One can describe human endeavour and human effort from the point of view of avoiding suffering and pursuing contentment. It's imperative that we understand that most of the things that people do under the assumption that this will decrease or alleviate this suffering, actually have the opposite effect.

The taste that we ascribe to the world is the taste that we acquire. So if you ascribe to the world sweetness then you acquire sweetness and you are therefore sweet to the taste. If you ascribe to the world bitterness then you acquire bitterness and you are bitter to the taste. Eventually your body...

The meaning and the significance of the hadra is that it is like a shaking loose. It is a shaking loose of the things that normally worry you. It is like letting go of the chains so that you can find out who the being is that is there beyond the chains.

As human beings we have two modalities that we operate in. The one is the modality of witnessing, of observation, of seeing. The second is a modality of acting. These normally oscillate.

Shaykh Ebrahim explores one of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib's qasidas - Fana Fillah (Annihilation in Allah). This is the qasida that has been closest to his heart from Shaykh ibn Al-Habib's diwan of poetry.

As human beings we inhabit structures. We inhabit walls. We put ourselves inside confinements and boxes. These confinements and boxes are in two senses. The walls inside ourselves are carried by our internal dialogue, the self-talk that goes on, on an ongoing basis that leeches attention out of the moment that confronts you. The external...

We have two basic modalities that we exist in as human beings. The one modality which is the predominant modality for most people is that they function under the assumption that they exist separately from and somehow contra-distinct to the world. The other modality is that you recognize that you are not separate from the...

The odds of annihilation are far more probable than the odds of continuity, of going-on. If one took into account all of the things that could conceivably go wrong, that could kill you, right now, you're very quickly presented with an almost incalculably vast range of possibilities.

Everything has a courtesy to it and you can define the courtesy as the rules that are concerned with the quality of what you are doing rather than the outcome of what you are trying to achieve. So it’s the rule whereby you give attention to the process rather than the outcome, what you are...

The immediate benefit of hadra is twofold. The one is the silencing of internal dialogue and the second is the shifting of attention or if you like the assemblage point of attention from behind your eyeballs to behind your solar plexus. These are the two immediate physiological attributes of a good hadra. That's what hadra...