Insights for September 2015
Japanese Garden, Margaret Gervais
Awakening:
“If you want to be controlled by your mind, try to control your mind.”
“...we are taught to follow this other authority in us – don’t do this and the expense of trusting yourself.”
"When are you in harmony with your reality?”
“If you want to transcend body and mind, do it in mediation.”
“When you get really worked up its your body telling you its not working. Illusion doesn’t feel good.”
“The more conscious you get the more you can’t get away with illusion.”
“The grace periods are shorter and shorter for the illusions.”
“The more conscious you get the more sensitive you become.”
“It’s a non-conceptual way to align yourself.”
"Very few things survive the 5 second rule. Does it exist if for 5 seconds you don’t think about it?”
“95% of stuff in our mind does not exist if we do not think about it. It's all an abstraction in your mind and it just disappears.”
“This is why some people have a hard time being quiet – they are afraid to not be in their thoughts.” Adyashanti, Portland Intensive, 3.21.15
"[T]he ego has to be first accepted as though it is a reality in order to be dealt with before it can be transcended. At the higher levels, the ego is seen to be an illusion, without any innate reality."Dr. David Hawkins, I: Reality and Subjectivity“Receiving is a powerful – and intimate – practice, for we are actually inviting another person into ourselves. Rather than focusing on our own practice, or on our own virtue, we can focus on providing an opportunity for someone else to develop generosity…That moment itself is unsullied. For that reason it is said that generosity is the discipline that produces peace.” Judith Lied, The Power of Receiving.
“Each thing is actually the fundamental reality, and each thing has infinite worth. Each particular being has unimaginable worth and beauty, because that’s how the totality is showing up.” Adyashanti
Astrology:"
..all of us have access to far memory, that we can remember everything and anything, and that Uranus points to that process..." Mark Jones, "The Soul Speaks", page 174.
Meditation:
“Remember to follow the basics for each meditation. Each step matters to bring you inward, start relaxing and to awaken consciousness:
1. sit straight, eyes and mouth closed,
2. take one deep breath and let it out,
3. take three deep breaths and let it out,
4. scan your body to bring your awareness internally, and release any tension,
5. separate 10% of your consciousness as the watcher,
6. bring your attention to your breath, the inhale and exhale,
7. when thoughts arise, let them drift away like clouds, no judgment,
8. no mantra, no counting,
9. return repeatedly to the breath. These steps create a ritual/habit and are reminders to you each meditation to slow down and be mindful.” Margaret Gervais
I love what Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember write about the witness, or the watcher, in meditation. Beautiful. "The witness is your leverage in the game. The witness me isn’t trying to change any of the other me’s. It’s not an evaluator or a judge; it’s not the superego. It doesn’t care about anything. It just observes. “Hmmm, there she or he is doing that again.” That witness place inside you is your centering device, your rudder.The witness is part of your soul. It’s witnessing your incarnation, this lifetime, from the heart-mind. It’s the beginning of discrimination between your soul and your ego, your real Self and your self in the incarnation. Once you begin to live in this witness place, you begin to shift your identification from the roles and thought forms. As you witness yourself, the process becomes more like watching a movie than being the central character in one." Ram DassHow meditation can help with anxiety: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/How-meditation-can-help-anxiety-6499435.php
Grief:
Death Is a Part of Living Until you realize the fundamental fact that reality is really in the moment, you’re thinking about long-term goals—'when I do this' and 'when I become that'—so you think, I don’t want to die, because then I won’t be able to do all these things. But if you’re living in the present, death becomes a part of living.—Jason Lewis, "An Interview with Jason Lewis"