Have a fantastic weekend my friends,Peace, Love and Happiness to you all.
Namaste _/\_
Mark
The importance of true friendship:
When an old hermit monk has his day interrupted by an uninvited guest, he is unwillingly taken on a journey to discover the true meaning of companionship.
I think we all have something to learn from this simple cartoon 🙂
Namaste
Mark
Wise Words indeed: Forgiveness. Kindness. Honesty. Happiness. Goodness. Giving your Best.
Mother Theresa, what an outstanding woman, her life was completely selfless and her everyday was filled with giving of her love, her time and her wisdom to the sick, the poor and the street children of India. Mother Teresa said “By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.
In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery but it was clear that her health was declining. The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D’Souza, said he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa with her permission when she was first hospitalised with cardiac problems because he thought she may be under attack by the devil. On 13 March 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity. She died on 5 September 1997. At the time of her death, Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity had over 4,000 sisters, and an associated brotherhood of 300 members, operating 610 missions in 123 countries.These included hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children’s and family counselling programs, personal helpers, orphanages, and schools. The Missionaries of Charity were also aided by Co-Workers, who numbered over 1 million by the 1990s.
Mother Teresa lay in repose in St Thomas, Kolkata for one week prior to her funeral, in September 1997. She was granted a state funeral by the Indian government in gratitude for her services to the poor of all religions in India.Her death was mourned in both secular and religious communities. In tribute, Nawaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan said that she was “a rare and unique individual who lived long for higher purposes. Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged was one of the highest examples of service to our humanity.”The former U.N. Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar said: “She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world.
Rest in Peace Mother Theresa and thank you for the gifts of love and compassion you gave to the world.
Namaste
Mark
Companies, Politicians and insanely rich individuals are profiteering from this madness!
We are one world, one family under God…We have just lost sight of the importance of life and the value of life!
We need to come together, locally, nationally and globally in order to stop this madness and make right the wrong that goes on on OUR PLANET…..We must not loose focus, this is OUR World and it is not owned by the few!
Namaste
Mark
Hello my friends, well it’s happened 🙂 We held our first Mindfulness event here in Shanghai; China last Saturday….Yeah 🙂
It was an afternoon for ladies only, the event was held in the Chinese language and we took the ladies on a journey of self discovery with the theme ‘Who am I’ and ‘What do I want’.
We used various Psychological and Counselling techniques throughout the discovery sessions including meditations, interaction and questioning in pairs, group exercises and music / sound therapy. It was a fantastic afternoon of fun, self discovery and some awakening 🙂
We also held exercise sessions in TaiChi and Yoga
We rounded up the afternoon with an interactive session on health and beauty with tips on skin care, hair styling and make-up.
All in all a wonderful afternoon was had by all and the first of many to come.
Namaste
Mark
🙂 _/\_ to my dear friend Gina from http://ginandrea.wordpress.com/ for nominating me for the Spanish version of the Leibster Blogging Award. Here is what Gina wrote to me:-
Dear Mark,
Despite the language barrier, I just wanted to let you know that I just nominated you for the Liebster Award. I do understand this award is for beginners; however, I wanted to make sure other bloggers and readers had the amazing opportunity to see the world from your eyes, from the lenses of your camera, from your writings. My post has been written in Spanish. It is up to you, if you’d like to participate in such interesting exercise.
For more information, please visit: http://ginandrea.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/nominada-al-liebster-blog-award/. (There is always a chance to translate the page to the English language)! 🙂
Gina
As many of you know, i have received so many nominations for blogging awards and although I’m so pleased to receive them and humbled at the thought that you deem my blog as a worthy recipient of these wonderful awards, I usually accept the award in the spirit that it was intended but gracefully decline to take part in the acceptance criteria due to the time it takes to comply.
So, once again my friends and to Gina…THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.
_/\_
Namaste
Mark
We are often deceived by beauty and wealth but a smile can last forever in our hearts.
Namaste
Mark
Rest in knowing you don’t control anything whatsoever and nothing actually belongs to
you in any particular way. If those two reminders are taken to heart and fully absorbed into
the depths of your being, a life of peace and freedom remains obvious and ever present.
WOW….This video is amazing, if it does not connect to your heart and bring tears to your eyes then…..!
Namaste
Mark
“The peace of the world starts with a single thought. We can all think peace. The next step is to do peace. That is our gift to the world.”
“Our planet is perched on a precipice. We stand at a cross roads of history. Which way will we turn? There is serious conflict raging in many quarters of our world and even in our own cities and families. Peace begins with a single thought. If our mind is full of confusion and inner conflict we will see a world full of confusion and conflict. When are minds are clear and peaceful we see a beautiful and peaceful world. Our external world is a result of our very thoughts. We must deal with the conflict in our own minds not by elimination but by entering into a new relationship with our inner enemy. When we make peace with our minds we bring peace into our immediate outer environment. We are then ready to do peace.”
Namaste my friends
Mark
Its a double celebration today.
Its my 1st Anniversary for this blog Endlesslightandlove.com 🙂
And its’ my eldest Son Matthews 27th Birthday
So, I give out my heart felt thanks to all my blogging friends for your follows, your comments and your continued support of my humble blog. May your day be filled with Love, Joy and Compassion.
and to my Son Matthew, my first born, may your day and your life be filled with Love, Joy and Pure Source Energy 🙂
Namaste _/\_
Much Metta
Mark
We all do it!…Hold on to memories, good or bad, problems, issues, traumas, past experiences that tie us down and stop us from flying free, but why?
It happens to the best of us.
We do our best to be positive, to meditate, to be in the ‘Now’, in the ‘Moment’ we try to push away the past, forget about thinking of the future and live for today, for this special ‘moment’ in time that we are experiencing right here, right now.
But then it comes back to haunt us again, our ‘Ego’, testing us, bringing us to task and remembering to remind us of the past and to re-direct our thoughts to the future too…
I was again at this very point yesterday morning, questioning myself yet again, ‘Why Me, Why Now’..testing my inner self re my own spiritual journey, the pathway i’m on and the reasons why i’m walking this pathway of spiritual healing. Also questioning why I have been blessed (or is it cursed) with these gifts that have for some reason been bestowed on me!… So to gain some clarity and to help stop my Ego in its tracks I decided to meet with a Buddhist Monk friend of mine yesterday, we sat, meditated, shared our passions for humanity and talked about this and that, we shared stories, we laughed and we smiled, a lot 🙂 I opened my heart, I cried a lot especially regarding my own suffering for the suffering i see and feel from others, we discussed my journey and my mission. We prayed and shared the spiritual love and compassion of the Buddha and then it happened, as if by magic….A clearing of my mind, peace and Joy was once more back in my heart and in my mind.
My Ego was gone and I was in the ‘Now’ once again, I let myself…. ‘Just Be’…
Namaste my friends
May your weekend be filled with Love, with Joy and may your face be filled with the most wonderful Smile 🙂
love and blessing of pure positive energy
Mark
Beautiful words of wisdom 🙂
Namaste
Mark
Seek not happiness in life. Why settle for second best? Seek pure Joy. Happiness depends on what happens to you. Pure Joy has no limitations.
Joy is an abiding state. It has no conditions attached – no small print at the foot of the page. It is not dependent on status, race or creed. It comes not as a result of economic conditions or political policies. It is for all people of all times and all places.
That is what the Buddha came to show us. He observed and was deeply affected by the joylessness in life. Many, including fellow Buddhists, miss this point. It is often stated that the Buddha came to show us a way out of suffering. No! He came to show us Joy and that we may all directly experience this. But, I hear you say, isn’t this the same thing? Almost! Except it falls short of the mark. The former seems to be afraid of naming it. We are so entrenched in our suffering that we are often afraid to proclaim its antidote. We are like blind people stumbling across a jewel and then ending up in endless debate about what we have found.
