Do you want to make personal changes? If so, then you must learn how to have ahas.

All Personal Changes Start in the Heart

In 1986, concerned friends encouraged me to try vipassanā meditation. I’d been feeling drained, hopeless, and desperate and didn’t want to go on medication. At first, sitting still for five minutes felt excruciating to my racing mind. Leg cramps and back pain made it even harder. Gradually, though, these quiet moments turned into sanctuary—twenty minutes, half an hour, an hour at a time. In warmer weather, I even began to meditate on a small mountain near my home. There among the hawks and pines I extended my spiritual practice to include the climb itself. Eventually, I even committed to learning to ascend and descend the steep rock faces with no hands. Being that one fall could have easily killed me, I quickly felt my focus improve.

Gradually then I fell in love with the beautiful stillness of the quiet mind—as well as with orangy-sunshine images on my closed eyelids. Ten years later, in August, 1996, I had my first original idea; that startles cause wounding. A month later, I had the first purposely-chosen aha of my life.