Mindfulness

This is truly a great definition. Take a look:

"Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn't more complicated that that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it."

-- Sylvia Boorstein

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Pain

Here's something I found among some of my notes for class:

"We must transform our pain or else we will transmit it."

-- Richard Rohr

Oh, how true that is. Really.
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I so agree

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

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When opposition is necessary

Participants in my classes often express concern that the meditative principles of learning to "let go of grasping" and "acceptance without judgment" will turn them into doormats. Far from it. These spiritual approaches will actually empower us when we get some practice under out belt.


Here's something I like by a well known meditation teacher:

“Loving someone does not mean automatically acquiescing to their every whim. Sometimes love shows itself in saying no to an attitude or desire that is harmful. But your opposing must be done tenderly, without anger or condescension.”

--Eknath Easwaran

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Meditation and school work

Here's an article I'd like to call to your attention:

Simple Meditation Helps Students Concentrate

This research, by the way, has really been in the meditation news a lot the past few days. Here's a little excerpt from the article:

Simple meditation techniques, backed up with modern scientific knowledge of the brain, are helping kids hard-wire themselves to be able to better pay attention and become kinder, says neuroscientist Richard Davidson.

“A simple anchor like one’s breath is a centuries-old meditation technique, but it turns out to have some very beneficial qualities in terms of changes in both the brain and behaviour,” he said.

Remember: we don't have to be students to benefit in this way.
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Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons
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Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Common

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Mistakes

I want to share with you this morning a delightful and very short article by Tim Freke:

Making Mistakes

And here's a little excerpt:

"It seems to me that I am profoundly paradoxical. On the one hand so big and on the other so small. Within me are unfathomable depths, yet 'Tim' is also necessarily limited and imperfect. On my spiritual journey I once believed that I could one day perfect 'Tim' into some sort of enlightened being who was always at his best. Now it feels to me that the journey is about embracing all that I am."

I would like to assert that this is one of the most important spiritual lessons ever.

Ever.
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