such as grief, awakening, mediation.
What I am reading: The Soul's Journey ll, Tom Jacobs, Dependent Origination in Plain English, by Bhante Gunaratana and Veronique Ziegler, Impermanence in Plain English, by Bhante Gunartana and Julia Harris. The Heart a Flowing Stream, Thānissaro Bhikku, If I must Die, Refaat Alareer, The Message, Ta-Nehisi Coates. All book links, except for Tom Jacobs (only available on Amazon ...), are linked to Powell's City of Books.