Insight for June 2024
INSIGHTS TO AWAKEN
“When you are in a huge transition, relinquish and allow. The change needs space to manifest.” The Insight Center
“AS AN EXERCISE, ALLOW yourself to remember that part of the larger stream of life - that the pains you are experiencing are not yours alone to be hidden as if they are shameful but part of "the" pain, our collective human pain, the pain of loss or rejection or not getting what you want. This experience reminds us that life isn't asking us to be superheroes, swooping in to perform great deeds. It is asking us to join in, to be available, to bear witness to what is happening and respond as kindly and wisely as we can in any given moment.” Tracy Cochran.
“The Truth is the only thing you'll ever run into that has no agenda. Everything else will have an agenda. Everything. That is why the Truth is so powerful. Give up your agendas and continue to expose yourself, and harmonization will naturally occur.” Adyashanti
“I only know what I know in the moment and there is freedom in not knowing.” The Insight Center
“In a real sense, self-inquiry is a spiritually induced form of winter-time. It's not about looking for a right answer so much as stripping away and letting you see what is not necessary, what you can do with-out, what you are without your leaves. In human beings, we do not call these leaves. We call them ideas, concepts, attachments, and con-ditioning. All of this forms your identity. Wouldn't it be terrible if the trees outside identified themselves by their leaves? These are very flimsy things to be attached to.” Adyashanti
VIPASSANĀ MEDITATION AND BUDDHISM
“… engaged practice carries the medicine.” Haley Barker
Samatha (Concentration meditation) means quiescence. Quiescence is the state or quality of being in repose (freedom from worry; peace of mind) or at rest.
“Meditation practice helps us relinquish old painful habits. It challenges our assumptions about whether or not we deserve happiness. It also ignites a very potent energy in us. With a strong foundation in how we practice meditation, we can begin to live in a way that enables us to respect ourselves, to be calm rather than anxious, and offer caring attention to others instead of being held back by notions of separation.” Sharon Salzberg
“In this very moment if you say, ‘Am I practicing in order to get enlightened?’ the answer is yes. But that sounds stupid to me. The process of liberation is right now. Anyone who has practiced for a while knows there are dramatic openings—that “Wow!” where you see things very clearly. It helps a lot when you have that. But throughout any ordinary day there are so many small ways where, if you pay attention, you can see how you’re suffering unnecessarily. Awareness sees it and in the seeing of it, there’s letting go and you’ve liberated yourself. So liberation isn’t just a goal. It’s actually a practice. You are liberating yourself in this moment—and that’s all we’ll ever have, these moments. If you have even a little glimpse of clear mind, or that in us which is untouched by any kind of cultural conditioning, it’s hard to settle for anything less.”
Larry Rosenberg, "The Art of Doing Nothing"
"Wisdom arises through the simple act of giving someone or something your full attention. Attention is primordial intelligence, consciousness itself. It joins the perceiver and the perceived in a unifying field of awareness. It is the healer of separation.” Eckhart Tolle
“We have to stop clinging to the conditioned path and learn to be open to the unconditioned path.” Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Tricycle, winter, 2009.
ASTROLOGY
“Astrology: whenever you are about to make a decision, please consider three astrological placements. 1. Natal Pluto. Power and transformation in this lifetime. 2. Progressed Sun and lunar phase. Evolving self and stage of your evolution now. 3. Pluto in transit. Where is the power and transformation happening now. Also consider all with aspects.” The Insight Center
This is important, and I know that most people will need an astrologer to help them see and understand these placements. This is what professional astrologers do! Contact me.
“All gaseous giants over the next few years, either sextile or trine Pluto in Aquarius. Saturn and Neptune will sextile Pluto from Aries. Jupiter and Uranus trine Pluto from Gemini. If there was ever a time for humankind to become fraught with kind humans, this shall be it.” Philip
Sedgwick
On May 31, Jupiter went into the sign of Gemini (for a year):
Jupiter is the planet of: trust, expansive, optimistic, believe, abundant, philosophical, successful, maximize talent.
Into Gemini is the sign of: talkative, curious, flexible, clever, versatile, imaginative, playful, restless, mischievous, uncommitted.
Where is this happening in your chart and what other planets are affected?
GRIEF
“What’s normal in grief is to feel how you feel, and express how you express, and to not know how to do this. The only rulebook is your own heart.” Megan Devine.
“It is best to try and get used to death every day. We all know it is inevitable so why not face it daily. Say hello and acknowledge that it is right there.“ The Insight Center
RELATIONSHIPS
“WHEN WE ARE ATTACHED to others, we have many expectations of them and don't see them for who they are. In reality, we are not caring for them; we are caring solely for ourselves. I describe this type of love as fish love. If you say that you love fish, what usually happens? You eat it. So you see, you don't love the fish; you love yourself when you catch it, fillet it, fry it, and eat it.
Therefore, a relationship based on attachment is similar to this fish love. If you have a sense of true love - not fish love - then there is genuine happiness and an opportunity for healthy relationships.” Khenpo Sherab Sangpo
HEALING
“Allow the body to feel what it feels and know what it knows.” The Insight Center
“Our cosmic body encompasses the entire phenomenal world. The wonder that is our human body will disintegrate one day, but we are much more than this human body. We are also the cosmos, which is the foundation of our body. Without the cosmos, the body could not be here.
With the insight of interbeing we can see that there are clouds inside us. There are mountains and rivers, fields and trees. There is sunshine. We are children of light.
We are sons and daughters of the sun and stars. The whole cosmos is coming together to support our body in this very moment. Our little human body contains the entire realm of all phenomena.
We can visualize our human body as a wave, and our cosmic body as all the other waves on the ocean. We can see ourselves in all the other waves and all the other waves in us. We don't need to go looking for our cosmic body outside us. It is right here within us at this very moment.
We are breathing the atmosphere, eating the earth's food, creating new ideas, and experiencing new feelings. And we are emitting energy back into the cosmos, in our thinking, speech, and actions, in our out-breath, in our body's warmth, and in releasing everything we have consumed and digested.
In this very moment many parts of us are returning to the earth.
We don't return to the earth and cosmos only when our body disintegrates. We are already inside the earth, and the earth is inside us.
Our human body is a masterpiece of the cosmos, and when we treasure, respect, and cherish our body, we are treasuring, respecting, and cherishing our cosmic body. When we live in such a way that we take good care of our body, we are taking care of our ancestors, and we are taking care of our cosmic body.” Thich Nhat Hanh