Friday cat blogging!

Leroy Finlay

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

What we emphasize

The following quotation is actually a very intriguing assertion. I never thought of our approach to our experience quite this way before:

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.

-- Carlos Castaneda

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

Yes, posture matters

Take a look:

Research has confirmed what meditators have known for millennia — that body posture affects mental states.

Researchers found that people who were told to sit up straight were more likely to believe thoughts they wrote down while in that posture concerning whether they were qualified for a job.

On the other hand, those who were slumped over their desks were less likely to accept these written-down feelings about their own qualifications.

The results show how our body posture can affect not only what others think about us, but also how we think about ourselves...

You can read the rest of it right here.

A spiritual revolution

Yesterday, I found the passage copied below and was very struck by it as I had never come across this statement by the Dalai Lama before.

In my work with individuals, I observe so much selfishness - and apparently unconscious selfishness at that - that I think we do indeed need such a revolution:

My call for a spiritual revolution is not a call for a religious revolution. Nor is it a reference to a way of life that is somehow otherworldly, still less to something magical or mysterious. Rather it is a call for a radical reorientation away from our habitual preoccupation with self. It is a call to turn toward the wider community of beings with whom we are connected, and for conduct which recognizes others' interests alongside our own.

-- The 14th Dalai Lama

I don't think people are meaning to be selfish - really. I think, however, that the prevailing culture imprints the idea upon people that they're actually supposed to be more concerned about getting their own way than anything else.

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Find a way to laugh today

I saved this quotation quite some time ago and just came across it again:

Laughter is the jam on the toast of life. It adds flavor, keeps it from being too dry, and makes it easier to swallow.

— Diane Johnson quoted in Zen Soup by Laurence G. Boldt

Meditation and health

I want to share an article with you called Swine Flu: Is Meditation the Best Medication? that I found this morning. It takes issue with a purely material and mechanistic view of health and disease and also discusses the place of meditation in an overall approach to one's health. Here's a little bit:

Are people who meditate more healthy? I am not aware of any scientific studies, but based on my own experience with many different types of meditation which includes association with various groups, schools, and teachers of meditation, I would have to say they appear to be. Or at least they worry less about their physical health, take illness more in stride, and are able to recover faster when it occurs.

One thing is sure: long-term practice of meditation on a daily basis seems to raise the energy level of the body. This makes a difference because the body is like an energy-filled vessel. If this energy leaks through negative emotions, unnecessary physical tension, and the constant churning of the mind, the body will suffer a general state of depletion, which is bound to make it more susceptible to disease. It also makes a difference if one avoids much of the jarring imagery churned out by the mass media through violent and disturbing films, TV programming, video games, etc.

These health-related factors which have been understood by traditional societies for millennia are also starting to be realized by millions of ordinary people in every walk of life.

Sounds like a fairly balanced approach to me.

The wrong key

Sometimes I tell my meditation classes that one aspect of taking refuge involves embracing "reality as reality works". Often we are attached to a fantasy of how we believe reality should work. Here's the remedy:

The meaning of life is not dependent on a particular way of life, but on the conformity of one’s way to the present possibilities. Similarly, a door key is not useful in itself, but in relation to a lock that it opens because it matches it. The key to happiness therefore consists in having our desires match our reality. We are locked out of happiness when we refuse to do this and fiddle in vain with the wrong key – that is, the key to misery.

- Laurent Grenier

Friday cat blogging!

"Cat named Millie"
Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Awareness

(Friend of the Center, Paul Rogers, sent me this.)

The key?

Oh, I like this!

If you're looking for the key to the Universe I've got some good news and some bad news. The bad news: There is no key to the Universe. The good news: It was never locked.

-- author unknown

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

So true. So true.

I don't know if I've shared this one with you yet or not. Nothing like an appeal to reality!

The affairs of the world will go on forever. Do not delay the practice of meditation.

~ Milarepa

Something to ponder

Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light. Give thanks for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. And if perchance you see no reason for giving thanks, rest assured the fault is in yourself.

-- Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Indian Chief

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Being right here, right now

Now here is what it truly means to be utterly in the present moment:

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

-- Martin Luther

Sunday art blogging

Artist: Paul Gauguin
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Magnificent solitude

Ah! Another reason I could wish I knew German -- so that I could read Rilke in the original:

It must be immense, this silence, in which sounds and movements have room, and if one thinks that along with all this the presence of the distant sea also resounds, perhaps as the innermost note in this prehistoric harmony, then one can only wish that you are trustingly and patiently letting the magnificent solitude work upon you, this solitude which can no longer be erased from your life; which, in everything that is in store for you to experience and to do, will act as an anonymous influence, continuously and gently decisive, rather as the blood of our ancestors incessantly moves in us and combines with our own to form the unique, unrepeatable being that we are at every turning of our life.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke