Healing

"True maturation on the spiritual path requires that we discover the depth of our wounds. As Achaan Chah put it, 'If you haven’t cried a number of times, your meditation hasn’t really begun.'" Jack Kornfield

In dealing with trauma, and working to heal trauma, we need to discover its roots.   This is really important work about inheritance of family trauma. https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/an-excerpt-from-it-di…/

"To be free of your past, you must recognize what happened and feel its hold on you.It is here, consciously or unconsciously, held in your body, feelings and mind. It is critical to honor the loss before you can take the next step of letting go. Then you can practice forgiveness and with it use meditation, therapy, trauma work, art and intimate support to help touch and heal the betrayal and trauma." Jack Kornfield, “No Time Like the Present.

“Breathe in and bring earth energy up through your root chakra and the bottom of your feet and into your whole body.

Breathe out and bring cosmic energy down through your crown chakra and into your whole body.

Keep repeating.” Margaret Gervais, 5.2.18 pdx

"Learn to trust your body.  Begin by mindfully and lovingly feeling what is going on in your body.  Sense the state of your body today, its signals and needs.  Listen carefully to what your body has to say to you.  What healing does it want?  What care?  What wisdom does it have to offer you?  Your body has been waiting for your attention.  Trust it.  Even if you have been out of touch for a long time, you can regain confidence step-by-step by trusting your bodily experience." Jack Kornfield, No Time Like the Present

“No matter how hard you try, you can’t please your inner critic. There is an alternative to the critic. It’s found in the movement from judgment to discernment. Discernment makes space, helps is to have perspective, and allows more of our humanity to show up.” Frank Ostaseski, The Five Initiations, pgs. 135,143.

"Pain helps us inhabit our divine nature."

"Ask yourself, how does my pain serve my soul's journey to move from fear to love?"

"Acknowledge pain and look at the higher perspective of how can this possibly serve my journey?  And bring love to those painful experiences."

"You are learning that you are stronger than pain and pain empowers you."  Tom Jacobs, www.tdjacobs.com

“A body is a field of moving energy and a system of information, as life continues it’s fluctuations, we tend to gather attachments, burdens and sorrows. We hold them so tightly that they become embedded in the body, causing changes and disruptions in the flow of our system while also limiting the access to the best possible versions of ourselves - this sometimes manifests itself as illness or disease as well as lack of belief in our own power and a lack of understanding of the universe.”

“When someone enters a purification process such as meditation, the practice of yoga asanas, or clean healthy eating, among many other things, the body begins releasing these knots of attachment, freeing up the blockages in our system of information, allowing our field of energy to return to balance and move more freely and powerfully. This causes changes in our body, not just physical changes such as the healing of disease or ailments, but immaterial and internal ones as well, such as believing in oneself more, the growth of love, and the aspiration to grow into more wisdom.” Yung Pueblo.

Insights for August/September 2016

img_4517

Awakening:"...the human adventure is a wandering through the vale of the world for the sake of making soul. Our life is psychological, and the purpose of life is to make psyche of it, to find connections between life and soul." James Hillman "Re-Visioning Psychology, pg. xv

"But what if life is the perfect expression of our own soul nature meeting the field of everything, meeting the free space in which divinity has allowed us to express ourselves? Essentially, we meet our own karma out there in the world. We meet the products of our own life and energy." Mark Jones, The Mountain Astrologer, Aug./Sept. 2016, page 45

"... human beings do not earn free will except through self-discovery, and they do not attempt self-discovery until things become so painful that they have no other choice." Liz Greene, "Saturn, A New Look at and Old Devil" pg. 11

Grief:"Within the silence that follows the final breath of a dying person is the certainty that something is occurring. In the no moving movement of air in the room one senses a deep, deep loneliness and at the same time the connectedness of everything." Robert Chodo Campbell, "Death is not an Emergency," Tricycle, fall 2016

Astrology:

Where is Saturn in your chart and what sign is it? Email me and I will tell you!

