Journal

3/3/16 3/3/16

Insights for February 2016

Awakening:“Waiting is a necessary ingredient to the recipe of success. While you wait know that the waiting will end and the needed nourishment will come. Impatience shows weakness and a lack of belief. Fate is at hand. Have now the inner strength to roll with fate and bide your time. This action allows all elements to align in perfect order.Waiting with grace and dignity is not something that has been part of our learning process. One of the most difficult aspects of the human condition is waiting. When we conceive a project or enter a relationship we get a glimpse of our desired outcome. Much time is spent making plans and doing the footwork to bring about success. Then, for no obvious reason, the movement toward our goal is stopped or put on hold. This brings frustration and angst. It is precisely at that moment that you will benefit from understanding and thus make a relationship with the concept of waiting. In business be confident of success and be open to change. If you are in a worrisome relationship, be patient it will improve by growing or changing. If you are not in a relationship know that it will come in its own time as you, in your crouching post of ouch cat like waiting, follow your heart to letting go so change will seem like a holiday.The elements to embrace while waiting Dignity Integrity Compassion and Kindness Xu advises us to eat, drink, and be merry during the time of waiting. Waiting is not time wasted. Make it a ceremonial time, a time to look inward. Quiet the inner analytical voice of doubt and laugh at negative thoughts and change inner voices of doubt and fear to words of love and correctness. This makes way for the change, the nourishment, to arrive.” www.theichingweekly.com

“Half of the practice of spiritual inquiry is to take you to silence instantly. When you inquire, ‘Who am I?’ if you are honest, you’ll notice that it takes you right back to silence instantly. The brain doesn’t have the answer, so all of a sudden there is silence. The question is meant to take you to that state of silence that is not manufactured, where thinking or searching for the right emotional experience fails.” ~ Adyashanti"

When fascination with the me dissolves, when it simply no longer holds center stage in your awareness, then all that remains in the absence of the me is revealed." ~ Adyashanti

"The benefit now comes by achieving stillness and setting all distractions aside and focus on opening to the distillation of your truth." Bobby Klein,www.theichingweekly.com

"The true sense of equanimity is not that the emotions go way, but that when we meet any emotion, we find that we have the capability to be with it - without being afraid of running away, or without letting it force us to do foolish things." Guy Armstrong, "21st Century Buddhists in Conversation", page 76.

"The karmic results of thought arising and of punching somebody in the nose are different. The resulting stress and the resulting disturbance [karma] are much greater if you act it out [act out your thoughts of anger]. It's very important for us to notice there's no way we can act without experiencing a result [karma]. When we become very clear about that, it helps temper our actions." Zenkei Blanche Hartman, "21st Century Buddhists in Conversation", page 76.

"First rule: listen to your inner voice. Second rule: be honest with yourself. The predicament is that you listen to your inner voice, and it leads you to a path, and then you outgrow it. And you don’t want to admit that you’ve outgrown it, because you’ve made a big investment in it. But you must be willing to let go, to stand as naked as a newborn child, again and again and again." Ram Daas

"When you question, 'Why the hell is this happening to me?’ sit with it as long as it takes, as if the process is compost. Turn it over and over and add some water. Sit with it and eventually the chaos transforms to rich soil and sprouts of new growth start to form - and there is your answer." Margaret Gervais

Meditation:

“In meditation, you are not trying to make anything happen. You are creating a ground of availability for meditation to occur. Check right now if there is any old programming or idea that reinforces that meditation is a kind of doing or striving. Let them go.” Adyashanti

“The art of meditation is when you do get lost in thoughts or feelings and you bring yourself back to your breath. You come back without judgment or commentary. You simply return. The more simple the better.” Adyashanti

Happiness: altruism, inner strength, inner freedom and resilience. All accrued through meditation practice. "I think happiness is basically just a cluster of the fundamental human qualities. Altruism is one of the key ones, and also inner strength, inner freedom, resilience. This kind of happiness is a way of being, and the more you experience it, the more it deepens. You can cultivate it."

We have the potential to cultivate focused attention, emotional balance, altruism and compassion. The great discovery of neuroplasticity is that through exposure to novel experiences and training, you can change. That's what practicing meditation does." Matthieu Ricard, " Put Your Compassion Into Action," Lions Roar, March 2016, pg. 60.

"Sitting in quiet and stillness and just being in a state of openness gives you a clear opportunity to watch what happens internally when you stop judging your experiences, when you stop judging your mind for being busy, or you stop judging yourself for having a particular feeling. You don't try to get rid of the feeling. You don't try to get rid of the mind. You just let go of your judgment. You let go of trying to control the moment. For a while, you surrender into what is." Adyashanti

Healing:"

Imagine for a moment, the cells in your body are able to react and respond to your emotional choices; they do so by communicating with each other; love invites communication and awareness, fear/anger repels dialogue creating confusion and distortion, often causing damage and or separation on a cellular level. I invite you to focus upon what brings you joy in your life, let your whole body drink in that peace. Do so for 10 minutes every evening before bed for seven days. Your cellular body will thank you by producing the outcome of wellbeing and empowerment from within. The sky's the limit when you invite love back in.not to mention your own body's ability to repair itself!" Cynthia Slon https://cynthiaslonblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/love-invitesfear-repels/

Relationships:“Your days pass like rainbows, like a flash of lightning, like a star at dawn. Your life is short. How can you quarrel?” ~Buddha

2/5/16 2/5/16

Insights for January 2016

Awakening:

“Perfectionism is our most compulsive way of keeping ourselves small, a kind of psychoemotional contortionism that gives the illusion of reaching for greatness while constricting us into increasingly suffocating smallness.” Ursula K. Le Guin, “Dogs, Cats, and Dancers: Thoughts about Beauty,” in "The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination"

"True maturation on the spiritual path requires that we discover the depth of our wounds." Jack Kornfield

"What is your perception of truth? We all see truth and know truth through our own lens, heart and soul." Margaret Gervais

"Psychology takes the approach of fixing an emotional problem in order to make the person functional again. That may be the goal of a society or a culture, but that is not necessarily the goal of a wisdom tradition. Anybody who has been in any tradition of depth has noticed that people who have what look like psychological emotions might be taking a positive stop toward disassembling their old way of being, so that a new, greater possibility can come through. If you're always fussing at and fixing your mind, you don't get that journey.There's also a kind of voluptuousness about what's given b the psyche, which at some level is what's given us by the universe. We can take the ride and see what discovery is happening. Not a thrill ride, but more of a quest. The problem is not the emotion; the problem is being at war with the emotion or acting out the emotion." John Tarrant, "21st Century Buddhists in Conversation", page 41.

“The second lesson of karma is that just as you’re the primary architect of your own happiness and suffering, other people are the primary architect of theirs. If you really want them to be happy, you don’t just treat them nicely. You also want to them learn how to create the causes for happiness.” Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “Head & Heart Together”

“If you treat your mind like a trash can, don’t be surprised when you reach for a thought and all you get is garbage.” Zero Dean

Meditation:

"When concentration is strong enough, we slip below the waves of ordinary senses to a deep, silent realm. Here consciousness is filled with stillness, rapture, happiness and a steady awareness. Entering states of absorption, we feel like a scuba diver going from the wind-blown surface of the ocean to the silent depths below. Absorption states are discrete worlds of inner experience, each more silent and refined that the one before it. They are characterized by unwavering steadiness, purity, radiance and happiness." Jack Kornfield"As we progress along the path of meditation, the key point becomes developing a stillness in which we find freedom from the disturbing elements of emotions." Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, "21st Century Buddhists in Conversation", page 5.

Healing:

On HEALING, and Seeds from our Ancestors: "If we're aware of the habit energies in us, we can transform not only ourselves but also our ancestors who planted the seeds.Whatever kind of action we take, if we look deeply into it, we'll be able to recognize the seed of that action. That seed may come from our ancestors. Whatever action we take, our ancestors are taking it at the same time with us. So father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are doing it with you; mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother are doing it with you. Our ancestors are there in every cell of our body. There are seeds that are planted during your lifetime, but there are also seeds that were planted before you manifested as this body.Sometimes we act without intention, but that is also action. ‘Habit energy’ is pushing us; it pushes us to do things without our being aware. Sometimes we do something without knowing we are doing it. Even when we don't want to do something, we still do it. Sometimes we say, 'I didn't want to do it, but it's stronger than me, it pushed me.' So that is a seed, a habit energy, that may have come from many generations in the past.We have inherited a lot. With mindfulness, we can become aware of the habit energy that has been passed down to us. We might see that our parents or grandparents were also very weak in ways similar to us. We can be aware without judgment that our negative habits come from those ancestral roots. We can smile at our shortcomings, at our habit energy. With awareness, we have a choice; we can act another way. We can end the cycle of suffering right now." Thich Nhat Hanh, "Reconciliation", Parallax Press

"...it’s possible for information to be inherited biologically through our DNA. More specifically, their research shows that behavior can be affected by events in previous generations which have been passed on through a form of genetic memory." http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/11/12/researchers-discover-that-memories-can-be-passed-down-through-changes-in-our-dna/What can we do with a sudden strong upsurge of emotion? "One of the first things to do is notice the "add-ons." There's the rising of the emotion, which is its own state, but on top of that we add a future. Or we add a reaction, like shame or exaggeration. Or perhaps we add comparison, by holding ourselves up to an ideal we're not attaining. So probably the first thing to do is to release some of those add-ons, so we can come back to the original experience. Then we can maybe let ourselves be with the basic emotion in as mindful a way as possible. That will open up a little space, and in that space, we can see option." Sharon Salzberg, "21st Century Buddhists in Conversation", page 48.

1/6/16 1/6/16

Insights for December 2015

Awakening:

“If you push away anything, anything at all, you are not free.” Ram Dass

“The point is to relax and rest in the reality of the present.” Jack Kornfield.

"Finding a teacher is like falling in love: you can't make it happen but you'll know when it does. Whether you call it serendipity, auspiciousness or karma, trust it will happen when the moment is right." Shambhala Sun, January 2016, page 35.

"It is only through thousands upon thousands of births, awakening a little each time, that you become what you are." Ram Dass

Healing:

"If we're aware of the habit energies in us, we can transform not only ourselves but also our ancestors who planted the seeds.""Whatever kind of action we take, if we look deeply into it, we'll be able to recognize the seed of that action. That seed may come from our ancestors. Whatever action we take, our ancestors are taking it at the same time with us. So father, grandfather, and great-grandfather are doing it with you; mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother are doing it with you. Our ancestors are there in every cell of our body. There are seeds that are planted during your lifetime, but there are also seeds that were planted before you manifested as this body."