Happiness depends on what happens to us; thus its name – “happen-ness”. Happiness so often depends on moods, feelings, ideas and even values. Joy, on the other hand, transcends all these things. Happiness is a brightly decorated spider that the poor insect mistakes for a beautiful flower. When the insect thinks it has attained this flower the spider then grasps the insect. It is unable to escape the sticky web and eventually its fate is sealed by the poisonous fangs of the spider.
The Buddha experienced these things in his life. He found an antidote, a path to untangle the web of ignorance and lead us to Joy.
Joy is like the air we breathe. It is vital and fresh, pure and enhancing. However, in ignorance we have built houses and palaces of happiness whose walls have blocked out the fresh air of Joy. We will soon perish of asphyxiation in this condition.
Joy is pure being. When we begin to pull down the walls of self-cherishing and attachment then we will be able to breathe the fresh air of Joy. It is this Joy that is limitless.
My wish for the world and for you my dearest friend is everlasting Joy. May you practice its path and share it with others on the journey.
Namaste
Mark
Why, Oh Why are will still allowing this type of trade to happen?
Please read this shocking article by Derek Mead The Rhino Horn Crisis and the Darknet
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/rhino-horn-crisis-and-the-darknet
I’m sure we can collectively bring an end to this and many more shocking practices or poaching and animal cruelty!
Namaste
Mark
When we genuinely wish another person love, wellness and happiness we are creating good Karma and sowing the seeds of long term Peace and Happiness. Just think! – If every person in the world took just ten minutes to wish another person peace and happiness, then for ten minutes this world would be crime and violence free for those ten minutes!
Kindness Cards and Wish Cards are ways by which we can sow the seeds of peace and create the flow of Good Karma in our lives. I just love watching the face of somebody light up like just-switched-on-Christmas-tree lights when I send them a Wish Card or Kindness Card with simple words like ‘I’m Thinking of You each and everyday’, I wish your days are filled with Love and Happiness’, ‘Peace and Joy my Friend’, ‘My Love for you is Endless’, ‘I’m always with you’, ‘Our Hearts, Minds and Souls are Connected every minute of everyday’…and so on.
The gift of Happiness is one of the most precious gifts we are able to give another human being and even more when another contemplates what has just happened to them and then wants to pass on the gift to yet another person. This is gift is the heart of the Mindfulness. In meditation we become Mindful of the suffering, pain, disappointment and despair of others and cause this to dissolve our self-cherishing/ego nature – a bit like an effervescent soluble aspirin dissolving in a glass of water. Then we imagine ourselves to be a Wishing Jewel wishing the causes and conditions of happiness for others. For a split moment when we take on the suffering of another and become the wishing jewel we dissolve another piece of the self-cherishing part of ourselves; which locks us into our own cocoon of despair and unhappiness. Why don’t you create a set of Wish Cards that you can send on to your family and friends? Send them via text or video message and watch the joy that they create ☺ Go on…give it a try, sow some seeds of Peace and Good Karma today.
I wish you all, love, joy and lives filled with deep Happiness.
Namaste
Mark
I first heard the story of the Peace Butterfly from a poor Chinese farming family near Tian Mu Shan in Zhejiang Province. The grandmother had heard it from a traditional Chinese Story Teller. It is not known if it is “true” but there is great “truth” in it. Wu said it was sad that the story was discontinued being passed on. He said it had great power. You will find this if you look carefully.
It is a story of Peace. It is not just a “pretty” story or “cute” or “sweet” story. It is a story of transformation. Look below the surface and see what you can find. It is my mission to keep it alive and from it give disadvantaged rural children an opportunity to education.
