If only we could all open our eyes and see the wonders that Mother Nature lays out for us each and every day!
Infinite beauty is everywhere, in the first light of day, the wind through the trees, flowers in bloom, the sweet scent of a rose, song birds calling out, insects chattering, rivers meandering quietly through the countryside, ocean waves breaking on the shoreline, children laughing as they play in the yard or on the street side, senior citizens chatting as they pass the time of day, the quietness of a smile that makes your day as its passed to you by a stranger on the street to the quietness of the closing of the day, the clouds, the stars….What a wonderful world…
Let’s Open our Eyes and Live 🙂
I would like to dedicate this post to my mum on Mother’s Day, her beauty and wisdom will ‘Always’ be with me..RIP with the Angels..with Love Mark
You may not hear a lot about adult bullying, but it is a problem. Read this article to learn more about different types of adult bullies and get some ideas on how to deal with an adult bully. Adult bullying is a serious problem and may require legal action.
One would think that as people mature and progress through life, that they would stop behaviors of their youth. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Sadly, adults can be bullies, just as children and teenagers can be bullies. While adults are more likely to use verbal bullying as opposed to physical bullying, the fact of the matter is that adult bullying exists. The goal of an adult bully is to gain power over another person, and make himself or herself the dominant adult. They try to humiliate victims, and “show them who is boss.”
There are several different types of adult bullies, and it helps to know how they operate:
Narcissistic Adult Bully: This type of adult bully is self-centered and does not share empathy with others. Additionally, there is little anxiety about consequences. He or she seems to feel good about him or herself, but in reality has a brittle narcissism that requires putting others down.
Impulsive Adult Bully: Adult bullies in this category are more spontaneous and plan their bullying out less. Even if consequences are likely, this adult bully has a hard time restraining his or her behavior. In some cases, this type of bullying may be unintentional, resulting in periods of stress, or when the bully is actually upset or concerned about something unconnected with the victim.
Physical Bully: While adult bullying rarely turns to physical confrontation, there are, nonetheless, bullies that use physicality. In some cases, the adult bully may not actually physically harm the victim, but may use the threat of harm, or physical domination through looming. Additionally, a physical bully may damage or steal a victim’s property, rather than physically confronting the victim.
Verbal Adult Bully: Words can be quite damaging. Adult bullies who use this type of tactic may start rumors about the victim, or use sarcastic or demeaning language to dominate or humiliate another person. This subtle type of bullying also has the advantage – to the bully – of being difficult to document. However, the emotional and psychological impacts of verbal bullying can be felt quite keenly and can result in reduced job performance and even depression.
Secondary Adult Bully: This is someone who does not initiate the bullying, but joins in so that he or she does not actually become a victim down the road. Secondary bullies may feel bad about what they are doing, but are more concerned about protecting themselves.
Workplace bullying can make life quite miserable and difficult. Supervisors should be made aware of adult bullies, since they can disrupt productivity, create a hostile work environment (opening the company to the risk of a law suit) and reduce morale.
It is important to note, though, that there is little you can do about an adult bully, other than ignore and try to avoid, after reporting the abuse to a supervisor. This is because adult bullies are often in a set pattern. They are not interested in working things out and they are not interested in compromise. Rather, adult bullies are more interested in power and domination. They want to feel as though they are important and preferred, and they accomplish this by bringing others down. There is very little you can do to change an adult bully, beyond working within the confines of laws and company regulations that are set up. The good news is that, if you can document the bullying, there are legal and civil remedies for harassment, abuse and other forms of bullying. But you have to be able to document the case.
Adult bullies were often either bullies as children, or bullied as children. Understanding this about them may be able to help you cope with the behavior. But there is little you can do about it beyond doing your best to ignore the bully, report his or her behavior to the proper authorities, and document the instances of bullying so that you can take legal action down the road if necessary.
A Simple Story:
A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stamp on it and really mess it up but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty is was.
She then told them to tell it (The Piece of Paper) they’re sorry.
Now even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they had left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it.
That is what happens when people bully and hurt others, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever.
The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home.
It’s time to let go, to be yourself and to enjoy your life to the full, cast away your fears and your doubts, stop worrying about others and what they think of you, You are You and you are your own spirit, so break free from the chains that hold you down…
The disconnected self. We all may feel this way, at least on occasion.
The sensation exists that we are beings separated from each other by space, time, or material construction. We will categorize and classify these differences and even exploit them if it suits us. However, as different as we may be, we also cannot deny our connections and similarities.
To truly understand and feel the hurt that we and others experience, we rely on our empathic skills. The word “compassion” itself means having sympathy for the suffering of others. It is no stretch of the imagination to know that people do suffer in the world. There are many kinds of trauma–physical, emotional, and psychological–that so many of us endure.
We have had the pain, terror, and horrors of war for about as long as humans have been around. The natural world itself is full of the struggle to survive under the most basic of circumstances. There is the expression, “It is a dog-eat-dog world out there.” We must understand the hurt, pain and suffering we have before we can try to help make things better.