"Saturn symbolizes a psychic process as well as a quality or kind of experience. He is not merely a representative of pain, restrictions and discipline; he is also a symbol of the psychic process, natural to all human beings, by which an individual may utilize the experiences of pain, restriction, and discipline as a means for greater consciousness and fulfillment. Psychology has demonstrated that there is within the individual psyche a motive or impulsion toward wholeness and completeness." Liz Greene, "Saturn: A New Look at and Old Devil"  

Insights for July 2016

Sedum, Image by Margaret Gervais

Awakening:"From the soul’s point of view, you come to appreciate that each one of us is living out his or her own karma. We interact together, and those interactions are the grist for each other’s mill of awakening. From a personality point of view, you develop judgment, but from the soul’s point of view, you develop appreciation. This shift from judging to appreciating — to appreciating yourself and what your karmic predicament is, and who other beings are with their own karma — brings everything into a simple loving awareness. To be free means to open your heart and your being to the fullness of who you are, because only when you are resting in the place of unity can you truly honor and appreciate others and the incredible diversity of the universe." Ram Dass

"Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do." Clarissa Pinkola Estes, American poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves. Thank you to Carol Ferris for sharing this with me.

“As she swam in the ocean of wisdom, the distance that she once saw between her and the stars in the sky began to vanish, all that once separate no longer felt far away. Gently, the “I” that caused so much trouble began to evaporate. As she embraced the oneness of life, it dawned on her that the entirety of the universe rested completely in her heart.” Yung Pueblo, Swimming Freely

“There is a larger frame to the painting than the one that bounds our life’s events.” Ram Dass

Grief:

“The young psyche is absorbed in itself and its point of view, until something happens to destroy that innocence – we fall in love and the person leaves us, or someone in our family dies, or there is a crushing disappointment, like not getting into the college we had our heart set on because we didn’t’ make the grade. Whatever it is, something breaks the heart, and when the heart is broken, the wound begins in the psyche, the wound that will act like the grain of sand in the oyster. Dealing with that wound over years, with awareness and hard work, will produce the pearl of inner essence that cannot be taken away, because it’s indestructible. But to build an inner indestructible essence, we must first be destroyed in our more naïve form. “ James Hillman

Trauma:

“The focus of the trauma healing work [for highly sensitive beings], then, is two-fold: warmth and empathy for the original experience and empathy for the child who received a negative, rather than a caring response.” Sarah Peyton

Astrology:

"’Eris is the Greek goddess of discord and strife,’ Astronomer Mike Brown, a member of the discovery team, said via NASA. "She stirs up jealousy and envy to cause fighting and anger among men." Eris is currently conjunct (right next to) Uranus - the planet that is electrifying and impulsive and causes quick dramatic change. They are both square (causing conflict) with Pluto - the planet of power and transformation, all for the next four years. Make sense? Powerful changes+immediate impulsive changes+discord and strife. What to do? Do what you can. Don't ignore the trauma happening around the world, and possibly around you, be aware and see what it is in you that needs to and can change. Then go with the flow of deep strong powerful transformation and be part of the power of good.” Margaret Gervais 

Insights for June 2016

Honeysuckle. SP16. Portland. Margaret Gervais

Awakening:“Acting with compassion is not doing good because we think we ought to. It is being drawn to action by heart-felt passion. It is giving ourselves into what we are doing, being present in the moment – no matter how difficult, sad or even boring it feels, no matter how much it demands. It is acting from our deepest understanding of what life is, listening intently for the skillful means in each situation, and not compromising the truth. It is selfless way, in a spirit of mutual respect.” Ram Dass 

 “Pleasure cannot fill the heart

Hate cannot keep the body safe

Anger cannot set you free

Only love can fill the voids

Only love can create peace

Only love can liberate” yung pueblo

"Some monks spend their lives in caves in the Himalayas ceaselessly radiating compassion for the world. Others run orphanages for children whose parents have died of AIDS. Which is the right way? The spiritual path does not present us with a prescribed, pat formula for everyone to follow. It is not a matter of imitation. We cannot be Mother Teresa or Gandhi or the Buddha. We have to be ourselves. We must discover and connect with our unique expression of the truth. We must learn to listen to and trust ourselves." Jack Kornfield, This excerpt is taken from the book, “Bringing Home the Dharma: Awakening Right Where You Are“. See his blog posting at https://jackkornfield.com/spiritual-life-takes-courage/

“They asked her,‘What does loving yourself mean?’She answered,“It means to uncover and release whatever keeps you from true happiness. To love, honor and accept every single part of you, especially observe yourself with the utmost honesty and without judgment. Loving yourself means striving to reach new heights of self-understanding so as to cultivate the wisdom that inner peace requires.” yung pueblo, self love

“The mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.” Najwa Zebian

"Artists of any stripe who really do their work are engaged all the time." Eric Francis. Astrologer, Planet Waves.