This story was told to me by a farmer who lives near the village of Shi Ta Wan near Zaoxi in China. He is not sure where the story comes from but he thinks it from Yunnan Province. He said it does not matter. He told me that the people often used to tell the story “to keep it alive.” He regrets that for a long time now the people have forgotten to tell it.
A long time ago there lived a hermit monk called San Qi. He lived in a hut beside a mountain stream. During his time there was much violence and war as local war lords tried to grasp power. There was much sadness and suffering and many families had lost not only their belongings but also family members who were killed in the wars.
San Qi was very sad. Daily he prayed that the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin would bring peace to the land.
One night he had a dream. In the dream Kuan Yin in all her beauty appeared to San Qi. She told him that a battle was to begin between two towns the following day. She instructed him to play his bamboo flute with all his skill beside the mountain stream. With that, she took the form of a butterfly and flew into the clouds.
The following day, San Qi, disturbed by the news of impending battle and astonished by the dream did as he was told in the dream. He sat on a rock beside the gentle mountain stream and began to play a soft melody on his flute. He played with great care and skill. The notes were like wisps of breeze as they floated melodiously about him. Suddenly there appeared a beautiful blue butterfly dancing about his head to the wooden tones of his flute. Then two appeared of different colours; then a third, then dozens then hundreds. Before long there were thousands upon thousands of exquisitely colourful butterflies. As San Qi continued to play the butterflies ascended towards the sky.
Down in the valley the armies and people of both cities were facing each other ready for the battle. The archers had drawn their bows with arrows posed for the kill. Suddenly there descended from the sky the thousands upon thousands of butterflies. There was such a host that the sun was darkened by their presence. Afraid that if they released their arrows the soldiers of both sides would kill the butterflies and afraid that this was a sign from the heavens they put down their weapons and felt great shame.
A young man who had been collecting Bamboo in the mountains above the village told the people he had heard a heavenly sound of flute coming from beside a stream. When he went to investigate he saw the monk San Qi playing his flute surrounded by a host of butterflies.
Before long the word had spread in the two towns. That very evening the people of the waring towns came together and lit candles and incense to the Buddha for showing them the way to peace and happiness.
It was decided that every year the villagers would tell the story of San Qi and remember the way of peace and happiness. People began to grow many coloured flowers to attract the butterflies and there was much happiness through the region.
This is the story of San Qi and the Peace butterflies.
Namaste
Mark
By Alex Keats
“No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again.” ~Buddha
Growing up, I was one of those people much more concerned about what you thought of me than what I thought of me.
With my focus being on how I was being perceived by those around me, it left me feeling extremely unsettled.
I was desperate to be liked and accepted.
“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind” was a nice idea for the fortunate, but certainly not for me.
I was convinced that Dr. Seuss was living in fantasyland!
This social anxiety spread to my work life, too. I wondered why I was never truly happy or successful. I wondered why I didn’t enjoy the rich relationships that so many around me seemed to enjoy.
Then I discovered Zen.
I read that Zen means awareness, and being with what is, as it is.
What I loved most about Zen is its utter simplicity in recognizing what is really true. Not what is partially or sometimes true, but what’s always true.
It didn’t compromise.
I liked that. I wanted that ability to recognize what was always true. That sounded like real emotional freedom to me.
Zen kept telling me truth was simple, so simple that it was often overlooked by the mind that loved to judge, condemn, compare, and resist.
Zen meant to be in alignment with reality as it actually unfolded, not as I wished it would unfold.
Simple indeed!
I saw how my mind loved to complicate things. I saw how my mind resisted so much of what was actually happening.
And I was miserable and stressed out.
I failed to see the inseparable connection between panic and peace—and how resisting one would never reveal the other.
However, as I began to incorporate what I was learning, I found that when I met the anxiety symptoms without running from or avoiding them, my experience began to change, too.
They no longer had control of me.
I had new life.
And I wanted more of it.
Here are the 3 things that dramatically reduced or eliminated the anxiety and panic I had been experiencing. Consider implementing the following and see if it brings you more peace.