We are, indeed, fortunate if we have someone with whom we can talk about these matters. For many people who follow certain religions, they turn to church leaders to get them through difficult times, such as when there is a death or serious illness in the family. Laypersons have counselors, mentors, and other healers–trained people who will coach us through hard times. They help us see the possibilities; they listen to our troubles, and help us take the right steps back on the positive side of things.
Compassion is not only a skill of those trained to work in those kinds of situations. It is something any of us may choose to do, because if we are honest with ourselves, we know there is a lot of pain and suffering out there, and we often cannot alleviate the pain alone. It is a positive action to be concerned about doing something to make the pain more bearable.
Some will advise that it is best to not look at the difficulties or look upon a particular horror directly, feeling it is a waste of time or counter-productive. Yet, look at the many appeals for help we see televised or that come to us on the internet these days. They can be rather graphic and show some of the real struggles of the young and old alike. We cannot deny the things that present themselves to us.
Eagerness to go out and work on eliminating them actively calls to each of us in different ways. There are people who see very little benefit in talking the problem over first, or realizing that they are not the first or only people who have suffered in this particular way or with this certain problem. Avoidance and fear do not help, clearly.
However, before we can know how much attention to place or how much work will be involved in maintaining a healthy attitude, we must first really see, know, and understand the extent of the problem, how deep it goes, how long it is been around, etc. In order to know how best to apply our energy or work on some sort of action plan, it is best to have a goal.
The goal of compassion is to alleviate suffering. This basic understanding is what a compassionate person knows from the very beginning. How to go about doing that is something unique to each situation, which is why it pays to look before we leap, so to speak. We may not be equipped to handle every case of suffering that crosses our path in life. We may feel best suited to help where and when we can, knowing that we cannot handle it all, or there are just some circumstances or situations that are beyond our capabilities.
This brings us back around to the concept that we are individuals, all having separate experiences. There can be some rather significant obstacles to overcome, when it comes to helping others, such as time and distance. When we see a situation in some far-off, war-torn land, we might wish we could be there to help in some way to care for the orphans or the sick and injured. More directly, there may be nothing more helpless than the feeling when a loved one is hurt or injured in some place where we cannot reach them or be with them in times of strife.
While it may be true that we all have our own unique perspective on our human lives, together we can create and accomplish great things. Compassion is one act that we can choose to do–one that will help others as we help ourselves to get beyond the pain and negativity that can hold us down. Together we rise, if that is our choice, and we are willing to do the work involved.
This is when we can actively choose to lessen the obstacles of time and space. Realistically, we may not be able to travel at a moment’s notice halfway around the world, but we can hold compassionate attention and cohesive energy to aid persons who need the spiritual support we can provide. We can work on making the steps happen to get there in person while we keep in touch with the suffering that exists.
Nobody says life is easy. It may not lessen the huge problems that negativity brings to the existence of the human struggle, but each little act of compassion and support we give each other sure does knock down the negativity and other obstacles bit by bit. To say we have done our one small part to make things better is something each of us can do–and it is up to us to do it.
Choose and act accordingly–there is great power in that.
Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you all my life and I didn’t even know it!
The familiar soul you meet one day you swear you know from somewhere but never met in this lifetime. It has probably happened many times during your life, this soul deja vu. You meet someone who resonates with your very heart and you wonder how the Universe helped you walk right into each other’s life.
In this age of rapidly accelerating energy and evolutionary ascension, we are experiencing this soul recognition more frequently than ever before. Many of us are finding our soul families online. The world becomes a different place as we understand that we have to take more responsibility for our personal environment.
Many of us have been on the quest of surrounding ourselves with “light” minded people. It has become so much easier for us to explore and communicate with each other. It gives reason and a higher meaning to the technology explosion we have had to adjust to in just the last few years. It becomes obvious that without it, we could never have come together spiritually in such a remarkable way.
Your soul family can be more than just other people who think like you do. They could have incarnated with you through different lifetimes throughout the history of the Earth and beyond. They are your cosmic sisters and brothers from the Other Side. You may have once lived in a colony together and made a pact to find each other in this or that life. Depending on your life choices and ability to listen to the signs and messages, you may realize this phenomenon several times. You will feel instant recognition and understand many things in common between you. You know what the other is thinking without saying a word. You have the same spiritual beliefs and questions. You feel energy between you that is on another level. You know this person was truly in your life chart to assist you and you them. You can also possess a very strong psychic bond and share healing energy that is very advanced.
Have you ever felt the family you were born into comes from another planet? Your ideas and personalities may clash in such a manner you wonder if we all really do choose our blood family before we incarnate. You may feel that you never belonged with or been understood by the very people who gave you physical life and most of the immediate family around them.
Consider (remember) that this dynamic may have been exactly what you needed to raise your vibrational energy field by completing your soul theme challenges in this life.
The control dramas and life scenarios played out between you, no matter how absurd, have assisted in the soul growth you needed to spiritually evolve. We all eventually come to realize holding on to these painfully difficult family situations hold us back from completing our life themes and healing the past.
It may be absolutely necessary to remove yourself physically from this kind of constant negativity to heal emotionally and spiritually. You can still forgive and move on without having to ever be in the same space again. Some of the loveliest people on Earth have been raised in cruel and heartless circumstances. They somehow know that they are on a higher vibration and they keep moving forward to a higher purpose. You can always free yourself to recognize your true soul family! It is genuinely possible to find peace and harmony within that helps your purpose shine with others.
Millions of people who are thinking the same thoughts, getting the same messages, and awakening the new era have started sharing and creating miracles together in a very short time. Collectively we understand each other. Members of your “soul family” will weave their way throughout your lifetime. Your level of awareness, combined with theirs, can spark miracles of recognition, healing, and fantastic events!
Negativity is viral. It spreads quickly, as it is infectious. Stay with a negative person for a while and you will be infected, from out of nowhere your mind will fall into a negative, downward spiral! You know very well that in your family, or in your work place, you are surrounded by umpteen numbers of the carrier of this deadly disease. Negativity is the root cause of diseases.
We need to discuss various ways and means to take care of this root disease of all illnesses of mind and body.
Let us not forget that the breeding ground of all mind-body diseases start with our thoughts. Is there anything that can be prescribed to rid ourselves of this most potent negative virus? Are there any home remedies we can use to fight off our negative thoughts?
Just as when you feel so healthy and happy when you drink pure water, you can also gift yourself the joy of drinking the positive thoughts of your mind that will eventually purify the water of your body. That is what you are, water and space! Your thoughts purify water and your thoughts purify space!!!!
It is so surprising that we are so careful that we don’t ever compromise on the quality of drinking water. We have the best purifiers and always make sure we drink pure water, uncontaminated by any poisonous chemicals.
But how come we poison the water of our body (approximately 70% of it is water) with poisonous chemicals and disease producing hormones, and suffer with all kinds of dis-ease! Let us not forget that our negative thoughts or attitude about life are more poisonous than anything else. You are not only inhaling polluted air, but are poisoning the water of your body with negative thoughts.
With positive thoughts, the water of your body can become purified, and lead you to health, both in body and in mind.
But this process of self-purification can be very difficult. Most people today are surrounded by and bombarded with all kinds of negative environments at home and in the work place! That is the reason I am trying to share with you all that until we focus FIRST on changing the INNER ENVIRONMENT, the outer environmental support will not come to us.
As you know, negativity is destructive. It destroys much of your natural tendencies to stand firm for higher goals of life. It sucks your energy from inside, and your self-esteem or your self-confidence is afflicted with this negative force. It robs your good qualities and divine potentials.
Your goal is to take charge of your thoughts, not others’ thoughts, and let them flow, not succumbing to the pull of the instinctive lower mind. Lift your thoughts with your own mind. For your mind can be heaven or it can be hell, either of which are your own creation.
Intensify your conviction that you alone can change the thoughts of your mind. Deeply realize that every thought creates an outcome according to its own nature.
In my book, Making Your Mind Your Best Friend, you are taught to befriend your own mind. Basically the idea is that through meditative practices you begin to learn to anchor yourself with the Spirit within.
Identify the areas that trigger your negativity. Identify the persons who push you into negative brooding. From now on try to evoke your positive energy. Always think well about those persons and try to be more conscious and alert when you face situations that trigger your negative impulses. You have to gradually lighten up the areas that suffer with lesser light.
The whole process is one of your awakening the self-management part in your mind, which unfortunately no universities in the world care to teach. The more you become aware of your strengths, and at the same time your weaknesses, the more it is possible for you to reinforce your strengths and work vigilantly to transform your weaknesses into strengths of your character.
The whole universe is continually supporting you if only you accept, acknowledge, and arise to the situations that demand your Mindfulness.
Keep working throughout the day, and when you retire to bed and are about to fall asleep, sit erect, relax your body, and focus your mind on your breathing. Feel a sense of calm descending upon your being and at that point of time impregnate into your subconscious mind positive affirmations about how good your life can be. When your mind is calm and your body is relaxed, the gateway to universal intelligence opens up. Then whatever you commune reaches to the subtler regions of your own being. Your transformation is assured. You’re on your way to freedom!
If you vigilantly work on your thoughts, and make sure that they are not like a stagnant pool, but like a flowing crystalline creek, then you can be sure that your thoughts will flow with the rhythm of the Universal Laws. From Laws of attraction, to laws of forgiveness, to laws of acceptance, and to laws of transcendence you will flow. Your positive thoughts will purify your mind, and your body, and the water and space within. You have truly begun to heal yourself from the inside-out and to immunize yourself against the virus of negativity!
By Baba Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari
I truly hope you enjoyed this article and start to or continue to ‘Think Positive Thoughts’ from today onward!
The Lantern Festival falls on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month according to the Chinese Nongli Calendar, usually in February or March in the Western Gregorian calendar, in 2013 this falls on February 24th. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance.
This day’s important activity is watching lanterns. Throughout the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), Buddhism flourished in China. One emperor heard that Buddhist monks would watch sarira, or remains from the cremation of Buddha’s body, and light lanterns to worship Buddha on the 15th day of the 1st lunar month, so he ordered to light lanterns in the imperial palace and temples to show respect to Buddha on this day. Later, the Buddhist rite developed into a grand festival among common people and its influence expanded from the Central Plains to the whole of China.
Till today, the lantern festival is still held each year around the country. Lanterns of various shapes and sizes are hung in the streets, attracting countless visitors. Children will hold self-made or bought lanterns to stroll with on the streets, extremely excited.
“Guessing lantern riddles”is an essential part of the Festival. Lantern owners write riddles on a piece of paper and post them on the lanterns. If visitors have solutions to the riddles, they can pull the paper out and go to the lantern owners to check their answer. If they are right, they will get a little gift. The activity emerged during people’s enjoyment of lanterns in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). As riddle guessing is interesting and full of wisdom, it has become popular among all social strata.
People will eat yuanxiao, or rice dumplings, on this day, so it is also called the “Yuanxiao Festival.”Yuanxiao also has another name, tangyuan. It is small dumpling balls made of glutinous rice flour with rose petals, sesame, bean paste, jujube paste, walnut meat, dried fruit, sugar and edible oil as filling. Tangyuan can be boiled, fried or steamed. It tastes sweet and delicious. What’s more, tangyuan in Chinese has a similar pronunciation with “tuanyuan”, meaning reunion. So people eat them to denote union, harmony and happiness for the family.
In the daytime of the Festival, performances such as a dragon lantern dance, a lion dance, a land boat dance, a yangge dance, walking on stilts and beating drums while dancing will be staged. On the night, except for magnificent lanterns, fireworks form a beautiful scene. Most families spare some fireworks from the Spring Festival and let them off in the Lantern Festival. Some local governments will even organize a fireworks party. On the night when the first full moon enters the New Year, people become really intoxicated by the imposing fireworks and bright moon in the sky.
The following post was written by a dear blogging friend of mine Sue Dreamwalker http://suedreamwalker.wordpress.com The subject matter is very dear to my heart and it’s words are so meaningful and important not only for the survival of these species but also for the survival of all species here on Mother Earth including the survival of humanity itself!
We notice these posts, articles and images on the internet, in magazines and newspapers and on the television each and everyday but once we turn the page, click on another icon on our computers or switch channels on our TV’s all is quickly forgotten…because we think ‘Someone Else will Do Something About It’….but they never do…It Is Our Responsibility to Make Change 😦
We must take note and come together as one to make a change so that we have a planet to live on for our lifetime and for the lifetimes of our children and their children.
Namaste with Love Mark
Do we really understand the fragility of Life?
Have we ever thought of consequence and all the Strife?
So we can run around in cars and have our pretty things
Have you ever thought of all the pain we Human’s bring?
Have you ever considered just how you’d feel if orphaned you were left
As your mother became a trophy with her skin stripped from her chest?
Did you never spare a thought for the Ocean and her depths?
A dumping ground for all our waste no longer we respect,
And have you thought how hard it is to find enough to eat
When driven from your home
Have you ever wondered how far that you would roam?
And did you never think as the Ice melts in your drink
Of the Polar Bears home that in the Ocean sinks..
It’s time to understand that we cannot turn away
For we are each responsible for the world we live today
We humans have tipped the scales as we destroy with tools of greed
Wow, I receive a very profound question from one of our fellow bloggers bert0001 in regard to one of my recent posts ‘Mindfulness’, as follows :-
“I have a profound question here. I wrote a post last week about the difference between awareness and metacognition. And here I see mindfulness. I know that this has been around for 25 years in the Western Hemisphere and that it is a watered down version coming from buddhism. But in a way, this video makes me pleasantly agitated. There is no answer here. It is like publicity for sigarets. And if I walk around the internet, I see 700 different interpretations of mindfulness, awareness, metacognition and so on.
Many people, if not most think that meditation is sitting cross legged, listening to Enya in the vicinity of a candle and some incense.
So let me come back to the question. Could you give a concise and correct definition of mindfulness, in respect with my brain and mind, so that people know when they are mindfull and when they are mindless. (like me right now )”
Well, as I replied to bert0001, this is certainly a very profound question and one in which I’m sure is debated and contested on a daily basis all around the world especially between Scientists of the Mind and Traditional Religions and Buddhism followers across the globe. So in order for me to try and reply to bert0001’s question as best as possible I have attached two items to this post, the first one is an article by Thanissaro Bhikkhu re a definition of Mindfulness from a Buddhist perspective and the second a YouTube video by Professor Mark Williams from Oxford University Science who provides in my mind an excellent presentation on Mindfulness from a Mindfulness Cognitive Therapy perspective which clearly links both the science of the mind and the ancient Buddhist forms and practice of meditation techniques to help aid both clinical patients suffering from Depression, ADHD, Anxiety Health Issues, Child Birth etc; and also for everyday use by general members of the public who wish to re-connect with themselves on a daily basis due to the stresses and pressures of everyday life.
I do hope these items help you all with your understanding of Mindfulness and how its use can help us all in our daily lives 🙂 Namaste Mark
What does it mean to be mindful of the breath? Something very simple: to keep the breath in mind. Keep remembering the breath each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out. The British scholar who coined the term “mindfulness” to translate the Pali word sati was probably influenced by the Anglican prayer to be ever mindful of the needs of others—in other words, to always keep their needs in mind. But even though the word “mindful” was probably drawn from a Christian context, the Buddha himself defined sati as the ability to remember, illustrating its function in meditation practice with the four satipatthanas, or establishings of mindfulness.