"Sometimes we act without intention, but that is also action. "Habit energy" is pushing us; it pushes us to do things without our being aware. Sometimes we do something without knowing we are doing it. Even when we don't want to do something, we still do it. Sometimes we say, 'I didn't want to do it, but it's stronger than me, it pushed me.' So that is a seed, a habit energy, that may have come from many generations in the past."We have inherited a lot. With mindfulness, we can become aware of the habit energy that has been passed down to us. We might see that our parents or grandparents were also very weak in ways similar to us. We can be aware without judgment that our negative habits come from those ancestral roots. We can smile at our shortcomings, at our habit energy. With awareness, we have a choice; we can act another way. We can end the cycle of suffering right now." Thich Nhat Hanh, "Reconciliation", Parallax PressTop of Form

Meditation:"There are endless reasons not to meditate, most of them legit. But if you do it anyway, says Karen Maesen Miller, something changes." Shambhala Sun, January 2016, page 27.[As attained and accrued during meditation] "The energy of mindfulness will heal the wounded child in us." Thich Nhat Hanh, "Reconciliation", Parallax Press

Relationships:"Try it in small ways. Don’t pick the most challenging relationship you have. Take responsibility for yourself, listen from a loving clarity, choose to value being loving and understanding rather than being loved and understood. Say what is true for you and allow others to say what is true for them. This is what it means to remain loving but also remain true, honest, and real." Adyashanti, The Way of Liberating Insight

Strong Emotions: "During a storm of emotion, leave the head and heart, which are like the top of the tree, and come back to the trunk."“A strong emotion is like a storm. If you look at a tree in a storm, the top of the tree seems fragile, like it might break at any moment. You are afraid the storm might uproot the tree. But if you turn your attention to the trunk of the tree, you realize that its roots are deeply anchored in the ground, and you see that the tree will be able to hold.You too are a tree. During a storm of emotion, you should not stay at the level of the head or the heart, which are like the top of the tree. You have to leave the heart, the eye of the storm, and come back to the trunk of the tree. Your trunk is one centimeter below your navel. Focus there, paying attention only to the movement of your abdomen, and continue to breathe. Then you will survive the storm of strong emotion.You should not wait for emotion to appear before you begin practicing. Otherwise you will be carried away by the storm. You should train now, while the emotion is not here. So sit or lie down and practice mindfulness of the breath, using the movement of your abdomen as the object of your attention. I am positive that if you do this exercise for twenty days, ten minutes per day, then you will know how to practice whenever a strong emotion comes up. After ten or twenty minutes, the emotion will go away, and you will be saved from the storm.” Thich Nhat Hanh, “You are Here,” Shambhala.

12/8/15 12/8/15

Insights for November 2015

Awakening:

“Don’t listen to those who stir you up. Don’t listen to others who put you to sleep. Respect them all. Thank them all. Then remember, there is a bird singing only you can hear.” Jack Kornfield“This one moment — Now — is the only thing you can never escape from, the one constant factor in your life. No matter what happens, no matter how much your life changes, one thing is certain: it’s always Now.” Eckhart Tolle

“Nobody is making you feel what you’re feeling. Nobody has the power to make you feel something negative emotionally. Your reactions are caused by how you interpret any situation. This is so important because it means that you ultimately become your own resource of emotional freedom and truth.” Adyashanti, The Way of Liberating Insight

“Inside you are a thousand generations of your ancestors, who learned how to survive difficulties. Do not be afraid, you too will find your way: Jack Kornfield“Actions conditioned by greed, hatred, and delusion bring a heavy burden of suffering. On the other hand, actions conditioned by generosity, lovingkindness, and wisdom lead to a light and happy sense of well-being. Simple as that. Vaddhaka Linn, “Does Self-Help Help?”

“The ‘positive’ already contains within itself the yet manifested ‘negative.” Eckhart Tolle

"Feeling good is not the point - it's being connected so that the highs and lows don't matter. You spend less time at the mercy of all those heavy negative thoughts." - Krishna Das

"What is common to all forms is not another form. What is common to all forms, is choiceless awareness, it is pure love, it is flow and harmony with the universe. It is the absence of clinging. How does it all come together? If you follow all of the forms to the appex, you are pushed beyond form and into the moment. The passing show of forms, being created and existing then disappearing into formlessness." Ram Dass

“Our mind is a treasure. But it ‘s very absorbent, so we must also be very discriminating in what we hear, read, and see. And in the spiritual like, our fence is our ethics. If we know we are living ethically to the best of our ability, the mind will become peaceful. We will attract the same kinds of people we really are. If we have a mind full of defilements, we will attract that to us. Therefore we have to purify our mental state, because whatever is within we will project out. You bring people toward you by your work and by karma. You have to be ready, when someone of a higher level is in front of you, to meet them. You do this by connecting to your source. Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Tricycle, Winter 2009“Purity of view is a gateway to greater insight and even deeper levels of happiness. The momentum of mindfulness becomes so strong that the perception of phenomenon arising and passing away becomes crystal clear. Concentration and awareness are effortless. The mind becomes luminous. We experience precise, clear insight into the nature of things. It is our first taste of coming home. We have rapture and gratitude.” Joseph Goldstein, Tricycle F’05 posted 11.15

“Sometimes bearing witness is one of the hardest things we do.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“Part of being alive is sharing the humanity of pain.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“Sometime bravery needs to show up for you to take your next steps.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“If you’re really mad at someone, are they pushing your button? If not, would you mind? So what is the button, and how can you let it go?” Margaret Gervais The Insight Center

“We all have drama, the point is to do your drama well.” Alan Watts.

“How can you be your narrative, when your narrative is constantly changing?” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

Meditation:

I'm not a fan of meditation apps. I'm a fan of turning your phone off, leaving it in another room, and meditating. ‪#‎phonefreemeditation Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“Life a sandcastle, all is temporary. Build it, tend it, enjoy it. And when the time comes let it go.” Jack Kornfield

“If I can’t stop thinking, maybe I can just let my thoughts go by without getting all caught up in them. Feel the breeze on your face or your neck? See how it’s going by? You’re not all hung up with it. You don’t have to see where each breeze goes. You don’t have to look quickly to see if it hit those trees over there. It’s breezes, and they’re just going by. Make your thoughts like those breezes, those little breezes…just going by." Ram Dass

"It is an unfolding process; thoughts with thinker, sensory without body, experience without self." Noah Levine

"Liberated mind is the mind that does not cling to anything." Joseph Goldstein

“The middle path is living a life at a ‘5’ and not a ‘1’ or a ‘10’.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

“It is important to remember, on the path to awakening, that there is gravity. You will progress along the path, and then you will fall and or crash and burn. At these points, maintain your practice, let the fall cycle out and you will rise again onto the path.” Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center

Grief:

An animated short film by Alan Watts, on death: https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/10/31/alan-watts-on-death/

11/4/15 11/4/15

Insights for October 2015

Awakening:

"Be at peace with imperfection." Margaret Gervais

"Never doubt that the universe has a wicked sense of humor. It is to keep you on your toes and make sure you have the ability to laugh at yourself, the self you often take so bloody seriously." Bobby Klein, l Ching Weekly for October, www.theichingweekly.com

"Any human being who does not wish to be part of the masses need only stop making things easy for himself. Let him follow his conscience, which calls out to him: "Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring, all that is not you."Every young soul hears this call by day and by night and shudders with excitement at the premonition of that degree of happiness which eternities have prepared for those who will give thought to their true liberation. There is no way to help any soul attain this happiness, however, so long as it remains shackled with the chains of opinion and fear. And how hopeless and meaningless life can become without such a liberation! There is no drearier, sorrier creature in nature than the man who has evaded his own genius and who squints now towards the right, now towards the left, now backwards, now in any direction whatever." Schopenhauer as Educator: Nietzsche's Third Untimely Meditation Paperback – November 25, 2014, by Friedrich Nietzsche."What if you took the drama out of your story?"

#‎middlepath Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center, October 2015.

"Remove the drama from your story. Drama fuels anxiety and is not helpful. Every time drama arises, notice it, and let it go. Do this over and over and over to retrain your mind. Choose a calm rational response instead. Remind yourself to choose a calm rational response and your mind will be retrained toward calm rational responses. If you need help knowing what a calm rational response is, recruit a calm rational friend/person into your life to mirror this response for you. This will not make you a person without passion. Passion will still arise, it can and will arise without drama and you will response in a rational manner in order to take action and calmly manage your life." Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center, October 2015.

"Ask yourself why you are participating in their drama." Margaret Gervais, The Insight Center, October 2015.

"That peace is not something we get by becoming anything. Instead it happens by letting go, by allowing things to cease. That's why we talk so much about cessation when I'm feeling grumpy, I remember the teaching: "That’s going to change. Don't make it a problem." So I allow myself to be grumpy, which isn't an indulgence in being grumpy or about laying the mood onto the other monks, but nor is it a denial of that grumpiness. It's just recognizing that that which has a nature to arise has a nature to cease; I can awaken to that, and then it does cease. As I realize that more and more, it becomes a path of courage and confidence. There is the confidence to allow these things to be there, to make them fully conscious - to allow fear, anger or whatever else to be fully present." Ajahn VIradhammo, "Don’t Turn Away", page 82.

"Clouds are just temporary; eventually the wind will come along and blow them away." 'On What is Most Important', Khenchen Thrangu on the liberatory verses of the Tibetan Yogi Padampg Sangye, Tricycle, Fall 2015, pg 41.

"Great aims are those aims that all beings share in. So what are they? There are three: 1. To learn about oneself. 2. To resolve the matter of life and death. 3. To save others." Koitsu Yokoyama, 'An Intelligent Life: Buddhist Psychology of Self-Transformation'. Tricycle Fall 2015.

Meditation:

"When the mind gets small, problems get big. When the mind gets big, problems get small." Andrew Holecek, via Spirit Rock Meditation Center."

“Meditation 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 to offer caring attention to others instead of being held back by notions of separation." Sharon Salzberg.

