Burgs Podcast

Following on from the last episode, Burgs explores the themes of vitality, karma and stress.  The quality of your mind has a very significant impact on the quality of your life – much more so than what you eat, for example.  When you are meditating, it is the attitude you bring to it which can bring the most coherence and transformation.  When its not going well, rather than worrying, it is an opp...

What is the mechanism by which the state of our mind impacts our health?  There are four causes for the arising of material states; temperature, nutriment, consciousness and karma / action energy.  It is the subtle materiality (consciousness and karma) which allows life to be expressed through us in all its extraordinary ways.  In meditation, we can refine our karma and what prompts us to act. In...

We have tendency in a materialistic culture to take the Dharma into our mind at an intellectual level but we have to put the Buddha’s teachings into the context of the deeply spiritual culture within which he taught.  There was an inherent sense of being connected to something sacred in his day and this was woven into the architecture of people’s minds. Through practice, we recognise that this is...

Happiness arises when you chose to accept yourself to be what you are without any judgement.  It’s important to find a sense of loving kindness for yourself.  This is what will help you to let go.   It is a loving surrender, free from aversion, and finding forgiveness for yourself and others. On the path, love and insight need to mature in equal measure; generating a wholesome quality to our mind....

There is a current of vital force running through you.  Vitality is partly generated from the volition or desire that we bring to our actions.  There is also the vitality of our spirit – the current of life that is driving you which is not personal.  When you shut down, you choke the spirit that makes your feel alive.  To be fully, powerfully alive is to reclaim every aspect of yourself with full...

Your soul is something that is inherent in you and is deeply conditioned by everything you have experienced.  It feels like something that is fundamentally “me” which we can break down and dismantle.  We might experience a fractured or broken part of our soul which we are disconnected from.  The way to fill that hole is to be with the experiences in the past that we were unwilling to be with. This...

The 10 paramis are qualities of our character identified by the Buddha that act as wholesome support to our mind on the path out of suffering. Once these qualities come to perfection in us, we make very swift progress. Burgs explores each one of the paramis: generosity, virtue, truthfulness, renunciation, patience, vitality / energy, determination, lovingkindness, wisdom and equanimity. By refinin...

The Dharma is a transmission of an experience of reality which frees us from suffering.  It is about the transformation of our hearts, not our ideas. A devotional attitude helps us to get beyond ourselves and our limiting ideas of who we think we are.  When we surmount our pride, our heart opens and we can come into resonance with a higher consciousness.   

When we are deeply moved by something, such as music, art or nature, it switches on a faculty of consciousness that does not involve the mind. It works at a spontaneous level - arising directly through awareness at a non-conceptual level.  We are transported beyond ourselves where the sense of “me” stops arising.  When we clearly see the mechanism behind this process and touch what is truly sacred...

Sleep lies at the centre of our lives but we often miss its importance. In some ways, it can be seen as a doorway to the greatest of all spiritual awakenings – resting deeply in the clear light of awareness (even though we tend not to be conscious of it). Dreaming can be seen as unpackaging our karmic tendencies – similar to the vipassana process – that can be accepted rather than rejected. If you...

Meditation can be a way of life rather than a pallative for stress. There is a significant gap between what we can currently experience at a conscious level and what our true potential is. The spirit of the yogi is a gradual process towards unifying yourself with your experience and ending the sense of seperation, representing one of the greatest and highest endeavors. 

There is a huge disparity between the way we live as human beings and the way we are designed to engage with our experience consciously. The only way we cope is by shutting down so that we cant feel what we are doing to it. We need to wake up to what a human being really is and make changes in our lives to build our spiritual capacity. To do this, we must first transform our character before we tr...

What do our little human lives amount to?  We all have to make choices in relation to the challenges in front of us. Many unwise choices are made due to the belief that there is no intelligent process behind our lives. Our path out of suffering is our way home and a deep connection to the intelligence which holds us. 

In this interview, Burgs suggests that we are at a threshold in human history where it is crucial we make the right decisions in our lives and create a critical mass for change. This time is calling for us to find the best qualities of what it is to be human and become the species that starts to give back. Burgs talks about the courage to step into the unknown, unlearning the culture of consumeris...

In this meditation, we create in our heart a vision for the world as we would like to see it. If we cannot imagine the world we dream of, then it’s not going to happen. What are you going to change? Where are you going to find courage? What would you like to see happen in your life and in the world around you? We all want to see the world be a beautiful place, it’s what we long for. May we all do...

Are you able to switch off and drop the things that worry you?  How can you be a more relaxed person and get into a deeply settled state? You might have tried yoga or meditation but perhaps have not made an agreement with yourself to actually be more relaxed.  Burgs explores letting go our sense of control, trusting the power of life, dialling out of stress, changing our habit patterns and reconfi...

We can often feel that something is missing in our lives and run around looking for something that will give us meaning. That search can go on for our whole life. However, when we get in touch with the deepest part of our heart we know that there is nothing lacking. That is why we must do whatever we can to overcome numbness, reclaim our capacity to feel and nourish our connection to the sacred. W...

The choices we make this year are going to determine the direction of our lives and the lives of future generations. Life has changed dramatically in the last two years. It will never be the same again. But how will it be different?  How can the choices we make lead to the growth in humanity? And what is the direction you want to take in your life?  Now is the time to put conviction behind your be...

Life is an extraordinary mystery and the deeper existential questions are not answered sufficiently by science. Through deep yogic practice we can polish the mind and as this lens becomes more and more refined, fundamental spiritual truths are revealed in stages. The Buddha asks us not to subscribe to views but to see for ourselves what is true through practice. Dharma is a living universal truth...

If we test positive for covid-19, we are cast into a journey which we know can go a number of ways. Burgs shares his experience of having the virus with the impact not just on the physical body but also the subtle energetic body. By undertaking a digital detox and resting, he found that the virus was causing absolute turbulence in his body, and yet his mind was in a deep state of peace. The experi...

Giving back starts with each one of us doing the inner work to realise our reals needs are far less than our perceived needs are.  Living simply is not a sacrifice but a relief. And this opens our heart so that we feel more connected to the people around us and all of life.  Delight in what you have to give and find peace in your life. From little acorns come mighty oaks. If you keep walking in th...

We are living in the most important time in history. We are being asked to bring about a total paradigm shift in what it means to be a human being. How can we be the generation to turn it all around?  How can we give back more than we take out? We are using up our good fortune and the only way to accumulate it again is to create merit and give something back – both for ourselves, the planet and fu...

Why do we find it so hard to accept certain things?  When we find it challenging to accept something, it is usually wrapped up in our idea of ourselves and how we think the world should be. A big part of acceptance is yielding on our position and to the way things are. Experiencing grief can be a healthy response to losing someone we love and can also be unhealthy – how can we love unconditionally...

Keeping fear packaged up inside us ties up a lot of our energy.  It takes courage to turn this into something positive. What lies behind the fear we are holding onto? At the deepest part of ourselves is the fear of our existential annihilation. We can overcome this by gradually developing a relationship with what remains when our ego passes; the love which is the ground of our being. 

Upholding a complex life that is both expensive and difficult to mange vexes us to the point that we don’t experience joy.  The path out of suffering is a gradual path of negotiation with ourselves, looking at which the degree to which we are attached to things that cause suffering and our willingness to let these go. If we are in conflict with letting go, then we are not ready to do so. It is a c...