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Joan Tollifson Books

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“I talked to my friend Frank on the phone that evening. Frank used to live in Vermont and would come to Springwater occasionally for retreats, and then he moved out to California to be a cook, which is where I met him. “I was at work chopping onions yesterday,” he says, “and suddenly I was filled with sadness … because here I am, I’ve got my dream, exactly what I wanted, I’m working at the restaurant I wanted to be at, I have a terrific place to live, and suddenly I was really sad because now I just have to chop the onions, you know?” Isn’t that exactly it? Chopping the onions.”

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Book:Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life
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“So I’ve held on to Catholicism or Zen, as practices, as fantasy futures, as possible identities. But when I actually dare to lower myself down into this emptiness—no, that sounds entirely too dualistic and willful and “courageous”—but when this seeing suddenly happens and thought relaxes, Zen drops completely away, and something much deeper is contacted, some entirely other way of being.”

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Book:Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life
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“We want the black-and-white picture, someone to blame. So we blame George Bush or Saddam Hussein, or black people or white people, or capitalism or communism, or the left or the right, or human nature, but reality is something else altogether. I could be any of those people. None of their behavior is anything I haven’t—on some scale—done myself. If you see that, and any real meditation work will reveal it to you beyond the shadow of a doubt, then you cannot possibly imagine that there is a “solution” to be found in fixing blame.”

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Book:Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life
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“Rather than trying to paper over our suffering with comforting beliefs, this approach is about actually exploring directly what seems to be in the way of freedom, peace and happiness, what seems scary, dreadful and unbearable. It's one thing to believe that the tiger chasing you is only a mirage, and it's another thing entirely to actually turn around and embrace the tiger and find out for sure.”

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Book:Nothing to Grasp
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“Unlike seeking, which is result-oriented and rooted in a sense of dissatisfaction and incompleteness, this kind of meditative inquiry is rooted in curiosity, interest and love. Much as a lover explores the beloved, this nondual, nonconceptual inquiry is an act of love and devotion. Much as a child explores the world with open curiosity and wonder, this kind of inquiry is a form of play and self-discovery.”

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Book:Nothing to Grasp
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“Habit has two parts, Toni [Packer] says. There is the habit itself (finger biting, smoking, drinking, whatever), and there is the observer who wants to stop, who is also a habit. And there is the conflict, the battle between the desire to indulge, which is an escape from what is, and the desire to stop, which is also a movement away from what is.”

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Book:Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life
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“So there are different experiences – every individual has a completely unique experience. But it is all one energy, one whole seeing, one whole being. Unicity is all there is, and unicity does not belong to me or you. We belong to it. It is what “we” are.”

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Book:Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogs About Nonduality
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“We know in our deepest heart of hearts that unconditional love is somehow more true – more fundamental, more real, more radical (at the root) – than hate, which always seems to be confused, deluded, reactive, divisive and false. Love breeds love, and hate breeds hate. We all experience this.”

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Book:Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogs About Nonduality
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“The concentration of a baby is alive wonderment. It is to that kind of organic interest, or passion, and awareness that Toni [Packer] seems to be pointing: listening that is not rote or methodical in any way. The baby has no sense yet of self-image, of itself as an object—a person—who needs to be improved, and Toni will question any meditation practice that contributes to such a picture.”

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Book:Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life
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