" I did not hear until I was forty that everyone gets to have their own emotional acre, and do with it as they choose, as they are guided, to spend the days of this one short precious life with which we have been gifted." Anne Lamott

Astrology:

This will be impacting us through the summer of 2016."Grand Square in Mutable Signs. Remember life in the High School years, when the bell would ring several times a day and you would have 5 to 10 minutes to gather your things, get to your locker, and then onto the next class with a completely new set of people and circumstances? This went on several times a day, 5 days a week. You had to develop a knack for removing resistances to change and just get on with the next activity and group of people, or it would get overwhelming. Such is the start of our summer season with a grand square in mutable signs and the feeling of getting pulled in many directions at the same time. The same technique as in High School of removing resistances between activities is still the best advice. Otherwise you enter into hurry, hurry, rush, rush, mode, trying to get to everything. Better to stay focused on the topic at hand and when the symbolic bell rings, remove resistance and shift into the next activity.You have to drop into another level of your being to stay centered in such crazy making times, accepting the as-is-ness of life, including the never-ending ups and downs. Drop into your heart and orchestrate all of the changes going on in your life from there. Thinking you will be able to get to your peaceful heart once all of the challenges of everyday life get settled just won’t happen; better to get into your centered heart first to deal with the never ending material of life." David Pond, David Pond’s Astrological Newsletter, Summer Solstice 2016: From Contentious Times to Cooperation, Davidpond.com

Insights for April and May 2016

Awakening:

"Are you running around taking care of everyone around you and worrying about other people at the expense of your own well being? When the Buddha was asked, “How can you be taking a nap when so many people need your help?” he gently answered, “I won’t be able to help anyone if I don’t get my nap.”

It is very important (and far from selfish) to take good care of yourself as well as others. People keep telling me how busy they are, sleep-deprived and terribly malnourished because they direct all of their energy toward others. Don’t get me wrong, it’s our calling to be there for one another, but when you make a list of all the people you care about, make sure you include yourself on that list as well!

Cook for yourself the way you would prepare a meal for someone you care about, and insist that you get at least seven hours of sleep every night because you know it’s important. Don’t put yourself on the back burner or at the bottom of your priority list. The world needs you to be healthy!” With much love from your brother on the road, Timber Hawkeye

"Are you running from something? Are you running to something? What are you running from and to? Make a list, revisit and edit the list and gain insights as you go. When you identify these and start to let them go you will be more free and at peace." Margaret Gervais

~ “Don't WORRY. Things may seem to be all over the place, or pieces may seem to be not falling the way you think they should be, or things may seem to be going awry, but your message here is TO TRUST. The universe knows what is happening. AND WHY. So don't second-guess everything. Just wait and you'll see why this is happening. Do not be in fear. All of this is going ok. It's the way it's supposed to be. And you will come out better than you were before it happening. It's a choice. See this as a failure or something going awry, or see it as a blessing. It's here to teach you, heal you, HELP you, or to take your suffering or tension away. Just go with it and rejoice in the learning. This definitely is happening for a reason. Get out of the way and be more trusting.” ~ Higher Connection - Raising Our Vibration, Yesterday (April 4) at 8:11am.

“Your anger and your inspiration are all inside you. They are just being who they are. Your reaction is your reaction. It is showing you your attachments and aversions.” Ram Dass

“She had faced many challenges in her life, obstacles she had overcome, walls she had broken through, and to her benefit she had grown much from these experiences. But as she began to examine herself deeply, she noticed that the struggles she had faced were never really outside of her, bit deep within herself, it was her own fear that she was overcoming and her own lack of faith in herself that stood as her challenge. Even when the difficulties of life seemed almost insurmountable, she had learned to gather her forces, shake off her doubt, face the fear that attempted to overtake her mind, and place herself in the power of her strong determination.” Yung Pueblo, “Strong Determination.”

“If it doesn’t open, it’s not your door.” Spiritsoul, Instagram.

Meditation:

“Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It’s not something you can pick up or put down. And your certainly can’t grab it.” Jushi Cary Warner, “The Snaggletoothed Barbarian

“Learning to transform obstacles into objects of meditation provides a much needed bridge between the stillness of the concentrated mind and the movement of real life.” Mark Epstein, “Stopping the Wind.”

As always, great insights form Jack Kornfield: Reclaiming our lost sense of self: https://jackkornfield.com/reclaiming-lost-sense-self/

Simple and straightforward instructions for the practice of Vipassana Meditation. http://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-vipassana-insigh…/…#

“A sense of defamiliarization is a recurring feature of spiritual life, and it can come to us in many ways 1 in art, travel, in practice. However it comes, it offers an opportunity for openness and intimacy, both, if one can allow oneself to fall into them.” Henry Shukman, “Far from Home.”