1. Meet your panic and anxiety head on.
Zen is essentially about who we’re being in relation to something or someone, and this includes needless anxiety. It also includes this very moment. In fact, especially this very moment, as it shows up, and not as I wish it would show up.
Inherent in anxiety and panic attacks is the belief that it shouldn’t be happening. But this is never true.
No amount of wishing a particular moment to be different than it is can ever change that moment. Many actually think it’s a good strategy, but it rarely ever works out.
Upon closer examination, I saw that whenever I ran from anything, that thing chased me. This included thoughts and feelings.
I found that whenever I faced and embraced anything, it eventually dissolved and left my experience. I was encouraged because I knew I was onto something significant.
I walked around with a new mantra: “What I run from must chase me.”
It served as a great reminder and often snapped me back into being in alignment with what was actually occurring.
Whatever I met head on lost its power, every time. Resistance would often magically drop away. And it was palpable.
I learned that I can either live with the laws that govern me (and all of life) or I can resist them and suffer.
Seeing that I couldn’t escape the consequences of how I met anything, I began to face what was facing me. And that insight, I found, was the difference between living a life of peace versus a living a life of stress.
I began to consciously choose peace.
In fact, any challenging situation (or emotion) that arose wanted to be met by my loving attention.
Stress manifested only if I avoided the negative thoughts and feelings.
If I shined the light of gentle awareness on what wasn’t at peace within me, it had to come out of hiding and release me—because I met it.
2. Allow it to be as it is.
Notice how your mind in its infinite wisdom will tell you that any particular thought, feeling, or experience should or could be different than it presently is.
Is it ever true? Can it ever be true? As much as the mind will try to use logic and reason, it’s never true.
Things are often different than they were, but they are never different than they are!
This may seem counterintuitive, but the reality is we must first accept our present lot if we wish to experience something different in the next moment. We can’t expect to resist our current situation and simultaneously be at peace.
It won’t happen.
The essence of Zen is about being with whatever arises without offering any resistance whatsoever. It’s about being neutral emotionally so that we are in a position to respond appropriately.
Alternatively, resistance is the energy that gives life to what we don’t want.
If we simply allow our symptoms of anxiety to be as they are, we find that they don’t hang around long enough to torture us.
By taking the backward step (as they say in Zen) into this present moment, we discover that peace never left us in the first place.
It just seemed that way.
Allow your anxiety to be as it is, as you look to overcome it.
3. Be compassionate with yourself.
Sure, you’ve heard it before. Be nice to yourself! Get off your back! Stop blaming yourself! The key to effective transformation—turning panic into peace—is to stop beating yourself up and to make yourself the most important person in your life.
Wouldn’t you treat someone who really needed support with kindness and compassion?
Why are you any different?
Perhaps the greatest quality of spirit that the Buddha spoke most about was compassion, not only towards oneself, but to others as well. Compassion is the great neutralizer that has a way of dissolving old wounds, as well as new ones.
The truth is you’re not to blame for your anxiety, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for it.
You aren’t “crazy” or “weak”—and you’re no less worthy a human being for experiencing it, either. Your mind may tell you different, and even sound very convincing, but is it really true?
No, it isn’t. Not even a little bit.
Work with yourself, not against yourself, if you truly desire to transform your panic into peace. It’s all in how you relate to your current condition. Self-condemnation only gets you more of what you don’t want.
The truth is, you are much more than any thought or feeling that arises. Within you is the power to transform your panic into peace.
As the Buddha said, “Be a light unto yourself.”
Transcending anything never involves rejection, but it always involves acceptance.
About Alex Keats
Alex Keats suffered from extreme anxiety for over five years and now helps people overcome it in all its forms. He is the author of “Born To Be Happy” and “The Dance of Imperfection.” To learn why you stay anxious, and to find out what mistakes to avoid, visit http://www.cure-anxiety-now.com.
Endless Light and Love 