Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Sunday prayer blogging

Isn't this lovely?

Art is prayer made visible
Music is prayer made audible
Dance is prayer embodied
But the greatest art we practice
Is the art of compassion
Which is prayer in action and service.

—Rev. Dr. Gina Rose Halpern

I found it here (bottom of page).

How to laugh at your own perfectionism

It's a bumper sitcker I just found:

I am a nobody, nobody is perfect, therefore I am perfect.

:-)

Something about unhappiness

This is a wonderfully evocative paragraph about a common attachment:

Much of our unhappiness comes from the desire to be happy at the expense of others. It’s really very ironic that in grasping after happiness in this way we end up causing ourselves pain. It’s like sticking your hand into what you think is a cool stream in order to find relief on a hot day, only to discover that the water is boiling.

It is from an introduction to loving-kindness practice that I found on the Wildmind site.

So simple, so profound

And so true:

There's nothing like starting off the day with meditation. Whether it's five hours or simply five minutes. The important thing is to start. After 21 days it will be a habit. There are many positive benefits to amaze one. The entire day becomes different. And there are many ways to meditate. Find the way that suits you best. Working on oneself is always an "inside job." One simply needs to kick it off.

I found it right here.

How lack of mindfulness can play out

Long time friend of the Center, Paul Rogers, sent us the following:

If you want to do just one thing to improve your primary relationship, make the words "always" and "never" off limits. That usage is both inflammatory and quite an exaggeration. Start by substituting the words "often" or sometimes" or even "most of the time" and right away you'll bring more mindfulness into your experience of the other person.

Being aware without judgment

Here's a description of mindfulness I found recently that I really like:

When you practice mindfulness meditation, you practice being in the present moment, and noticing all of your experiences. You practice being aware of things happening outside of yourself (e.g., things you see, smell, hear), and things happening internally (e.g., your thoughts, feelings and sensations). Importantly, mindfulness meditation involves being aware without judgment. So, you are paying attention to all of these experiences, without labeling them as good or bad.

It's from a little article by Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault, PhD that you can find right here.

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Sunday art blogging

Attributed to Vincent van Gogh

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Something about life and our minds

This is interesting:

We think in generalities, but we live in details.

- Alfred North Whitehead

Alfred North Whitehead is one of the most important names in the approach to reality known as process philosophy (or process theology). If you haven't explored it you might like to find out more.

Something about anger

This is an intriguing way of sorting through our anger issues:

Anger is a deluded mind that focuses on an animate or inanimate object, feels it to be unattractive, exaggerates its bad qualities, and wishes to harm it. For example, when we are angry with our partner, at that moment he or she appears to us as unattractive or unpleasant. We then exaggerate his bad qualities by focusing only on those aspects that irritate us and ignoring all his good qualities and kindness, until we have built up a mental image of an intrinsically faulty person. We then wish to harm him in some way, probably by criticizing or disparaging him.

Because it is based on an exaggeration, anger is an unrealistic mind; the intrinsically faulty person or thing that it focuses on does not in fact exist.

It is that last observation that is truly revolutionary when you think about it. What if we were able to realize - on a consistent basis - that the "person" with whom we're angry does not actually exist? WOW!

I found the piece right here. It's by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.

One simple mental thing

I just found a very short, pithy and really focused article on Examiner.com that I want to encourage you to read. It's called "What is mindfulness and why meditation?" by Eddie Adams and here's a brief excerpt:

Jon Kabat-Zinn, a pioneering author and doctor who's work is responsible for bringing mindfulness into medicine and popular culture, has described mindfulness as "a process of bringing a certain quality of attention to moment-by-moment experience." Our attention, or awareness, is the one simple mental thing that is always readily available to us all at any moment. By cultivating our mindfulness, we can help ourselves respond more skillfully to daily stresses, emotional suffering, and ingrained behaviors that may no longer help us live happily.

Now go see what she says about meditation. The very last sentence is just delightful!

Not a bad definition!

This is fun:

Enjoy doing nothing without falling asleep - meditation.

-- J. Kleykamp

And there's something to that, too!

Doing our own inner work

"Figure of Wisdom"

Creative Commons

This can provoke a lot of thought for those who will let it:

We do not receive wisdom,
we must discover it for ourselves,
after a journey through the wilderness
which no one else can make for us,
which no one can spare us,
for our wisdom is the point of view
from which we come at last to regard the world.

-- Marcel Proust

Actually, I don't think this means that wisdom cannot be taught or shared. It does mean, however, that each person has to integrate it and apply it according to his or her own context. We can't just scoop up someone else's wisdom wholesale and run with it.

Something about choices

I want to share three quotations with you today because I really think they go together:

Every decision you make - every decision - is not a decision about what to do. It's a decision about Who You Are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do. -Neale Donald Walsch

To live is to choose. But to choose, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go, and why you want to get there…. - Kofi Annan

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. - Dalai Lama

It occurs to me that if we really see our choices and decisions as being about who we are, we will be more able to let go of attachments to outcome. And that letting go will hugely reduce our stress and increase our well being.

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Quieting the mind

Today an article caught my attention because of the title: "Pockets of Quietude". Here's the first paragraph:

In our culture we believe that doing, taking action, and making the effort are the most important ways to get out of a crisis. What if the opposite is true? What if you give yourself permission to simply be and rest in order to find peace and solutions to your current confusion? Learning to listen requires two things: a practice that facilitates quieting your mind, such as meditation, prayer, or communing with nature; and an understanding or discovery of how you receive answers.

The author also quotes someone who suggested that having a "not-to-do" list is as important has having a "to-do" list. I'd never thought of it quite that way before.

Go on over and read the whole piece. It's very short.

Benefits

I just came across a brief article entitled "The 3 Most Common Benefits of Meditation". I actually agree that these, if not the most common, could definitely be considered the most important. They are:

1. peace of mind and tranquility
2. a sense of compassion
3. non-reaction

The writer, Sonia Gallagher (who calls herself a "recovering attorney"!), offers a short descriptive paragraph on each of these benefits. Go on over there and take a look.
~~~