“And what is the faculty of sati? There is the case where a monk, a disciple of the noble ones, is mindful, highly meticulous, remembering & able to call to mind even things that were done & said long ago. (And here begins the satipatthana formula:) He remains focused on the body in & of itself — ardent, alert, & mindful — putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings in & of themselves… the mind in & of itself… mental qualities in & of themselves — ardent, alert, & mindful — putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world.”
The full discussion of the satipatthanas (DN 22) starts with instructions to be ever mindful of the breath. Directions such as “bring bare attention to the breath,” or “accept the breath,” or whatever else modern teachers tell us that mindfulness is supposed to do, are actually functions for other qualities in the mind. They’re not automatically a part of sati, but you should bring them along wherever they’re appropriate.
One quality that’s always appropriate in establishing mindfulness is being watchful or alert. The Pali word for alertness, sampajañña, is another term that’s often misunderstood. It doesn’t mean being choicelessly aware of the present, or comprehending the present. Examples in the Canon shows that sampajañña means being aware of what you’re doing in the movements of the body, the movements in the mind. After all, if you’re going to gain insight into how you’re causing suffering, your primary focus always has to be on what you’re actually doing. This is why mindfulness and alertness should always be paired as you meditate.
In the Satipatthana Sutta, they’re combined with a third quality, ardency. Ardency means being intent on what you’re doing, trying your best to do it skillfully. This doesn’t mean that you have to keep straining and sweating all the time, just that you’re continuous in developing skillful habits and abandoning unskillful ones. Remember, in the eight factors of the path to freedom, right mindfulness grows out of right effort. Right effort is the effort to be skillful. Mindfulness helps that effort along by reminding you to stick with it, so that you don’t let it drop.
All three of these qualities get their focus from what the Buddha called yoniso manasikara, appropriate attention. Notice: That’s appropriate attention, not bare attention. The Buddha discovered that the way you attend to things is determined by what you see as important: the questions you bring to the practice, the problems you want the practice to solve. No act of attention is ever bare. If there were no problems in life you could open yourself up choicelessly to whatever came along. But the fact is there is a big problem smack dab in the middle of everything you do: the suffering that comes from acting in ignorance. This is why the Buddha doesn’t tell you to view each moment with a beginner’s eyes. You’ve got to keep the issue of suffering and its end always in mind.
Otherwise inappropriate attention will get in the way, focusing on questions like “Who am I?” “Do I have a self?”—questions that deal in terms of being and identity. Those questions, the Buddha said, lead you into a thicket of views and leave you stuck on the thorns. The questions that lead to freedom focus on comprehending suffering, letting go of the cause of suffering, and developing the path to the end of suffering. Your desire for answers to these questions is what makes you alert to your actions—your thoughts, words, and deeds—and ardent to perform them skillfully.
Mindfulness is what keeps the perspective of appropriate attention in mind. Modern psychological research has shown that attention comes in discrete moments. You can be attentive to something for only a very short period of time and then you have to remind yourself, moment after moment, to return to it if you want to keep on being attentive. In other words, continuous attention—the type that can observe things over time—has to be stitched together from short intervals. This is what mindfulness is for. It keeps the object of your attention and the purpose of your attention in mind.
Popular books on meditation, though, offer a lot of other definitions for mindfulness, a lot of other duties it’s supposed to fulfill—so many that the poor word gets totally stretched out of shape. In some cases, it even gets defined as Awakening, as in the phrase, “A moment of mindfulness is a moment of Awakening”—something the Buddha would never say, because mindfulness is conditioned and nirvana is not.
These are not just minor matters for nitpicking scholars to argue over. If you don’t see the differences among the qualities you’re bringing to your meditation, they glom together, making it hard for real insight to arise. If you decide that one of the factors on the path to Awakening is Awakening itself, it’s like reaching the middle of a road and then falling asleep right there. You never get to the end of the road, and in the meantime you’re bound to get run over by aging, illness, and death. So you need to get your directions straight, and that requires, among other things, knowing precisely what mindfulness is and what it’s not.
I’ve heard mindfulness defined as “affectionate attention” or “compassionate attention,” but affection and compassion aren’t the same as mindfulness. They’re separate things. If you bring them to your meditation, be clear about the fact that they’re acting in addition to mindfulness, because skill in meditation requires seeing when qualities like compassion are helpful and when they’re not. As the Buddha says, there are times when affection is a cause for suffering, so you have to watch out.
Sometimes mindfulness is defined as appreciating the moment for all the little pleasures it can offer: the taste of a raisin, the feel of a cup of tea in your hands. In the Buddha’s vocabulary, this appreciation is called contentment. Contentment is useful when you’re experiencing physical hardship, but it’s not always useful in the area of the mind. In fact the Buddha once said that the secret to his Awakening was that he didn’t allow himself to rest content with whatever attainment he had reached. He kept reaching for something higher until there was nowhere higher to reach. So contentment has to know its time and place. Mindfulness, if it’s not glommed together with contentment, can help keep that fact in mind.