“It is important to emphasize, in discussing the art of meditation (and the practice as you continue it becomes an art, with many subtle nuances), that you shouldn’t start out with some idea of gaining. This is the deepest paradox in all of meditation: we want to get somewhere—we wouldn’t have taken up the practice if we didn’t—but the way to get there is just to be fully here. The way to get from point A to point B is really to be at A. When we follow the breathing in the hope of becoming something better, we are compromising our connection to the present, which is all we ever have. If your breathing is shallow, your mind and body restless, let them be that way, for as long as they need to. Just watch them.The first law of Buddhism is that everything is constantly changing. No one is saying that the breathing should be some particular way all the time. If you find yourself disappointed with your meditation, there’s a good chance that some idea of gaining is present. See that, and let it go. However your practice seems to you, cherish it just the way it is. You may think that you want it to change, but that act of acceptance is in itself a major change.One place where ideas of gaining typically come in, where people get obsessive about the practice, is in the task of staying with the breathing. We take a simple instruction and create a drama of success and failure around it: we’re succeeding when we’re with the breath, failing when we’re not. Actually, the whole process is meditation: being with the breathing, drifting away, seeing that we’ve drifted away, gently coming back. It is extremely important to come back without blame, without judgment, without a feeling of failure. If you have to come back a thousand times in a five-minute period of sitting, just do it. It’s not a problem unless you make it into one.”LARRY ROSENBERG, TRICYCLE BUDDHIST REVIEW

"We practice meditation to stay with this state of mental calm, for a while. And with practice, it is possible to experience inner peace and contentment just by calming the mind. Strong concentration is absolutely necessary for liberating insight. ‘Without a firm basis in concentration,’ Ajaan Fuang often said, ‘insight is just concepts.’ To see clearly the connections between stress [dukkha] and its causes, the mind has to be very steady and still. And to stay still, it requires the strong sense of well-being that only strong concentration can provide." Thanissaro Bhikkhu, "Seeing for Yourself”.

"When we question ego-mind directly, it is exposed for what it is: the absence of everything we believe it to be. We can actually see through this seemingly solid ego-mind, or self. But what are we left with then? We are left with an open, intelligent awareness, unfettered by a self to cherish or protect. This is the primordial wisdom mind of all beings. Relaxing into this discovery is true meditation—and true meditation brings ultimate realization and freedom from suffering." Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche, "Searching for Self" (Tricycle, Summer 2007).

"You don’t need to be an “excellent meditator” to start with. All you need to do is have your heart and mind make the following agreement: “Let’s rest. There’s no reason right now to wander around following thoughts or worrying. Let’s be relaxed and open.” There’s not even any need to shut down your thoughts. Just be there with them, but not overly concerned or engaged.Let there be total openness, and just relax within that." The Relaxed Mind by Dza Kilung Rinpoche http://www.shambhala.com/the-relaxed-mind.html.

10/7/15 10/7/15

Insights for September 2015

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"

9/4/15 9/4/15

Insights for August 2015

Awakening:"...the painful aspects of life, the really hard times, have been my main teachers." Pema Chödrön, "What is the Most Important Thing?" Shambhala Sun, September 2015.

"Carefree is being simple from the inside out."

"There is no need to create something by meditating, no need to achieve something - simply to be very clear, relaxed and bright."

"If you are carefree and open from within, you can fit in anywhere." Tsoknyi RInpoche "Happy and Carefree", Shambhala Sun, July 2015.

"We are all incredibly imperfect." Margaret Gervais, Elk Lake, August 2015

"Although the suffering of loss is triggered by a specific event, the painful emotions of attachment have actually arisen from multiple sources over time, and there may be more of it below the surface than was first expected.Thus, each loss actually represents all loss, for the experience is of loss itself and not just the specific event that brought it to the surface."

"A helpful source of strength during the process out of painful emotions is to identify with all of humanity and realize that suffering is universal to the phenomenon of being human and the evolution of the ego." Dr. David Hawkins, "Transcending the Levels of Consciousness

“When you rest in quietness and your image of yourself fades, and your image of the world fades, and your ideas of others fade, what’s left? A brightness, a radiant emptiness that is simply what you are.”

“The truest and most mature response would be simply to stop, be still, rest, and be taken. It is only the seeker that has absolutely no interest in stopping, but you are not the seeker.”

“To be lost in not knowing is a wonderful place to be. When you’re lost in not knowing, you come to know, but not in the way that you knew before. You come to know as a moment-to-moment experience of being. That’s your knowing. And you know that that is who you really are. You are that ever-unfolding mystery beyond the mind.” Adyashanti

Astrology:

"...the great majority of humanity is carrying at least some form of post-traumatic stress disorder originating solely from their participation in our collective history."

"A stressful aspect in the natal chart [astrology] involving the planet Uranus, and planet in the 11th house or Aquarius reveals a potential trauma signature. This can point to an unhealed event from a prior life held as a wound in the higher mind, expressing as a form of PTSD in the current life."

"...[Mars] symbolizes our individual need for the freedom to perpetually self-discover through the instinctual immediacy of our own experience. Mars symbolizes aggression in service of self: the right to defend our freedom to express our will."

"To be born is to die to our previous state."

"...a commitment to revealing and acknowledging our deepest truth in ongoing soul work, regardless of it's impact on the personal life, is what enable increasing harmony to emerge between our personal desires (Mars) and the intentions of the soul (Pluto)."

"Significant aspects between Mars and Pluto [in one's astrological birth chart] can indicate that current life is one in which soul work will be emphasized. Pluto (will of the soul) is impacting (aspecting) the personal will (Mars) in order to bring about transformation." Mark Jones, "The Soul Speaks".

Relationships:

“After awhile, you come to appreciate that what you can offer another human being is to work on yourself to be a statement of what it is you have found in the way you live your life, and one of the things you have found or will find is the ability to appreciate what is, as it is, in equanimity and compassion and love that isn’t conditional; that is, you don’t love a person more because they are happier the way you think they should be. What you cultivate in yourself is the garden in which they can grow, and you offer your consciousness and the spaciousness to hear it.” Ram Dass

8/4/15 8/4/15

Insights for July 2015

Awakening:“The impulse to create begins – often terribly and fearfully – in a tunnel of silence," Adrienne Rich asserted in her spectacular 1997 lecture Arts of the Possible. Brain Pickings

"The future has an ancient heart." Carlo Levi.

"What do you do when you don't know what to do about something?"

"I talk to Mr. Sugar and my friends. I make lists. I attempt to analyze the situation from the perspective of my "best self" - the one that is generous, reasonable, forgiving, loving, big hearted, and grateful. I think really hard about what I'll wish I did a year from now. I map out the consequences of the various actions I could take, I ask myself what my motivations are, what my desires are, what my fears are, what I have to lose, and what I have to gain. I move toward the light even if it a hard direction in which to move. I trust myself. I keep the faith. I mess up sometimes." Tiny Beautiful Things, Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, pg. 215-16, Cheryl Strayed.

"You cannot push the river instead you will swimYou cannot move the mountain it is there for you to climb." theichingweekly.com 7.25.15

"Make time to rest and to play so that you arrive at your destined point refreshed and rested." theichingweekly.com 7.25.15

“After a while, you come to appreciate that what you can offer another human being is to work on yourself to be a statement of what it is you have found in the way you live your life, and one of the things you have found or will find is the ability to appreciate what is, as it is, in equanimity and compassion and love that isn’t conditional; that is, you don’t love a person more because they are happier the way you think they should be.

What you cultivate in yourself is the garden in which they can grow, and you offer your consciousness and the spaciousness to hear it.” Ram Dass

Astrology:Where is the planet Saturn transiting in your chart?

"Saturn transits [in astrology charts] help us to confront our fears and reality, review our attitudes, and then find solutions for the sake of our ongoing stability and survival. The transiting house position shows where most of the work needs to be done.If we don't listen to Saturn, we lose out on this most important lesson: getting to grips with life on a pragmatic level. Over time, Saturn can help us forge ahead with greater strength and more realistic ambitions.""Working with Transits, an In-depth Psychological Approach," Richard Swatton, pg. 39-40, The Mountain Astrologer, June/July 2015.

Where has the Sun progressed in your astrology chart?"The progressed Sun represents strengthening the ego, developing tolerance, and illuminating the self in all its ambiguity.""The Soul's Diary; The Artistry of Secondary Progressions," Brian Clark, Mountain Astrologer, June/July 2015, pg. 49.

Where is the Moon progressed in your astrology chart?"The house that the Moon is progressing through is a personal indicator of the emotional terrain for the next few years. The Moon's progression through the houses suggests what areas in our life need emotional focus and concern.""The Soul's Diary; The Artistry of Secondary Progressions," Brian Clark, Mountain Astrologer, June/July 2015, pg. 50.

Meditation:

"Mindfulness creates some space in your head so you can respond, rather than react."

"Once you've achieved choiceless awareness [through meditation practice], you see clearly how fleeting everything is."

"Ask: “Is this useful?’" Joseph Goldstein

"In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, but in the experts', there are few." ‪#‎meditation theichingweekly.com 7.25.15

“Wisdom grows out of our clear seeing in each moment. Seeing the arising and passing of our experience and how we relate to it. It arises through our gentle and careful inquiry into the workings of the body and mind and through an open inquiry into how this body and mind relate to the whole world around us. For insight to develop, this spirit of observation and deep questioning must be kept in the forefront. We can collect and quiet the mind, but then we must observe, examine, see its way and its laws.”

"Insight meditation is a path of discovery. It is straightforward and direct, with no frills or gimmicks. It is simple, though not easy. Although the forms vary, the genuine practice of insight meditation is this single quest: to establish a foundation of harmonious action, to collect and concentrate the mind and body, and to see the laws of life by our own true, careful, and direct observation. After understanding the way of practice and realizing that meditative life involves this whole process of awakening, there is only one thing left to do. We have to undertake it ourselves." Jack Kornfield http://www.jackkornfield.com/inquiry-observation/

Jack Kornfield on dealing with the difficult emotions that arise in meditation practice:

Choose one of the most frequent and difficult mind states that arise in your practice, such as irritation, fear, boredom, lust, doubt, or restlessness. For one week in your daily sitting be particularly aware each time this state arises. Watch carefully for it. Notice how it begins and what precedes it. Notice if there is a particular thought or image that triggers this state. Notice how long it lasts and when it ends. Notice what state usually follows it. Observe whether it ever arises very slightly or softly. Can you see it as just a whisper in the mind?Continue Reading: http://goo.gl/wcTiox"In stillness find your balance in your days and ride the wave to shore.” theichingweekly.com 7.25.15

Grief:

Jack Kornfield on grief:"When after heavy rain the storm clouds disperse, is it not that they’ve wept themselves clear to the end?” Ghalib

Grief is one of the heart’s natural responses to loss. When we grieve we allow ourselves to feel the truth of our pain, the measure of betrayal or tragedy in our life. By our willingness to mourn, we slowly acknowledge, integrate, and accept the truth of our losses. Sometimes the best way to let go is to grieve.It takes courage to grieve, to honor the pain we carry. We can grieve in tears or in meditative silence, in prayer or in song. In touching the pain of recent and long-held griefs, we come face to face with our genuine human vulnerability, with helplessness and hopelessness. These are the storm clouds of the heart.A Meditation on Grief: http://goo.gl/dVlfP7

Relationships:

"’No.’ is golden. No is the kind of power the good witch wields. It's the way whole, healthy, emotionally evolved people manage to have relationships with jackasses while limiting the amount of jackass in their lives." Tiny Beautiful Things, Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, pg. 190, Cheryl Strayed.