“If you put yourself out there, there will always be someone who would prefer that you put yourself back.” Waylon H. Lewis, via Elephantjournal on Instagram.

Grief:

"Each of us passes in and out of this state [grace] many times in our life. This is a universal human experience. As we fall out of grace it looks and feels to us as if we are failing. Indeed we call it "failure"; a part of us dies. But this is the process by which we make space for the birth of something new, something more true to ourselves." "Falling out of Grace, Meditation on Loss, Healing and Wisdom" Sobonfu E. Somé. Thank you to Suzanne Bigelow for exposing me to this work.

"Letting go and moving through life from one change to another brings the maturing of our spiritual being. In the end we discover that to love and let go can be the same thing. Both ways do not seek to possess. Both allow us to touch each moment of this changing life and allow us to be there fully for whatever arises next." Jack Kornfield https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/15483153c1bce07e

Relationships:

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?

Parenting:

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

1. Self awareness

2. Self regulation

3. Motivation

4. Empathy

5. 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.)

Healing:

"True maturation on the spiritual path requires that we discover the depth of our wounds. As Achaan Chah put it, 'If you haven’t cried a number of times, your meditation hasn’t really begun.'" Jack Kornfield

In dealing with trauma, and working to heal trauma, we need to discover its roots.   This is really important work about inheritance of family trauma. https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/an-excerpt-from-it-di…/

Insights for March 2016

IMG_2208

Awakening:

“When it is time to put the various spiritual teachings aside, you will know it. Quite suddenly what once inspired you will repel you and you will be drawn more and more into silence. When this time comes you may be confused and wonder what happened to your enthusiasm, but rest assured that nothing has gone wrong, it is simply time to give your attention to silence. You may in fact go back and forth several times between being immersed in a teaching and then drawn to silence. Each phase has its own value and time. I would suggest to always have some time being spent in silence as part of your spiritual life. Otherwise you may start to use spiritual teaching to avoid silence. But for now follow your inspiration and attend to the inner stillness as well.” ~ Adyashanti, Experiencing No-Self Study Course ~ 2013

"We try to do everything, but then we’re not really focusing on anything. We’re not going to make any of our little fantasies come true if we pursue all of them at the same time. Decide: What is the one thing you want to pursue right now? Can you focus on that for at least a month? If not, maybe it’s not that important to you." —Leo Babauta in Tricycle's new meditation e-book

"If you are stuck, maybe you need a teacher. If you need a teacher, ask for a teacher, and be aware of a new teacher as he or she shows up. Maybe you need a new book. If you need a new book, as for a new book, and be aware of the new book as it shows up. Maybe you need a spiritual comrade. If you need a spiritual comrade, ask for a spiritual comrade, and be aware of the new comrade when they show up. Know. Ask. Receive." Margaret Gervais 2.9.16 PDX

“To change our world, the collective fear of humanity must decrease and our love must increase. To do this we must each have the courage to journey inward, and release the tension and pain in our mind that fuels our delusions and harm causing emotions.” Yung Pueblo, 21st century

“If you go out in the woods and look at trees, some trees are gnarled and some are straight. Some are flowering and some are barren, you just look with appreciation at the differences. You neither judge nor react. You don’t necessarily hate that tree and love that tree. But the minute you get around people, it’s all different. So I would suggest you treat people like trees.” Ram Dass“You are not broken, you are breaking through.” Alex Myles

Meditation:

The “it is what it is” meditation: "Sometimes it will be really hard to meditate because you will be dealing with a really hard emotion or situation in your life. These are some of the best times to meditate because a meditation session during a difficult time builds stronger “meditation muscles”. In meditating through a challenging time, it’s harder to sit, and harder to be in practice, but if you stick with it for your session, day after day, you will build more meditation muscles (mindfulness), clear and process what is challenging and with insight receive messages on your next steps to transformation.At these challenging times I practice “it is what it is meditation.” As the emotion or mental chatter about the situation shows up, I allow it to rise and I greet it with “it is what it is”. Normally I don’t advocate for mental responses, just breath. But when it’s really challenging it’s harder to accept, see and let go of what arises. Fear and anxiety are good examples. When fear or anxiety arises, our instinct is to push it back and not want it to arise. So if fear or anxiety arise and we greet it with, “it is what it is,” “it is what it is,” “it is what it is,” it helps us to allow it to arise, not push it down or label it as “bad”, process it, let it go, and allow insights to arise, all helping us transform.After all, everything arises for a reason. Our job as a meditator, is to allow it to arise, look at it, see if, don’t label is as good or bad, to let it go, sit in mindfulness and see what other insights arise." Margaret Gervais, 2.4.16, pdx

"Grief:More really great insights from Jack Kornfield: https://www.jackkornfield.com/healing-heart/  

Insights for February 2016

IMG_1552

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 

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.

