“Truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing ”
“Whatever a person’s mind dwells on intensely and with firm resolve, that is exactly what he becomes.”
Try these directions for mindfulness of breathing, a basic concentration practice: When you’re ready to meditate, close your eyes and bring your attention to the motion of your breath as it enters and leaves your nostrils. Keep your focus at the nostrils, noting the full passage of each in-breath and out-breath from beginning to end. Don’t follow the breath into your lungs or out into the air; just watch its flow in and out of the nostrils. If you can, notice the subtle sensations of the breath as it comes and goes. Be aware of each in-breath and out-breath as it passes by the nostrils, just as the doorman watches each person who comes and goes through a door.
Attend to the feeling of the breath. Don’t try to imagine it or visualize it. Note the sensation of the breath just as it is, exactly as you feel it. You may feel the breath at the rim of the nostrils, or just inside the nose, or on the upper lip beneath the nose. The sensations you feel will change – you may sometimes feel the breath like the light touch of a feather, like a dull throb, or as an intense point of pressure on your lip, or in countless other ways. There is no “right” way for the breath to feel; just be aware of what it is. Each time you notice your mind has wandered to other thoughts, or is caught by background noises, bring your attention back to the easy, natural rhythm of your breathing.
Don’t try to control your breath. Simply watch it. Fast or slow, shallow or deep, the nature of the breath does not matter. Your full attention to it is what counts. If you have trouble keeping your mind on the breath, count each one up to ten, then start over again at one. Or, to anchor your mind on your breath, you can occasionally make a strong, deliberate inhalation and exhalation. Then let your breath return to its normal rate.
Whenever you realize you’re thinking about something else, return your awareness to your breath. Don’t try to fight off thoughts. Just let them go.
If sounds distract you, do the same: Let them be and simply start watching your breath again. If aches or itches bother you, slowly move or shift to ease them if you must. But keep your mind on breathing while you do it.
Your mind will wander, and when you first start to meditate you may be acutely aware of how active it is. Don’t worry about it. Just keep returning your attention to your breath, letting go of whatever the mind wanders to. This is the essence of meditation: Letting go of your thoughts.
Visit the Ram Dass site HERE.
“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there - buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.
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“Only that in you which is me can hear what I’m saying.”
“When each day is the same as the next, it’s because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises.
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“When we protect ourselves so we won’t feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of the heart.”
“Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree.”
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. ”
“.... and I should like to ask you, as best I can, dear Sir, to be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, like books written in a foreign tongue.”
“What matters is how quickly you do what your soul directs. Truth lifts the heart, Like water refreshes thirst. ”
“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently. ”
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
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“So don’t be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must think that something is happening within you, and remember that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don’t know what work they are accomplishing within you? ”
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ”
“Dharma is in your heart, not in the forest. Don’t believe others. Just listen to your heart. You don’t have to go and look anywhere else. Wisdom is in you, just like the sweet ripe mango is already in a young green one. With even a little intuitive wisdom you will be able to see clearly the ways of the world. You will come to understand that everything in the world is your teacher. ”
“Thoughts are the ink and pen with which you are writing your own destiny. ”
By David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
On the level of love, we are heartfelt, generous, nurturing, affectionate, steadfast, and forgiving. Love is protective, collaborative, uplifting, holistic, and gracious. It is characterized by warmth, gratitude, appreciation, humility, completion, vision, purity of motive, and sweetness.
Love is a way of being. It is the energy that radiates when the blocks to it have been surrendered. It is more than an emotion or a thought—it is a state of being. Love is what we have become through the pathway of surrender. It is a way of being in the world that says: “How can I be of help to you? How can I comfort you? How can I loan you money when you’re broke? How can I help you find a job? How can I console you when you’ve suffered a major loss in your family?” Lovingness is a way through which we light up the world.
Everyone has the opportunity to contribute to the beauty and harmony of the world by showing kindness to all living things and, thereby, supporting the human spirit. That which we freely give to life flows back to us because we are equally part of that life.
Like ripples on the water, every gift returns to the giver. What we affirm in others, we actually affirm in ourselves.
Once we become willing to give love, the discovery quickly follows that we are surrounded by love and merely didn’t know how to access it. Love is actually present everywhere; its presence only needs to be realized.
Love expresses itself in many ways. The little boy memorizes a ditty taught to him by his father, and he is still able to say it eighty years later. The Navy sailor steers the ship through a terrible typhoon for three days, nonstop, without food and drink, when all of his shipmates are seasick. The doctor loves and prays for every patient without their knowing about it. The mother cleans up the messy pants of a young child with diarrhea, saying, “Honey, it’s not your fault; you couldn’t help it.” The wife gets up early to make coffee every morning just the way her husband likes it. The doggie waits by the door for the owner to return and wags her tail when he comes through the door. The kitty purrs. The songbird sings.
Typically, people think of love as “romantic” love, as in “Honey” and “Sweetheart.” But romantic love is only a minor part of a human lifetime. There are many types of love other than personal, romantic love, and they infuse our everyday experience: love of pets, love of family and friends, love of freedom, love of purpose, love of country, love of attributes, love of creation, love as virtue, love as enthusiasm, love as forgiveness, love as acceptance, love as motivator, love as appreciation, love as kindness, love as essence of relationship, love as group energy (for example: Alcoholics Anonymous), love as admiration, love as respect, love as valor, love as fraternal bonds of unity (buddies, classmates, shipmates, teammates), love as friendship, love as loyalty, love as affection, love as cherishing, love as self-sacrificing maternal love, love as devotion.
“Love is a many splendored thing,” as the popular song goes. Experientially, this statement is true. When we have surrendered all of the resistances to love and let go of the negative feelings that block love, then the world is radiant with the splendor of love. On the level of love, this radiance is no longer hidden from us.
“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception. ”
“We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another. ”