Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

The key to life

Oustanding (IMHO):

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.

-- John Lennon

Sunday art blogging

Artist: François Barraud

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Self-acceptance

I want to call your attention to the transcription of a short interview with Christopher Germer. Here's part of what he said:

Perhaps the easiest way [to deal with difficult emotions] is simply to label the emotion—fear, anger, sorrow. When we label an emotion, especially with” tender attention” rather than “worried attention,” the emotion seems to lose its sting. Brain imaging studies have also shown how labeling reduces the fear response of the amygdala, the part of the brain that signals danger.
...
[Another] strategy is to use language to soothe and comfort yourself when you’re feeling really bad. You could try the following phrases, which Kristin Neff calls the “self-compassion mantra.” ... When you’re in the midst of emotional pain, try saying to yourself:

This is a moment of suffering
Suffering is a part of life
May I be kind to myself
May I accept myself as I am

Here at the Center we frequently work with the basic principle of accepting our feelings without judgment rather than getting attached to the idea of feeling better right away. Often we will feel better as a result but that needs to be a side-effect --- not the main objective.
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Words of a thinly disguised Zen master :-)

See what I mean?

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.

~ Garrison Keillor

You may need to read it a couple of times!
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Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

The Now

This is very well expressed:

It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.

-- George Harrison

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Flow

I think this is truly beautiful:

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

-- Laozi

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo by Xuan (Center participant)

Astute observation

Something to ponder:

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

-- Anaïs Nin

Something about acceptance

Well! This is certainly well put:

So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe.

— Isaac Asimov

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

The problem with perfectionism

It has been my observation that perfectionism is the character trait at the root of more suffering than any other. And, yet, people who are afflicted with this attribute cling to it passionately and defend it with ferocity. Here's something that says a little bit about this:

Perfectionism doesn't believe in practice shots. It doesn't believe in improvement. Perfectionism has never heard that anything worth doing is worth doing badly--and that if we allow ourselves to do something badly we might in time become quite good at it. Perfectionism measures our beginner's work against the finished work of masters. Perfectionism thrives on comparison and competition. It doesn't know how to say, "Good try," or "Job well done." The critic does not believe in creative glee--or any glee at all, for that matter. No, perfectionism is a serious matter.

-- Julia Cameron

A reason for singing

I suppose we don't know this for sure but I like it anyway:

The whales do not sing because they have an answer, they sing because they have a song.

-- Gregory Colbert

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Something about kindness

I found an article this morning entitled "Minute Meditation: A Prayer For Kindness" over on a website called Elev8. (Isn't that clever?)

The website as a whole is addressed to practicing Christians but there's a lot of good material there completely suitable for an interfaith audience. Here's an example:

[Kindness] is as broad and old as humanity. The Greek playwright Sophocles alluded to the naturalness of kindness when he said, “Kindness gives birth to kindness.” The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius understood the personal as well as the social benefits of kindness. “Ask thyself daily,” he wrote, “to how many ill-minded persons thou hast shown a kind disposition.” Goethe viewed kindness as the “golden chain by which society is bound together.” The fact that the word kindness is derived from the Old English gecynde, meaning natural, is a good indication that kindness is a very natural virtue. Shakespeare’s immortal and oft-quoted phrase, “the milk of human kindness” (Macbeth, act 1, scene 5), also attests to the naturalness of kindness, especially with regard to its manner of nourishment.

In the contemporary world, we commonly hear reference to “random acts of kindness.” The expression was coined, presumably, to counteract “random acts of violence.” Nonetheless, acts of kindness are not fully themselves if they are random and impersonal. They should be well-placed and personal. “How truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness,” wrote Washington Irving, “making everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles.” No other virtue is better identified with the heart. Kindness and kindheartedness are synonymous, as are kind and kindhearted.

Small acts of watchful kindness are seldom performed in vain. And they have a marvelous proclivity for engendering successive acts of kindness. Moreover, kindness is versatile in its manner of expression. The kind look, gesture, or word can be as beneficial as the kind deed.

As you may remember, the metta or loving-kindness meditation is simply based on the principle that first we wish ourselves happiness and well-being and then we extend that same wish to others.

You know, it gives me a little lift just reading about it.
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Happiness article

I thought I'd share the following:

20 Easy Ways to Be Happier

Not all of it is immediately about meditation but there are mindfulness implications in all of the suggestions.
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Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Enough

This is something to consider whenever we find ourselves grasping or craving or coveting:

Nothing is enough for the person to whom enough is too little.

-- Epicurus

It is a common misconception, by the way, that Epicurus preached self-indulgence. He did not. He actually believed that the greatest and most reliable pleasure comes from moderation.
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