Marriage:

"Sometimes those we forgive continue being the jackasses that they always were and we accept them while keeping them approximately three thousand miles away from our wedding reception." Tiny Beautiful Things, Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, pg. 190, Cheryl Strayed.

7/3/15 7/3/15

Insights for June 2015

Awakening:

“Don’t wait for a guru, your life is your guru.” Krishna Das

“You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy.” Via Elephant Meditation.

“You first need to have an ego in order to be aware that it doesn’t exist.” Matthieu Richard, The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life.

“A soul takes a human birth in order to have a series of experiences through which it will awaken out of its illusion of separateness.” Ram Dass

Take everything that comes your way as a divine teaching and work with it. That way, when someone criticizes you, thank them for allowing you to examine it all over again. That doesn’t mean you have to accept the criticism, just open to it. Let it pour through you and whatever is useful will be there and whatever isn’t will flow down the river. Trust the intuitive process of dealing with the universe rather than applying the intellectual overlay process.” Ram Dass

“The secret is to act well without attachment to the fruits of your action.” Jack Kornfield, Buddhist Psychology Workshop, Seattle, April 2014.

“In fact, it is very difficult to be truly honest with ourselves, especially since we can simultaneously have both positive and negative self images on board and may not recognize the inconsistencies. This is due to the fact that we all wear blinders—a psychological defense that doesn’t allow one part of ourselves to see another part. For example, if we need to see ourselves as nice, we may ignore all of our harmful or self-centered qualities. Or, if we need to see ourselves as unworthy, we’ll ignore all positive data. This is actually quite common.” No One Special To Be, Escaping the Prison of Your Own Self-image, Ezra Bayda, Tricycle, Fall 2014, pg. 36

"Actually it doesn’t really matter whether our identities make sense; what matters is how attached to them we are in are in our need to defend ourselves.” No One Special To Be, Escaping the prison of your own self-image, Ezra Bayda, Tricycle, Fall 2014, pg. 36.

“The point is, most of our stories are self deceptions and that they are partially manufactured sessions of the truth -- truth we adapt in order to feel a particular way. But living out of stories prevents us from living more genuinely.” No One Special To Be, Escaping the prison of your own self-image, Ezra Bayda, Tricycle, Fall 2014, pg. 36.

"Can you be like the wise old karate master and remember that the best karate move is often simply to walk away?" Steven Forrest

Astrology:

“Venus (planet of desire) is in Leo (bold, loving bravado!) and will align with Jupiter (expansion) - fully aligning July 1, 2015 during the Full Moon in Capricorn! Venus can light up, be bold and brave and expand like a huge heart beating. What is your passion that you want to pursue? Passion and confidence will align.” Margaret Gervais

What is the placement of your Sun Sign? “In many astrology books, we’re reminded that the Sun can describe the type of male partner a woman has.” Making the Most of Awkward Planetary Combinations, Part 5: Out of the Darkness – The Sun in Aspect to Pluto, by Frank C. Clifford, The Mountain Astrologer, Dec. 2014/Jan. 2015, page 18.

Meditation:

“The practice of meditation involves listening close to them music of your mind. We are not concerned in the moment about how things get to be the way they are, only that they are so very much exactly what they are.” Andrew Olendzki, The Music of the Mind.

Relationships:

“In any relationship, especially marriage, be as free of compulsive thinking as possible. In other words, the more space there is in the relationship – inner space – the more love there is because love arises out of the inner spaciousness.” Eckhart Tolle.

Healing:

“You are healing in the emerging now.” Mark Jones, “Finding the True Self, Counseling and Astrology,” available at www.theplutoschool.com

6/2/15 6/2/15

insights for May 2015

Awakening:

People wonder "What to do?" "What are my best next steps?" "Where is my passion." And today I read this - great insight - you "do your dharma" - you "do" your life - live your life in meditative, loving presence.

"In your daily life, how do you become an instrument of social change? You become in yourself the statement of love, the statement of choiceless awareness, you become the moment so that everyone that comes near you is liberated by your presence if they are ready. You do nothing to anybody. You live your life. Which life do you live? Whatever your dharma demands. If your work is to protest the injustice of races, you protest. If your work is to raise a family, you raise a family. If your work is to be a good lawyer, you're a good lawyer. If your work is to be a shoemaker, you're a shoemaker. If your work is to meditate in a cave, you meditate in a cave. No blame, no reward. You do your dharma. Each act you do you do as a vehicle for becoming this meditative, loving, present moment. This statement of love, the statement of choiceless awareness. You become the moment." Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

"There are no 'them' in the universe, there is only 'us'. And we as a collective must purify ourselves. Each individual must hear her or his dharma, that is the way in which their manifestation must come forth in order to relieve suffering in whatever form it takes. Until you are enlightened it must be an exercise in working on your own consciousness." Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

“When we are willing to step into the unknown and its inherent insecurity, and not run back to anything for cover or for comfort – when we are willing to stand as if facing an oncoming wind and not wince – we can finally face our actual self.” Adyashanti

“So let us understand that reality transcends all of our notions about reality. Reality is neither Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Advaita Vedanta, nor Buddhist. It is neither dualistic not non-dualistic, neither spiritual nor nonspiritual. We should come to know that there is more reality and sacredness in a blade of grass than in all of our thoughts and ideas about reality.” Adyashanti

A great article on letting go - the basis of awakening - at each stage of awakening. Let go. Here is how to understand it. http://www.lionsroar.com/four-points-for-letting-go-bardo/?utm_source=Shambhala+Sun+Community&utm_campaign=ce42fb0661-SF_Weekly_May_12_20155_12_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1988ee44b2-ce42fb0661-21586533

“Wisdom is not merely something to be gained with old age. One can be wise in every stage of ones life. To manifest wisdom means simply to step back and see, to reflect, inquire, be aware, be disciplined, and be focused not once in a while, but all of the time, moment to moment. This life is precious and fleeting. Pay attention.” Seido Ray Ronci, The Examined Life.

Something to remember when you say "No no no.” "Question: I’d like to know about forgiveness as a bridge between the separate self and the awakened soul.

Ram Dass: That’s a nice way of phrasing the question. It’s a step on a ladder that goes from dualism into non-dualism. Because as you forgive or allow or acknowledge or say “Of course you’re human” or “We all do that” or something, you open your heart again which embraces the person or the situation back into you, which allows the play. See, every time you close off something with judgment, it’s as if you take a bit of energy and you lock it away and make it unavailable to you. Until pretty soon you are exhausted. You don’t have any energy, because you are so busy.

I often visualize it as having little doors inside your head. You’re holding a grudge — and so every time you think of that person your heart closes down. It’s as if you’ve got a little room with a guard at it that doesn’t allow you to flow freely. And they’re all the no’s of life — the no, no, no, no, no. It’s an emotional “no” against the world — against the Universe — against the way the Universe is. As opposed to “yes”. We’ve been telling you how to say no without closing your heart, but the no I’m talking about is the heart-closing no. It’s the judging, grudge, non-forgiving no. And it costs more than it’s worth. Even though you are right, righteousness ultimately starves you to death." Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

“Dismiss all the thoughts which bother your mind. Train yourself during many days, many months, many years, to retain this pure mind. One day, when your empty mind has become crystallized, suddenly it will be illumined by its own intrinsic wisdom. At that instant you will realize the state of pure awakening.” Sokei-an, Returning to Your Original State"

One idea that really hampers us is to believe that people get 'enlightened,' and then they’re that way forever and ever. We may have our moments, and if we get sick and have lots of things happening, we may fall back. But a person who practices consistently over years and years is more that way, more of the time, all the time. And that’s enough. There is no such thing as getting it." Charlotte Joko Beck, "Life's Not A Problem" Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

“You can always count on reality to be there.

Everything is just perspective and there are endless perspectives.

We run from parts of ourselves until it doesn’t work anymore and you can stop your running when you realize you are living in vast immenseness.

Life has a desire to become more self aware, and self-awareness is infinite.” Adyashanti Portland Satsang, March 20, 2015

“One idea that really hampers us is to believe that people get ‘enlightened,’ and then they’re that way forever and ever. WE may have our moments, and if we get sick and have lots of things happening, we may fall back. But a person who practices consistently over years and years is more that way, more of the time, all the time. And that’s enough. There is not such thing as getting it.” Charlotte Joko Beck, "Life's Not A Problem" via Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

"Your spirit is not afraid.

His life never quite matched his spirit, and so his purpose got diluted (in reference to his alcoholic grandfather.)

Your spirit is waiting for you to take advantage of the possibilities.

Embrace your spirit.” Speech, TEDxPortland 2015

“Live in the gap between the mind’s stories, and the mind will come to see that being in harmony with life is far easier and more benevolent than living in opposition to it.” ~ Adyashanti

Meditation:

"The fact that breath has no form is one of the reasons why breath awareness is an extremely effective way of bringing space into your life, of generating consciousness. It is an excellent meditation object precisely because it is not an object, has no shape or form." Eckhart Tolle

"There are many ways to create a gap in the incessant stream of thought. This is what meditation is all about." Eckhart Tolle

Grief:

"In bereavement, we come to appreciate at the deepest, most felt level exactly what it means to die while we are still alive. The Tibetan term bardo, or “intermediate state,” is not just a reference to the afterlife. It also refers more generally to these moments when gaps appear, interrupting the continuity that we otherwise project onto our lives. In American culture, we sometimes refer to this as having the rug pulled out from under us, or feeling ungrounded. These interruptions in our normal sense of certainty are what is being referred to by the term bardo. But to be precise, bardo refers to that state in which we have lost our old reality and it is no longer available to us.

Anyone who has experienced this kind of loss knows what it means to be disrupted, to be entombed between death and rebirth. We often label that a state of shock. In those moments, we lose our grip on the old reality and yet have no sense what a new one might be like. There is no ground, no certainty, and no reference point—there is, in a sense, no rest. This has always been the entry point in our lives for religion, because in that radical state of unreality we need profound reasoning—not just logic, but something beyond logic, something that speaks to us in a timeless, nonconceptual way. Milarepa referred to this disruption as a great marvel, singing from his cave, “The precious pot containing my riches becomes my teacher in the very moment it breaks.”

This is the Vajrayana idea behind successive deaths and rebirths, and it is the first essential point to understand: rupture. The more we learn to recognize this sense of disruption, the more willing and able we will be to let go of this notion of an inherent reality and allow that precious pot to slip out of our hands. Rupture is taking place all the time, day to day and moment to moment; in fact, as soon as we see our life in terms of these successive deaths and rebirths, we dissolve the very idea of a solid self grasping onto an inherently real life. We start to see how conditional who-I-am-ness really is, how even that does not provide reliable ground upon which to stand.

At times like this, if we can gain freedom from the eternal grasping onto who I am and how things are—our default mode—then we can get to the business of being. Until now, we have been holding on to the idea of an inherent continuity in our lives, creating a false sense of comfort for ourselves on artificial ground. By doing so, we have been missing the very flavor of what we are." http://www.lionsroar.com/four-points-for-letting-go-bardo/?utm_source=Shambhala+Sun+Community&utm_campaign=ce42fb0661-SF_Weekly_May_12_20155_12_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1988ee44b2-ce42fb0661-21586533

About trauma: “Trauma – take baby steps to step out of it.” Adyashanti Portland Satsang March 20, 2015

5/5/15 5/5/15

Marriage

Pink rose perfectly resting. Margaret Gervais

Five Awarenesses from Thich Nhat Hanh, as wedding vows:

"We are aware that all generations of our ancestorsand all future generations are present within us.

We are aware of the expectations that our ancestors, and our children, and their children have of us.

We are aware that our joy, peace, freedom and harmony are the joy, peace, freedom and harmony of our ancestors, our children and their children.

We are aware that understanding is the very foundation of love.

We are aware that blaming and arguing can never help us and only create a wider gap between us; that only understanding, trust and love can help us change and grow." Thich Nhat Hanh

"On the Path With Thay," Allan Badiner, Tricycle Spring 2015.

5/5/15 5/5/15

Depression

Insights on depression; http://www.lionsroar.com/offer-your-depression/

5/5/15 5/5/15

Insights for April 2015

Awakening:

"Growing evidence suggests that interstellar space was also where atoms united to make some molecules pertinent for life. A study published last fall in Science, for example, used computer simulations to establish the provenance of Earth’s water. Its surprising verdict: Up to half the water on our planet is older than the solar system itself. Ancient water molecules assembled in the chilly confines of a gigantic gas cloud. That cloud spawned our sun and the planets that orbit it — and somehow those ancient water molecules survived the perils of the planetary birth process to end up in our oceans and, presumably, our bodies." http://www.nytimes.com/…/opin…/sunday/our-cosmic-selves.html

“Right now, there is always and only freedom and peace. The question is: Is that what you really want?” Adyashanti

"Though energy is a controlling faculty of insight, more effort does not equal more insight. It's easy to try too hard and to rigorously apply skillful techniques, but insight is better supported by a gentle perseverance in continually showing up for the present moment." Steve Armstrong, "Got Attitude?" Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

“All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.” Adyashanti

"I’ve lived at a Zen Buddhist monastery for nearly a decade, and here’s what I’ve learned to have faith in: outside of me, there is a perfect home for everything inside of me. And inside of me, there is a perfect home for everything outside of me. Just let it go, and let it in. In and out, like the breath. After all, outside has nowhere to go but in, and inside has nowhere to go but out. My job, our job, is to broker the exchange between the two, to manifest the interpenetration of inside and outside, of self and other. That’s all. I dissolve in activity, in relationship with my surroundings, so that the inner world can flow out, and the outer world can arrive within. I have to both put in effort and know when to let go. There’s a natural balance, a dance, between embracing and releasing: turning your surroundings into yourself, like the tree that absorbs carbon dioxide, and turning yourself into your surroundings, like the same tree releasing oxygen. This is what Buddhists call the Middle Way." Shozan Jack Haubner, "Consider the Seed", Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

"We are never more than a breath away from the home we share with the entire universe." Shozan Jack Haubner, "Consider the Seed", Tricycle: The Buddhist ReviewThis is an incredible piece of work. A short film sharing the wisdom of Marion Woodman. I felt this was consciousness changing to watch. http://www.cultureunplugged.com/…/7972/Dancing-in-the-Flames

“Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.” Eckhart Tolle This is a great article on cultivating compassion - starting with self love practice: http://www.tricycle.com/practice/cultivating-compassion

“Fundamentally, there is no problem in life, because everything that happens in actually part of the human journey and human awakening, and all of it is leading us deeper and deeper into reality. Reginald A. Ray, Ph.D., from Darkness Before Dawn: Redefining the Journey Through Depression, edited by Tami Simon. Reprinted with permission of Sounds True.

Meditation:“True Meditation has no direction or goal. It is pure wordless surrender, pure silent prayer. All methods aiming at achieving a certain state of mind are limited, impermanent, and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only to bondage and dependency. True mediation is abidance as primordial awareness.” Adyashanti

Relationships:

"Compassion simply stated is leaving other people alone. You don’t lay trips. You exist as a statement of your own level of evolution."

"Some of the beings around you every day are very ancient beings, and some are very new. But is it better or worse? It’s just different. Is it better to be twenty years old than fifty? It’s just different. So why do you judge someone because he’s not as conscious as you are? Do you judge a pre-pubescent because he or she is not sexually aware? You understand. You have compassion. Compassion simply stated is leaving other people alone. You don’t lay trips. You exist as a statement of your own level of evolution. You are available to any human being, to provide what they need, to the extent that they ask. But you begin to see that it is a fallacy to think that you can impose a trip on another person." Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

Astrology:

I love this image of the life cycle of plants. I talk to my clients about it all the time in relationship to the progressed moon cycle in their astrology charts. The progressed moon phase that you are in greatly impacts your life - and relating it to the life cycle of plants helps people understanding where they are in this very natural cycle of life! Thanks to Jason's Indoor Guide to Organic and Hydrophonics Gardening for this image. http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-g…An image of the phases of the moon. Which phase were you born into and which phase are you in now?http://www.drstandley.com/images/astrology/waxing.gif

Grief:

"This body is not me; I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died. Over there, the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies all manifest from the basis of consciousness. Since beginning less time I have always been free. Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out. Birth and death are only a game of hide and seek." Thich Nhat Hanh "On the Path With Thay," Allan Badiner, Tricycle Spring 2015.

"The Grief Path" is a beautiful story and this video shows her work to chart and paint her grief. I would love to do this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XilHRThzC8Great advise. Think about death everyday to be happy. http://www.bbc.com/…/20150408-bhutans-dark-secret-to-happin…

Depression: Insights on depression: http://www.lionsroar.com/offer-your-depression/

Parenting: Parenting with Presence. http://newworldlibrary.com/…/tabid/64/SKU/83260/Default.aspx#

Marriage:Five Awarenesses from Thich Nhat Hanh, as wedding vows:"We are aware that all generations of our ancestors and all future generations are present within us.We are aware of the expectations that our ancestors, and our children, and their children have of us.We are aware that our joy, peace, freedom and harmony are the joy, peace, freedom and harmony of our ancestors, our children and their children.We are aware that understanding is the very foundation of love.We are aware that blaming and arguing can never help us and only create a wider gap between us; that only understanding, trust and love can help us change and grow." Thich Nhat Hanh"On the Path With Thay," Allan Badiner, Tricycle Spring 2015.

4/6/15 4/6/15

Codependency

This can be such a tough issue. I am saving this one for the co-dependency files: http://tinybuddha.com/…/how-to-help-someone-who-wont-help-…/

4/6/15 4/6/15

Parenting

Onion flower and ladybug Margaret Gervais

"You have to realize that your children are not containers you put things into. They are flowers that are emerging, and if you till the soil and keep it soft and fertilized, it’s amazing what comes up; because inherent in all of us is deep wisdom, which gets lost in the shuffle of socialization.So the question is, are you just an instrument of socialization as a parent, or are you somebody that respects the inner beauty of that person, that lets the child’s intuitive understanding of things lead, rather than leading out of ought or should or must or so on. A person learns a skill much faster when they want to learn a skill than when somebody else wants them to learn a skill. It’s pretty clear. So to that extent, you and your child are collaborative beings..." Ram Dass, Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

Parenting with Presence. http://newworldlibrary.com/…/tabid/64/SKU/83260/Default.aspx#

Being aware of these five attributes is important for parenting, to help raise emotionally intelligent children! Five attributes of emotional intelligence:

Self awareness
Self regulation
Motivation
Empathy
Social Skills. http://www.elephantjournal.com/…/5-attributes-of-emotional…/

(And of course it helps to be an emotionally intelligent person yourself; as children learn by observing their role models.)

4/6/15 4/6/15

Insights for March 2015

Awakening:

“Acceptance of the unacceptable is the greatest source of grace in this world.” Eckhart Tolle

"Your ego is a set of thoughts that define your universe. It’s like a familiar room built of thoughts; you see the universe through its windows. You are secure in it, but to the extent that you are afraid to venture outside, it has become a prison. Your ego has you conned. You believe you need its specific thoughts to survive. The ego controls you through your fear of loss of identity. To give up these thoughts, it seems, would annihilate you, and so you cling to them.There is an alternative. You needn’t destroy the ego to escape its tyranny. You can keep this familiar room to use as you wish, and you can be free to come and go. First you need to know that you are infinitely more than the ego room by which you define yourself. Once you know this, you have the power to change the ego from prison to home base." Ram Dass, Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

“We only need to take the first step beyond all that we have known for reality to begin to unfold itself before us. We need to take that first step not once, but continually evermore.”Adyashanti

“No matter what identity we cling to, it takes great courage to step out of the old masks we wear and the old scripts that we live by, and open ourselves to the mysterious inner core of our being.

” Adyashanti Way of Liberating Insight Course, Adyashanti:

“As you awaken more to the truth of your being, you have a greater capacity to be present for more and more challenging experiences, and those experiences find a completion through you instead of getting stuck in you.With enlightened experience, when you experience something fully and deeply, it can run clean through you so that the next day or the next week, it’s gone.As your capacity to embody wider experience grows, your dark shadow experiences often come into the light of your awareness because they’re seeking to be embodied and therefore free. You cannot free anything that you're not willing to embody. To embody it means to be completely present for it.The resolution of unworthiness is not going from feeling unworthy to feeling worthy, but going from being hateful towards yourself to being kind, even kind toward your hateful self-dialogue -- those old violent, condemning voices in your mind that have become inherent.From your resource of Awareness, from the standpoint of peace, you can begin to acknowledge the turmoil that is there and be willing to experience it. How does our emotional life look from a dimension of consciousness that’s not caught in our emotional turmoil, but neither is it trying to avoid it?When you begin to tap into a compassion and kindness you would have for anybody having difficulty and begin to operate from that place, then you’re calling upon resources within yourself that you could never access before.How am I creating my own suffering right now? What am I thinking?” When you see some of the violent thoughts that are creating your destructive emotional experiences, you see that anyone would feel terrible who has those kinds of thoughts.How does kindness really see the old stories? How does kindness feel about your own feeling of unworthiness? Does it deny it, or does it understand it and move toward it?If you can't find this kindness and peace, think of anything that evokes a sense of kindness or appreciation in you. Once you’re in the atmosphere of it, look at how it relates to the darker aspect of your being, your sense of unworthiness.”