Some teachers define mindfulness as “non-reactivity” or “radical acceptance.” If you look for these words in the Buddha’s vocabulary, the closest you’ll find are equanimity and patience. Equanimity means learning to put aside your preferences so that you can watch what’s actually there. Patience is the ability not to get worked up over the things you don’t like, to stick with difficult situations even when they don’t resolve as quickly as you want them to. But in establishing mindfulness you stay with unpleasant things not just to accept them but to watch and understand them. Once you’ve clearly seen that a particular quality like aversion or lust is harmful for the mind, you can’t stay patient or equanimous about it. You have to make whatever effort is needed to get rid of it and to nourish skillful qualities in its place by bringing in other factors of the path: right resolve and right effort.
Mindfulness, after all, is part of a larger path mapped out by appropriate attention. You have to keep remembering to bring the larger map to bear on everything you do. For instance, right now you’re trying to keep the breath in mind because you see that concentration, as a factor of the path, is something you need to develop, and mindfulness of the breath is a good way to do it. The breath is also a good standpoint from which you can directly observe what’s happening in the mind, to see which qualities of mind are giving good results and which ones aren’t.
Meditation involves lots of mental qualities, and you have to be clear about what they are, where they’re separate, and what each one of them can do. That way, when things are out of balance, you can identify what’s missing and can foster whatever is needed to make up the lack. If you’re feeling flustered and irritated, try to bring in a little gentleness and contentment. When you’re lazy, rev up your sense of the dangers of being unskillful and complacent. It’s not just a matter of piling on more and more mindfulness. You’ve got to add other qualities as well. First you’re mindful enough to stitch things together, to keep the basic issues of your meditation in mind and to observe things over time. Then you try to notice—that’s alertness—to see what else to stir into the pot.
It’s like cooking. When you don’t like the taste of the soup you’re fixing, you don’t just add more and more salt. Sometimes you add onion, sometimes garlic, sometimes oregano—whatever you sense is needed. Just keep in mind the fact that you’ve got a whole spice shelf to work with.
And remember that your cooking has a purpose. In the map of the path, right mindfulness isn’t the end point. It’s supposed to lead to right concentration.
We’re often told that mindfulness and concentration are two separate forms of meditation, but the Buddha never made a clear division between the two. In his teachings, mindfulness shades into concentration; concentration forms the basis for even better mindfulness. The four establishings of mindfulness are also the themes of concentration. The highest level of concentration is where mindfulness becomes pure. As Ajaan Lee, a Thai Forest master, once noted, mindfulness combined with ardency turns into the concentration factor called vitakka or “directed thought,” where you keep your thoughts consistently focused on one thing. Alertness combined with ardency turns into another concentration factor: vicara, or “evaluation.” You evaluate what’s going on with the breath. Is it comfortable? If it is, stick with it. If it’s not, what can you do to make it more comfortable? Try making it a little bit longer, a little bit shorter, deeper, more shallow, faster, slower. See what happens. When you’ve found a way of breathing that nourishes a sense of fullness and refreshment, you can spread that fullness throughout the body. Learn how to relate to the breath in a way that nourishes a good energy flow throughout the body. When things feel refreshing like this, you can easily settle down.
You may have picked up the idea that you should never fiddle with the breath, that you should just take it as it comes. Yet meditation isn’t just a passive process of being nonjudgmentally present with whatever’s there and not changing it at all. Mindfulness keeps stitching things together over time, but it also keeps in mind the idea that there’s a path to develop, and getting the mind to settle down is a skillful part of that path.
This is why evaluation—judging the best way to maximize the pleasure of the breath—is essential to the practice. In other words, you don’t abandon your powers of judgment as you develop mindfulness. You simply train them to be less judgmental and more judicious, so that they yield tangible results.
When the breath gets really full and refreshing throughout the body, you can drop the evaluation and simply be one with the breath. This sense of oneness is also sometimes called mindfulness, in a literal sense: mind-fullness, a sense of oneness pervading the entire range of your awareness. You’re at one with whatever you focus on, at one with whatever you do. There’s no separate “you” at all. This is the type of mindfulness that’s easy to confuse with Awakening because it can seem so liberating, but in the Buddha’s vocabulary it’s neither mindfulness nor Awakening. It’s cetaso ekodibhava, unification of awareness—a factor of concentration, present in every level from the second jhana up through the infinitude of consciousness. So it’s not even the ultimate in concentration, much less Awakening.
Which means that there’s still more to do. This is where mindfulness, alertness, and ardency keep digging away. Mindfulness reminds you that no matter how wonderful this sense of oneness, you still haven’t solved the problem of suffering. Alertness tries to focus on what the mind is still doing in that state of oneness—what subterranean choices you’re making to keep that sense of oneness going, what subtle levels of stress those choices are causing—while ardency tries to find a way to drop even those subtle choices so as to be rid of that stress.
So even this sense of oneness is a means to a higher end. You bring the mind to a solid state of oneness so as to drop your normal ways of dividing up experience into me vs. not-me, but you don’t stop there. You then take that oneness and keep subjecting it to all the factors of right mindfulness. That’s when really valuable things begin to separate out on their own. Ajaan Lee uses the image of ore in a rock. Staying with the sense of oneness is like being content simply with the knowledge that there’s tin, silver, and gold in your rock: If that’s all you do, you’ll never get any use from them. But if you heat the rock to the melting points for the different metals, they’ll separate out on their own.
Liberating insight comes from testing, experimenting. This is how we learn about the world to begin with. If we weren’t active creatures, we’d have no understanding of the world at all. Things would pass by, pass by, and we wouldn’t know how they were connected because we’d have no way of influencing them to see which effects came from changing which causes. It’s because we act in the world that we understand the world.
The same holds true with the mind. You can’t just sit around hoping that a single mental quality—mindfulness, acceptance, contentment, oneness—is going to do all the work. If you want to learn about the potentials of the mind, you have to be willing to play—with sensations in the body, with qualities in the mind. That’s when you come to understand cause and effect.
And that requires all your powers of intelligence—and this doesn’t mean just book intelligence. It means your ability to notice what you’re doing, to read the results of what you’ve done, and to figure out ingenious ways of doing things that cause less and less suffering and stress: street smarts for the noble path. Mindfulness allows you to see these connections because it keeps reminding you always to stay with these issues, to stay with the causes until you see their effects. But mindfulness alone can’t do all the work. You can’t fix the soup simply by dumping more pepper into it. You add other ingredients, as they’re needed.
This is why it’s best not to load the word mindfulness with too many meanings or to assign it too many functions. Otherwise, you can’t clearly discern when a quality like contentment is useful and when it’s not, when you need to bring things to oneness and when you need to take things apart.
So keep the spices on your shelf clearly labeled, and learn through practice which spice is good for which purpose. Only then can you develop your full potential as a cook.
Terms of use: You may copy, reformat, reprint, republish, and redistribute this work in any medium whatsoever, provided that: (1) you only make such copies, etc. available free of charge; (2) you clearly indicate that any derivatives of this work (including translations) are derived from this source document; and (3) you include the full text of this license in any copies or derivatives of this work. Otherwise, all rights reserved. For additional information about this license, see the FAQ.
How to cite this document (one suggested style): “Mindfulness Defined”, by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 1 December 2012,
It’s ultimately your choice, so do ‘YOU’ need to make a change to ‘YOUR’ life?
Lao Tzu is a particular favorite of mine and I have studied his writings but he is only one of many great sages that can offer you great advice and help you bring your thoughts into the NOW.
The Now is where you need to be, you need to be happy and content with who you are and where your life is taking you, if not then you need to make a change.
Today has been a particularly difficult day, obstacles and difficulties have been bombarding me all day long, darkness and energy draining people have been challenging me continually and then I took two minutes our of the madness to read this blog by one of my dear blogging friends Cassandra Wiechert. The words she has written apply to me and my day 100% and they could not have come at a more perfect time, the words brought clarity to me, to my day and re-focused me to my own spiritual pathway and my light and energy is now stronger than ever before, so a BIG Thank-You to Cassandra
Please watch this short video and also send it on to all your friends and blogging contacts….
This video is about an island in the Pacific Ocean around 2000 km from any other coast line.
Nobody lives there, only birds and yet ……………
You will not believe your eyes!!!!!!!
This film should be seen by the entire world, please don’t throw anything into the sea. and urge your governments to stop dumping waste at sea…Unbelievable, just look at the consequences!!!!!
WE need to do something about this because our governments are certainly doing nothing other than talking!!!!
Namaste with Love for every creature on this Planet.
“Birth is not the beginning, Death is not the end.” ~Chuang – Tsu
…And it was morning as God stood before his twelve children and into each of them planted the seed of human life. One by one each child stepped forward to receive their appointed gift.
” To you Aries I give my seed first that you might have the honor of planting it. That for every seed you plant one million more will multiply in your hand. You will not have time to see the seed grow for everything you plant creates more that must be planted. You will be the first to penetrate the soil of men’s minds with My Idea. But it is not your job to nourish the idea nor to question it. Your life is action and the only action I ascribe to you is to begin making men aware of my creation. For your good work I will give you the virtue of Self Esteem.”
Quietly Aries stepped back into place.
“To you Taurus I give the power to build the seed into substance. Your job is a great one requiring patience for you must finish all that has been started or the seeds will be wasted to the wind. You are not to question nor change your mind in the middle nor to depend on others for what I ask you to do. For this I give you the gift of Strength. Use it wisely.”
And Taurus stepped back in place.
“To you Gemini I give the questions without answers so that you may bring to all an understanding of what man sees around him. You will never know why men speak or listen, but in your quest for the answer you will find my gift of Knowledge.”
And Gemini stepped back in place.
“To you Cancer I ascribe the task of teaching men about emotion. My Idea is for you to cause them laughter and tears so that all they see and think develops fullness from inside. For this I give you the gift of Family, that your fullness may multiply.”
And Cancer stepped back in place.
“To you Leo I give the job of displaying My Creation in all its brilliance to the world. But you must be careful of pride and always remember that it is My creation, not yours. For if you forget this men will scorn you. There is much joy in the job I give to you if you but do it well. For this you are to have the gift of Honor.”
And Leo stepped back in place.
“To you Virgo I ask for an examination of all man has done with My Creation. You are to scrutinize his ways sharply and remind him of his errors so that through you My Creation may be perfected. For doing this I give you the gift of Purity of Thought.” And Virgo stepped back in place.
“To you Libra I give the mission of service, that man may be mindful of his duties to others. That he may learn cooperation as well as the ability to reflect the other side of his actions. I will put you everywhere there is discord, and for your efforts I will give you the gift of Love.”
And Libra stepped back in place.
“To you Scorpio I give a very difficult task. You will have the ability to know the minds of men, but I do not permit you to speak about what you learn. Many times you will be pained by what you see, and in your pain you will turn away from Me and forget that it is not I but the perversion of My Idea that is causing your pain. You will see so much of man that you will come to know him as animal and wrestle so much with his animal instincts in yourself that you will lose your way; but when you finally come back to Me, Scorpio, I have for you the supreme gift of Purpose.”
And Scorpio stepped back in place.
“Sagittarius, I ask you to make men laugh for ad mist their misunderstanding of My Idea they become bitter. Through laughter you are to give man hope, and through hope turn his eyes back to Me. You will touch many lives if but only for a moment, and you will know the restlessness in every life you touch. To you Sagittarius I give the gift of Infinite Abundance, that you may spread wide enough to reach into every corner of darkness and bring it to light.”
And Sagittarius stepped back in place.
“Of you Capricorn I ask the toil of your brow, that you might teach men to work. Your task is not an easy one for you will feel all of man’s labors on your shoulders; but for the yoke of your burdens I put the responsibility of man in your hands.”
And Capricorn stepped back in place.
“To you Aquarius I give the concept of future that man might see other possibilities. You will have the pain of loneliness for I do not allow you to personalize My Love. But for turning man’s eyes to new possibilities I give you the gift of Freedom, that in your liberty you may continue to serve mankind whenever he needs you.”
And Aquarius stepped back in place.
“To you Pisces I give the most difficult task of all. I ask you to collect all of man’s sorrow and return it to me. Your tears are to be ultimately My tears. The sorrow you will absorb is the effect of man’s misunderstanding My Idea, but you are to give him compassion that he may try again. For this the most difficult task of all I give the greatest gift of all. You will be the only one of My twelve children to understand Me. But this gift of understanding is for you, Pisces for when you try to spread it to man he will not listen.”
And Pisces stepped back in place.
…Then God said “You each have a part of My Idea.
You must not mistake the part given to you for all of My Idea, nor may you desire to trade parts with each other.
For each of you is perfect, but you will not know that until all twelve of you are ONE. For then the whole of My Idea will be revealed to each of you.”
And the children left, each determined to do his job best that he might receive his gift. But none fully understand his task or his gift, and when they returned puzzled God said, “You each believe that other gifts are better. Therefore I will allow you to trade.” And for the moment each child was elated as he considered all the possibilities of his new mission.
But God smiled as he said “You will return to Me many times asking to be relieved of your mission, and each time I will grant you your wish. You will go through countless incarnations before you complete the original mission I have prescribed for you.
I give you countless time in which to do it, but only when it is done can you be with Me.”
“The reality of my life cannot die for I am indestructible consciousness.” ~Paramahansa Yogananda
The light in its truest form is a connection with God. Our hearts long to take part in the light and to be children of light. From the very beginning, God created us to be children of light. He created us to live as the family of Light.
Unless and until we have peace deep within us, we can never hope to have peace in the world. You and I create the world by the vibrations that we offer to it. If we can invoke peace and then offer it to somebody else, we will see how peace expands from one to two persons, and gradually to the world at large. Peace will come about in the world from the perfection of individuals. If you have peace, I have peace, he has peace, and she has peace, then automatically universal peace will dawn.
May and I are off to the Jade Buddha Temple in Shanghai today, today is the 5th day of January in the Chinese Nongli Calendar so the fifth day of the new year is the God of Wealth’s birthday.
In northern China, people eat jiǎozi (simplified Chinese: 饺子; traditional Chinese: 餃子), or dumplings, on the morning of pòwǔ (破五). In Taiwan, businesses traditionally re-open on the next day (the sixth day), accompanied by firecrackers. It is also common in China that on the 5th day people will shoot off firecrackers to get Guan Yu’s attention, thus ensuring his favor and good fortune for the new year., it’s also February 14th Valentines day in the Gregorian Calendar (Western Calendar) so we have plenty to pray for 🙂
The Jade Buddha Temple (Chinese: 玉佛禅寺; pinyin: Yùfó Chán Sì, literally Jade Buddha Chan Temple) is a Buddhist temple in Shanghai, China. As with many modern Chinese Buddhist temples, the current temple draws from both the Pure Land and Chan traditions of Mahayana Buddhism. It was founded in 1882 with two jade Buddha statues imported to Shanghai from Burma by sea. These were a sitting Buddha (1.95 metres tall, 3 tonnes)
and a smaller reclining Buddha representing Buddha’s death.
The temple now also contains a much larger reclining Buddha made of marble, donated from Singapore.
I will pray for Peace, Happiness, Compassion, Good Health, Friendship and Love.
Endless Light and Love 