Insights for December 2015

IMG_1016

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.

Insights for November 2015

Ice Image by Margaret Gervais

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/

Insights for October 2015

6.28.15

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. 

Insights for September 2015

Japanese Garden, Margaret Gervais

Awakening:

“If you want to be controlled by your mind, try to control your mind.”

“...we are taught to follow this other authority in us – don’t do this and the expense of trusting yourself.”

"When are you in harmony with your reality?”

“If you want to transcend body and mind, do it in mediation.”

“When you get really worked up its your body telling you its not working. Illusion doesn’t feel good.”

“The more conscious you get the more you can’t get away with illusion.”

“The grace periods are shorter and shorter for the illusions.”

“The more conscious you get the more sensitive you become.”

“It’s a non-conceptual way to align yourself.”

"Very few things survive the 5 second rule. Does it exist if for 5 seconds you don’t think about it?”

“95% of stuff in our mind does not exist if we do not think about it. It's all an abstraction in your mind and it just disappears.”

“This is why some people have a hard time being quiet – they are afraid to not be in their thoughts.” Adyashanti, Portland Intensive, 3.21.15

"[T]he ego has to be first accepted as though it is a reality in order to be dealt with before it can be transcended. At the higher levels, the ego is seen to be an illusion, without any innate reality."Dr. David Hawkins, I: Reality and Subjectivity“Receiving is a powerful – and intimate – practice, for we are actually inviting another person into ourselves. Rather than focusing on our own practice, or on our own virtue, we can focus on providing an opportunity for someone else to develop generosity…That moment itself is unsullied. For that reason it is said that generosity is the discipline that produces peace.” Judith Lied, The Power of Receiving.

“Each thing is actually the fundamental reality, and each thing has infinite worth. Each particular being has unimaginable worth and beauty, because that’s how the totality is showing up.” Adyashanti

Astrology:"

..all of us have access to far memory, that we can remember everything and anything, and that Uranus points to that process..." Mark Jones, "The Soul Speaks", page 174.

Meditation:

“Remember to follow the basics for each meditation. Each step matters to bring you inward, start relaxing and to awaken consciousness:

1. sit straight, eyes and mouth closed,

2. take one deep breath and let it out,

3. take three deep breaths and let it out,

4. scan your body to bring your awareness internally, and release any tension,

5. separate 10% of your consciousness as the watcher,

6. bring your attention to your breath, the inhale and exhale,

7. when thoughts arise, let them drift away like clouds, no judgment,

8. no mantra, no counting,

9. return repeatedly to the breath. These steps create a ritual/habit and are reminders to you each meditation to slow down and be mindful.” Margaret Gervais

I love what Ram Dass, Love Serve Remember write about the witness, or the watcher, in meditation. Beautiful. "The witness is your leverage in the game. The witness me isn’t trying to change any of the other me’s. It’s not an evaluator or a judge; it’s not the superego. It doesn’t care about anything. It just observes. “Hmmm, there she or he is doing that again.” That witness place inside you is your centering device, your rudder.The witness is part of your soul. It’s witnessing your incarnation, this lifetime, from the heart-mind. It’s the beginning of discrimination between your soul and your ego, your real Self and your self in the incarnation. Once you begin to live in this witness place, you begin to shift your identification from the roles and thought forms. As you witness yourself, the process becomes more like watching a movie than being the central character in one." Ram DassHow meditation can help with anxiety: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chopra/article/How-meditation-can-help-anxiety-6499435.php

Grief:

Death Is a Part of Living Until you realize the fundamental fact that reality is really in the moment, you’re thinking about long-term goals—'when I do this' and 'when I become that'—so you think, I don’t want to die, because then I won’t be able to do all these things. But if you’re living in the present, death becomes a part of living.—Jason Lewis, "An Interview with Jason Lewis"

Insights for August 2015

IMG_3160

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

Insights for July 2015

7.2015.2hydranges

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." ‪#‎meditationtheichingweekly.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.

Insights for June 2015

IMG_4620

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

insights for May 2015

IMG_4422

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 

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.

Depression

IMG_4104

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

Insights for April 2015

Peony. Margaret Gervais

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.

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-…/