The Impact of Awakening, Adyashanti:“Those who are free don't want anything. They don't want anything from their mind, they don't want anything from their emotions, and they don't want anything from anyone, and they don't want anything from life. They don't want anything. If you don't want, all that's left is an incredible sense of being free.In one sense, the enlightened life is one of total insecurity; you live and act from the Unknown. We’re used to acting from the distorted sense of security that our mind provides, but freedom doesn’t operate that way. It’s a paradox. Precisely because you don’t know, and you know you don’t know, the door is wide open to know in each moment. That’s when you know - in each moment. By resting in not knowing, knowing becomes available.Having a profound awakening can be like taking the lid off of a jar. All the karma that has been repressed, all the karma at the bottom of our misery that we aren’t conscious of, comes flying out because there is finally space in which it can emerge. When it hits you in the face, you wonder where your freedom went and what went wrong. But understand that this is a consequence of the freedom; it is not a mistake. Everything wants to come up into and be transformed by the freedom. If you let it come up into this aware space, which is love, it will reharmonize. This space that you are is unconditional love. Unconditional means just that: everything is welcome’ nothing is cast away or set apart from it.”Adyashanti, Portland Satsang, March 20, 2015

“Don’t walk in my mind with your dirty feet.” Zen Master“Honor the question more than you honor the answers. Answers are not actually the answer to existential questions. No answer fully addresses the yearning within us. Every question arises out of answers.Spiritual realizations are the gaps in life coming to life.If it’s happening, it’s real. It’s the current reality.The way we see things today is just the way we see things today.Truth is a fluid thing. It’s part of life, which is fluid and dynamic.”“When you are ready, you'll completely face the fear of your own nonexistence. Only then does it become powerless. Until then it will seem so terrifying. What's disappearing into nonexistence is who you've imagined yourself to be. You can't do an end run around fear. You have to face it directly.” Adyashanti, Exploring the Teachings of Nisargadatta Maharaj“Each moment is a chance for us to make peace with the world.” Thich Nhat Hanh"The only way you can know the absolute is through a state of unknowing. You know it by unknowing it." Adyashanti

Meditation:"After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little." Shunryu Suzuki

"Though you can start meditation any time, it’s harder if your life is chaotic, if you’re feeling paranoid, if you’re overwhelmed with responsibilities, or if you’re sick. But even starting under these conditions, meditation will help you to clear things up a bit. Slowly you reorganize your life to support your spiritual journey. At each stage there will be something you can do to create a supportive space. It may mean changing your diet, who you’re with, how you spend your time, what’s on your walls, what books you read, what you fill your consciousness with, how you care for your body, or where and how you sit to meditate. All these factors contribute to the depth and freedom that you can know through meditation.You are under no pressure to rush these changes. You need not fear that because of meditation you are going to lose control and get swept away by a new way of life. As you gradually develop a quiet and clear awareness, your living habits will naturally come into harmony with your total environment, with your past involvements, present interests, and future concerns. There need be no sudden ending of relationships in order to prove your holiness. Such frantic changes only show your own lack of faith. When you are one in truth, in the flow, the changes in your life will come naturally." Ram Dass, https://www.ramdass.org/let-change/

“Freedom is possible. One in-breath alone is enough to set you free - from your regrets about the past, your worries about the future, and your projects in the present. In that state of freedom, you will make better decisions. Next time you have to make a decision, be sure to breathe in and out first.” Thich Nhat Hanh

Grief:

"Sometimes all this healing asks is that we become present. for ourselves. A meditation practitioner once came to one of our two month retreats at Spirit Rock after his four year 3 old son had died in a car accident. This man, the father, had been driving. Immediately following the accident, he had kept himself busy, seeking help and talking to shamans and lamas, and being consoled by friends and others. And yet, in some way, this was also a way to keep his grief at bay. Finally, when he knew he was ready, he came to a meditation retreat. Somehow he knew that it was time for him to experience his pain directly, to find the cure for the pain in the pain itself. He started with lots of prayers and mantras and visualizations. Finally, one morning he just sat still. Waves of grief and quilt and loss poured out. And his great and simple task was to bring a kind and healing attention to the grief and suffering that he carried and could no longer run from." Jack Kornfield, http://www.jackkornfield.com/the-temple-of-healing/

“To bow to the fact of our life's sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.” Jack Kornfield

"Over the years, in working with people who are grieving, I’ve encouraged them first of all to surrender to the experience of their pain. To counteract our natural tendency to turn away from pain, we open to it as fully as possible and allow our hearts to break. We must take enough time to remember our losses – be they friends or loved ones passed away, the death of long-held hopes or dreams, the loss of homes, careers, or countries, or health we may never get back again. Rather than close ourselves to grief, it helps to realize that we only grieve for what we love.In allowing ourselves to grieve, we learn that the process is not cut and dried. It’s more like a spiral that brings us to a place of release, abates for a time, then continues on a deeper level. Often, when grieving, we think that it’s over, only to find ourselves swept away by another wave of intense feeling. For this reason, it’s important to be patient with the process, and not be in a hurry to put our grief behind us." Ram Dass, Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember https://www.ramdass.org/learning-to-grieve/

From Brain Pickings, 7 wonderful children's books on grief and loss. I would love to have these in my library. Who can't relate to a beautifully told children's story about such a tough subject? http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/23/best-childrens-books-death-grief-mourning/

“The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.” How We Grieve: Meghan O’Rourke on the Messiness of Mourning and Learning to Live with Loss

Parenting:"You have to realize that your children are not containers you put things into. They are flowers that are emerging, and if you till the soil and keep it soft and fertilized, it’s amazing what comes up; because inherent in all of us is deep wisdom, which gets lost in the shuffle of socialization.So the question is, are you just an instrument of socialization as a parent, or are you somebody that respects the inner beauty of that person, that lets the child’s intuitive understanding of things lead, rather than leading out of ought or should or must or so on. A person learns a skill much faster when they want to learn a skill than when somebody else wants them to learn a skill. It’s pretty clear. So to that extent, you and your child are collaborative beings..." Ram Dass, Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember

Codependency:This can be such a tough issue. I am saving this one for the co-dependency files: http://tinybuddha.com/…/how-to-help-someone-who-wont-help-…/

3/4/15 3/4/15

Insights for February 2015

Pine Needles, Bainbridge Island, Margaret Gervais 2015

Buddhism A-Z: Your Basic Buddhist Library10 dharma books everyone should have, selected by the editors of the Shambhala Sun

After the Ecstasy, The Laundry, by Jack Kornfield
A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation, by Rid Meade Sperry and the editors of the Shambhala Sun
Being Peace, by Thich Nhat Hanh
4. Cutting Through Spiritual Materialisms, by Chögyam Trungpa
5. Happiness is an Inside Job, by Sylvia Boorstein
6. Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhante Gunaratana
7. Real Happiness, by Sharon Salzberg
8. What Makes You Not a Buddhist, by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse9. When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chödrön
10. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki

Shambhala Sun, March 2015, page 67

For my suggested reading list please see http://theinsightcenter.net/resources/

Astrology: Pisces: “…deep, powerful, and ever-changing come to mind." "The Enigma of PIsces," by Genevieve Vierling, Mountain Astrologer, Feb./Mar. 2015

"I always encourage my Pisces clients to spend time either alone or out in nature. By doing so, they will gain a more authentic sense of their own separate identity apart from other people's energies. The practice of quiet contemplation can help Pisceans to know themselves better by stilling the mind and listening for the small inner voice. Once they connect with their core, they can then turn outward again and help many people." "The Enigma of Pisces," by Genevieve Vierling, Mountain Astrologer, Feb./Mar. 2015

On Meditation practice, by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche:

“The sitting practice of meditation is the starting point for developing mindfulness. It establishes a reference point for awareness of yourself as well as a general awareness of your environment and your experience as a whole.

From the general pattern of basic awareness in your practice, you step out and expand yourself into everyday life, using the mindfulness you develop in meditation as the starting point for mindfulness throughout life. Meditation is the source or the basic inspiration, and from there, slowly, mindfulness and awareness begin to merge in your life as a whole.

In our lives, the chain reaction of our mental processes and the network of our habitual reactions often create a whirlpool of confusion. We are not just subject to or living in this whirlpool at this moment; we are also manufacturing confusion for the future. We keep generating a chain reaction of confusion because we think it provides us with a security for the next minute, the next month, the next year. We want to make sure that there is something to hang on to.

It’s quite amazing that we manage to manufacture our own future confusion using our present experiences of hanging on to neurosis. With our present action and attitudes we create the seeds that blossom in the future. The present situation is inescapable. You are somewhat settled or habituated to it so you don't want to do something different in the future. You don’t want to have to change gears.

Generally people enjoy living in the world of confusion because it is much more entertaining. Even suffering itself is entertaining in a strange way. Therefore, we create further neurotic security over and over again on that ground. Although we may complain and we suffer, we also feel quite satisfied with our lives. We’ve chosen our own self-experience.

The practice of recollecting awareness throughout the day is the main way that we can prevent ourselves from sowing these further seeds of habitual cause and effect. In the present moment we can disrupt these chain reactions. The memory or recollection of awareness creates a gap, because awareness cuts through the continuity of our struggle to survive. The practice of recollecting our awareness shortens the life of that fixation. That seems to be one of the basic but powerful points of meditation practice.

With meditation we don’t reject the present situation. Beyond that, application of awareness is the way to sabotage confusion’s hold on the future. Awareness is a simple matter. It just happens. You don’t have to analyze it, justify it, or try to understand it. I n the midst of enormous chaos, recollection is a simple action. There may be problems, but you can simplify the situation rather that focusing on the problems. Natural gaps in our experience are there all the time.

Our post-meditation experiences will be clouded with all kinds of ups and downs. Sometimes there is a sense of enormous excitement. You feel that you are actually making some progress, whatever that is! Sometimes you feel that you are regressing and that everything is going wrong. And then there are neutral periods where nothing happens and things are somewhat flat. Those signs of progress or regression are just temporary meditative experiences, which occur both in the practice of meditation and in our daily awareness practice.

Sometimes people worry that their practice is actually regressing, but that never happens. Sometimes, if you push yourself too hard, your ambition will begin to slow down the speed of your journey.

You can’t fail at meditation.

Meditation practice is a haunting experience. Once you begin, you can’t give up. The more you try to give up the more spontaneous openness comes to you. It’s a very powerful thing.

You don’t have to have complete comprehension of what awareness is all about in order to experience a glimpse of awareness.”

Put Your Meditation into Action, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Shambhala Sun March 2015, pages 68-71

“The knowledge of the past stays with us. To let go is to release the images and emotions, the grudges and fears, the clingings and disappointments of the past that bind our spirit.” Jack Kornfield

Insights from someone with a terminal cancer diagnosis:

"I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure."

Oliver Sacks, a professor of neurology at the New York University School of Medicine, is the author of many books, including “Awakenings” and “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/oliver-sacks-on-learning-he-has-terminal-cancer.html?_r=0

More information on how meditation changes the brain:http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/02/09/7-ways-meditation-can-actually-change-the-brain/Awakening:

"You see yourself get stuck, and then you see yourself come up for air, and you begin to notice where you are clinging…" On the process of awakening, Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember https://www.ramdass.org/process-awakening/

From Adyashanti: Q. “How do you suggest we approach obsessive thoughts that consume us like fire twenty-four hours a day, like your initial obsession with the thought that you need to attain enlightenment? Does freedom from those thoughts come only when we reach a point of such complete desperation and failure that the mind caves in and one drops through into truth?”

Adya “So let’s start at the beginning. Obsessive thinking arises from fear, anxiety, and struggle. These are the drivers of excessive thinking. So in an addition to the meditation practice, you may want to begin to contemplate what you are afraid of, what you are running away from. What you don’t want to deal with within yourself or your life. By contemplate I mean to identify exactly what fears are driving you. What assumptions are they based on? What are you running from?

Also, rampant thinking is your mind looking for peace. As if, if you could just think enough and understand enough, your mind could be at peace. But the mind never thinks its way to a lasting peace. In fact, in the mind’s rush to find peace and security it overlooks the peace that is already present within the presence of awareness.So contemplate what your mind is trying to run away from, and what it is looking for. And begin to show your mind that peace is available in the present. Literally bring your mind’s attention to the greater peace of awareness. And give your mind something to do in the form of following your breath. Just follow the breath whenever you can during the day, because it will calm your nervous system and give your mind something to do other than to obsessively think. Of course thoughts may come, but anchor them in the breath. Be very, very patient and kind to yourself. Very patient and very kind.” With Great Love, Adyashanti, The Way of Liberating Insight Course"

Each step may seem to take forever, but no matter how uninspired you feel, continue to follow your practice schedule precisely and consistently. This is how we can use our greatest enemy, habit, against itself." Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, "Tortoise Steps"

Pluto, the planet of deep transformation and Uranus, the planet of restlessness and electrically charged impulsive changes will be exactly square each other March 17, 2015. You may feel the pressure as they are very close now and the pressure is building. Be aware, be calm, choose wisely, navigate carefully and be open to changes required. And after March 17, breathe deep and let it go.

"Redemptive Love does not shy away from suffering, whether one’s own suffering or others’. Redemptive Love embraces suffering in utter acceptance and Love. The challenge to us all is to continually open and stretch ourselves to become large enough to embrace the full measure of life in all its inexhaustible proportion. Life always asks us to become bigger than whatever we encounter, and to stretch our loving embrace to include more than we thought we could. For we are in truth more immense than we imagine, and when we surrender the confines of our mind to the magnitude of our heart, we grow day by day in transformative compassion that has the resilience to withstand the turns of fate that life presents us with." ~Adyashanti Redemptive Love Course

Stephen Hawking: One of Buddhism’s Three Poisons Threatens us all: http://www.lionsroar.com/stephen-hawking-one-buddhisms-three-poisons-threatens-us/

2/2/15 2/2/15

Insights for January 2015

Free EBook download from Adyashanti http://www.adyashanti.org/wayofliberation/

“To stay present in everyday life, it helps to be deeply rooted within yourself; otherwise, the mind, which has incredible momentum, will drag you along like a wild river.” Eckhart Tolle

“First see through it. Then, move through it.” Mantra for 2015. Margaret Gervais

"This new transit of Saturn in Sagittarius has resonance with the Solstice, as Saturn will not leave Sagittarius {Saturn moved into Sagittarius from Scorpio, Dec. 23, 2014} for good until the Capricorn Solstice of 2017. Saturn holds together the structure of our consciousness within our skeletal system on a personal level, and on a collective level coordinates the innumerable ingredients that form our consensus reality, or the predominant agreements that define what we mean by "reality." Saturn has a palpable impact on our lives by transit, and we can immediately feel the impact following its ingress into a new sign through personal experiences and collective events." Gray Crawford Astrology http://graycrawford.net/author/grayastrology/

"Like seeds in a garden, words of wisdom blossom as you cultivate them." Sakyong Mipham, Learning by Heart, Shambhala Sun, January 2015.

"...feelings are often slower to adapt to unexpected change than the intellect." Liz GreenePractice continuously and unhurriedly.

“We need to look at our spiritual development in terms of the big picture, over a long period of time (even lifetimes), rather than get stuck in what does and does not happen in the short term. Whether we practice vipassana, lamrim, or tantra, our practice is only effective when done continuously and unhurriedly rather than pushing ourselves to extremes in short bursts. The highs and lows we experience along the way are temporary fluctuations, like the peaks and troughs of waves pushed by the wind. When we become obsessed with short-term results, our mind becomes tight and agitated.” Patrick Lambelet, Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition Mandala, October-December 2014

Grief (see my collection of insights on grief at http://theinsightcenter.net/grief-insights/

“Our death is the gift we make for the life we have enjoyed. The fact that it is a required gift doesn’t mean that we can’t give it with graciousness and an open heart for all beings who will benefit from it. It is a gift to our children and grandchildren and to rocks and trees that need the passing of life in order to live and grow themselves. Without the change resulting in our death, there would be no new beings coming into the world – no joy of holding a newborn, seeing the smile of a child or the leaves of a young tree facing the sun. We would have never grown up, helped others, learned new things, known the joy of spring. Death is our gift to the universe, the dues we pay for the joy of our lives.

This does not mean it’s not hard to let go of this life. Dag Hammarskjold wrote in Markings, that when he was in his twenties, death was one of the crowd. But now, in his later years, death sits beside him at the dinner table. Sometimes death is a good companion and tells us wise things. Sometimes we look at death and are grief-stricken and angry. It’s normal to grieve for our lives and be angry at their being taken – saying we shouldn’t is only putting a layer of suffering on our pain. None of us wants to go.We know, in the last analysis, that there’s nothing for us to do but let go of life and trust the universe to do something good, something useful, something we would have liked with it.Death is not and end. It is a change. The elements that made us up are still there, just as yearn is still there in a finished hat. It is itself, but it’s something else, also. Even though we’re in a sense still here, “self” as we know it is gone. That “self” won’t be appreciating the sunrise tomorrow. But, still, we are here in the places where our elements alight – a tree, a bird, a rock. Remember that things had to die so we could be born – stars, rocks, dinosaurs, plants. As we give up this life, we can thank them for sharing it with us so we could be here for a while.” Zuiko Redding, Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly, Winter 2014.

Relationships! I keep finding really insightful information about death and grief and I wondered why I am not finding great insights about relationships, and then I see this post by Ram Dass. It’s a really good post at https://www.ramdass.org/when-i-look-at-relationships/. I'll share my favorite parts the next few days and will start a blog post at The Insight Center blog http://theinsightcenter.net/relationships/ about relationships, where I will gather insights about relationships.

"The image I always have when I am performing a wedding is the image of a triangle in which there are two partners and then there is this third force, this third being that emerges out of the interaction of these two. The third one is the one that is the shared awareness that lies behind the two of them. And the two people in the yoga of relationship come together in order to find that shared awareness that exists behind them in order to then dance as two. So that the twoness brings them into one and the oneness dances as two, and that’s a kind of a vibrating relationship between the one and the two. So that people are both separate, and yet they are not separate. And they are experiencing that the relationship is feeding both their uniqueness as individuals and their unit of consciousness.

Now, that is extremely delicate because it is so easy to get entrenched in your own “I need this,” “I want this,” “You are not fulfilling this for me” and seeing the other as object. But the delight, which all of you have experienced, is of being with somebody where you are sharing an awareness of the predicament you are both in. And you are sharing an awareness of the predicament even when you are having an argument with each other – there is an awareness that you are both almost delighting in the horrible beauty of it. We’re hating it and enjoying it both – because there are these levels we are playing at all the time. We come into relationship often very much identified with our needs. I need this, I need security, I need refuge, I need friendship, I need this. And all of relationships are symbiotic in that sense. We come together because we fulfill each others’ needs at some level or other.

…if somebody upsets me, that’s my problem. This is a hard one. Because we don’t usually think these ways in this culture. What I see other people as, I see them as trees in the forest. You go to the woods and you see gnarled trees and live oaks and pines and hemlocks and elms and things like that. And you are not inclined to say, “I don’t like you because you are a pine and not an elm.” You appreciate trees the way they are. But the minute you get near humans, you notice how quick it changes. It’s a way in which you don’t allow humans to just manifest the way they are. You take it personally. You keep taking other people personally. All they are are mechanical run-offs of old Karma. Really, it’s what they are. I mean they look real and they think they are real, but really what they are is mechanical run-off. So they say, Grrrh! And you karmically go Grrrh! And then one of you says, “We’ve got to work this out.” And the other says, “Yes, we must.” And then you start to work it out. It’s all mechanical. It’s all condition stuff.

So somebody comes along and gets to me. They get me angry or uptight or they awaken some desire in me, wow am I delighted. They got me. And that’s my work on myself. If I am angry with you because your behavior doesn’t fill my model of how you should be, that’s my problem for having models. No expectations, no upset. If you are a liar and a cheat, that’s your Karma. If I’m cheated, that’s my work on myself.

My attempting to change you, that’s a whole other ballgame. What I am saying is if I will only be happy if you are different than you are, you are asking for it. You are really asking for it. Think of how many relationships you say, “I really don’t like that person’s this or that. If they would only be this. If I could manipulate them to be this, I can be happy.” Isn’t that weird? Why can’t I be happy with them the way they are? You are a liar, a cheat and a scoundrel and I love you. I won’t play any games with you, but I love you. It’s interesting to move to the level where you can appreciate, love, and allow in the same way you would in the woods. Instead of constantly bringing in that judging component which is really rooted out of your own feelings of lack of power. Judging comes out of your own fear. Now I fall trap to it all the time. But every time I do, I catch myself.” Ram Dass, When I Look at Relationships, https://www.ramdass.org/when-i-look-at-relationships/

“We need a warrior’s heart that lets us face our lives directly, our pains and limitations, our joys and possibilities.” Jack KornfieldFive Reasons Why Everyone Should Meditate http://www.mindful.org/mindful-magazine/meditation-excuses-and-reasons

1/23/15 1/23/15

Relationships

Relationships! I keep finding really insightful information about death and grief and I wondered why I am not finding great insights about relationships, and then I see this post by Ram Dass. Its a really good post athttps://www.ramdass.org/when-i-look-at-relationships/. I'll share my favorite parts the next fews days and will start a blog post at The Insight Center blog,http://theinsightcenter.net/blog/ about relationships, where I will gather insights about relationships!

“The image I always have when I am performing a wedding is the image of a triangle in which there are two partners and then there is this third force, this third being that emerges out of the interaction of these two. The third one is the one that is the shared awareness that lies behind the two of them. And the two people in the yoga of relationship come together in order to find that shared awareness that exists behind them in order to then dance as two. So that the twoness brings them into one and the oneness dances as two, and that’s a kind of a vibrating relationship between the one and the two. So that people are both separate, and yet they are not separate. And they are experiencing that the relationship is feeding both their uniqueness as individuals and their unit of consciousness.” Ram Dass, When I Look at Relationships ,https://www.ramdass.org/when-i-look-at-relationships/

“Now, that is extremely delicate because it is so easy to get entrenched in your own “I need this,”

“I want this - you are not fulfilling this for me” and seeing the other as object. But the delight, which all of you have experienced, is of being with somebody where you are sharing an awareness of the predicament you are both in. And you are sharing an awareness of the predicament even when you are having an argument with each other – there is an awareness that you are both almost delighting in the horrible beauty of it. We’re hating it and enjoying it both – because there are these levels we are playing at all the time. We come into relationship often very much identified with our needs. I need this, I need security, I need refuge, I need friendship, I need this. And all of relationships are symbiotic in that sense. We come together because we fulfill each others’ needs at some level or other.” Ram Dass, When I Look at Relationships,https://www.ramdass.org/when-i-look-at-relationships/

"So somebody comes along and gets to me. They get me angry or uptight or they awaken some desire in me, wow am I delighted. They got me. And that’s my work on myself. If I am angry with you because your behavior doesn’t fill my model of how you should be, that’s my problem for having models. No expectations, no upset. If you are a liar and a cheat, that’s your Karma. If I’m cheated, that’s my work on myself.My attempting to change you, that’s a whole other ballgame. What I am saying is if I will only be happy if you are different than you are, you are asking for it. You are really asking for it. Think of how many relationships you say, “I really don’t like that person’s this or that.[ If they would only be this. If I could manipulate them to be this, I can be happy.” Isn’t that weird? Why can’t I be happy with them the way they are? You are a liar, a cheat and a scoundrel and I love you. I won’t play any games with you, but I love you. It’s interesting to move to the level where you can appreciate, love, and allow in the same way you would in the woods. Instead of constantly bringing in that judging component which is really rooted out of your own feelings of lack of power. Judging comes out of your own fear. Now I fall trap to it all the time. But every time I do, I catch myself.” Ram Dass, When I Look at Relationships, https://www.ramdass.org/when-i-look-at-relationships/

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Compassion simply stated is leaving other people alone. You don’t lay trips. You exist as a statement of your own level of evolution."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This is a good article with insights on how to make relationships work: http://www.elephantjournal.com/…/a-new-love-changing-our-o…/ What do you think?

"Let there be spaces in your togetherness.

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.And stand together, yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow."

Kahlil Gibran,

The Prophet, via brainpickings.org

"Complement this particular portion of the wholly enchanting

The Prophet

with Virginia Woolf on

what makes love last

, philosopher Alain Badiou on

how we fall and stay in love

, Anna Dostoyevsky on

the secret to a happy marriage

, Mary Oliver on

how differences bring couples closer together

, and Joseph Campbell on

the single most important factor in sustaining romantic relationships

, then revisit Gibran on

the seeming self vs. the authentic self

and

the absurdity of our self-righteousness

." brainpickings.org, January 2019.“…love invariably does change us, deconditioning our painful pathologies and elevating us toward our highest human potential. It allows us, as Barack Obama so eloquently wrote in his reflections on

what his mother taught him about love

, “to break across our solitude, and then, if we’re lucky, [be] finally transformed into something firmer.”

brainpickings.org

“Why is love rich beyond all other possible human experiences and a sweet burden to those seized in its grasp? Because we become what we love and yet remain ourselves.”

Martin Heidegger, via

brainpickings.org

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness,And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.Love one another but make not a bond of love:Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.And stand together, yet not too near together:For the pillars of the temple stand apart,And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow." Kahlil Gibran,

The Prophet, via

brainpickings.org

“When we partner with others out of a scarcity mentality nothing lasting can come out of it. Not in love or business. Build with others only when doing so feels mutually abundant, satiating in its challenge, and on purpose for all involved.” Chani Nicholas, Instagram

“4 things make your relationship easier:

space to be your own person

less control, more trust

calm communication

selfless listening.” Yung pueblo

12/31/14 12/31/14

Insights for December 2014

Philip Sedgwick is an Astrologer I follow, http://www.philipsedgwick.com/. He writes a great blog and you can sign up to receive his newsletter. His December 26, 2014, post included a really valuable exercise (highlighted below) for Jan. 1, 2015. It is not a typical New Year’s Resolution exercise, it is based on current planetary positions of Jupiter and Mars and thus a really great time for this exercise to review your beliefs in relation to the past year and actions that you will take. I am sharing it because I think it’s wise and informed. I feel compelled to do this exercise and I thought you might also feel compelled. Enjoy!

“Come New Year’s Day, Mars in Aquarius and Jupiter in Leo, retrograde, line up on opposite sides of the zodiac to see if earthlings might be able to interpret and engage the tug of war they enact.

The actual opposition occurs at 20:23 U.T. on January 1, so for some in the world it will already be the second day of the year and the calendric new leaf should have already been turned.

Mars and Jupiter in opposition are quite powerful, and if one is prepared, no doubt many good things can be extracted. The essence of the aspect is that by directing clear, focused energy and activity into life’s efforts, the greatest goals and most magnificent objectives appear closer on the road ahead.

Jupiter is retrograde, so it may not be that goals are immediately fulfilled. Likely, that’s a good thing. With Jupiter reversing tracks, the time is ripe for review, revision and any other red prefix word that may not actually be a word, but would do well to be. Works like redeclaration, recommitment, reinvention come to mine. The implication of “re-“ in the Jupiter retrograde context is:

Review all plans from the past goal cycle, in this case likely a year, neatly a half Mars cycle. Note levels of completion accomplished, current interest in fulfilling the previously stated objective, and apply some mental absorption ointment in the spirit of “If I had known then what I know now,” ensuring that all future efforts will be smarter and energetically more efficient - something planets in Capricorn can applaud.

More fundamentally, Jupiter in retrograde enquires regarding the platform philosophy in play that one uses to drive the rationalization system behind every effort in life:

What do you believe?How is what you intend to do working to fit into the big picture in a big way? After all, Jupiter is big (and proud) and Mars is in Aquarius.Are there missing pieces in the thought sequence?Given what you know now, do you still believe everything you believed when the last wave of life objectives launched?What enhanced knowledge can you now apply from wisdom gained?What do you do if your instinctive nature of what you feel to be correct disagrees with an ingrained philosophy or creed?

Mars in Aquarius seeks to offer a few details on his hot action, pre-flight check list:

Are you still into what you are doing? You know, does passion still fill your belly’s furnace with fire about this activity or objective?Remember, every deed impacts the entirety of Earth. Every living organism is affected by every action by every person.Do you really have everything good to go, or should you look around for any last minute tools you might want to pack up?This thing you’re doing, it’s good for everyone, right?Be present every step of the way, which means, no projecting uncertainty, doubt or fear of outcome(s) into the energy expended.

This is a big splash pattern. With the clarification of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, significant progress can be instated in the early days of 2015.” Philip Sedgwick, A Mars-Jupiter Kickoff ~ 26 Dec 2014, Skyscraping, http://www.philipsedgwick.com/StarBlogs/StarBlogsB.htm

"The transformation that comes through meditation is not a straight-line progression. It’s a spiral, a cycle. My own life is very much a series of spirals in which at times I am pulled toward some particular form of sadhana or lifestyle and make a commitment to it for maybe six months or a year. After this time I assess its effects. At times I work with external methods such as service. At other times the pull is inward, and I retreat from society to spend more time alone. The timing for these phases in the spiral must be in tune with your inner voice and your outer life.Don’t get too rigidly attached to any one method – turn to others when their time comes, when you are ripe for them." Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember Harvard Unveils MRI Study Proving Meditation Literally Rebuilds The Brain’s Gray Matter In 8 Weeks http://www.feelguide.com/2014/11/19/harvard-unveils-mri-study-proving-meditation-literally-rebuilds-the-brains-gray-matter-in-8-weeks/“Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.” Eckhart Tolle“When you renounce something you are tied to it. The only way to get out of this is to see through it. Understand its true value and you won’t need to renounce it; it will just drop from your hands.” Awareness, Anthony De Mello, pg. 16.And, “deep inquiry leads to understanding.” Sandra Brooks."Our minds are habituated to relate to suffering by resisting it through blame, bitterness, anger, resentment. That resistance is what the Buddha called 'the second arrow,' which follows the first arrow, the direct experience of pain. So much additional suffering comes from believing that 'things shouldn’t be this way'—when in fact they are that way." Ronna Kabatznick, "Sea of Sorrow" Tricycle: The Buddhist Review"As you breathe, in cherish yourself, as you breathe out, cherish all Beings." HIs Holiness the Dalai Lama Thank you for posting this The Norbulingka Institute."Saturn just exited the dark underpass of Scorpio and entered fiery, truth-seeking Sagittarius today, December 23. Living authentically can be more liberating than one realizes and this will be your two and a half year window to step into stride with the most honest and natural version of yourself. It will extend your view of the horizon and shine more light on your evolutionary path ahead. It will show you what is realistically possible, which will be far more than you allowed yourself to envision in the past. Ultimately it will push you to be TRUE to you!You will need to slow down long enough in order see the sign posts along the way, and for some, you will be called to 'fall on your knees', surrendering in preparation to receive the truth of your next move. What a gift that will prove to be." Kristin Fontana http://kristinfontana.com/starcast/2014/12/24/