My Dear Friends,
For the past three days we have been at the top of Moganshan Mountain in Zhejiang Province China, meditating and enjoying the fresh mountain air in the snow and bamboo forests. Its been a joyous weekend up high in the mountains, connected with mother nature and at peace with the world, filled with happiness, smiles and laughter one in which I will remember for a lifetime:) I have attached a few photos from the weekend, hope you enjoy them.
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
Mindfulness.
I’m a Mindfulness practitioner and teacher myself but although Mindfulness is a word commonly used and many people say they are Mindfulness practitioner’s, life coaches etc, may are not! Also, many people ask me what Mindfulness is and how it can be useful for them,their family, their children, their employees, their teams etc so I thought I would share this short TedX video by Susan Kaiser Greenland, her talk explains the simple meaning of Mindfulness into a new learning process “Teaching The New ABC’s, Attention, Balance and Compassion.
I do hope you like this short video and that it will bring you a greater understanding of how Mindfulness could fit into your life and the life of your family,friends and workplace.
If yo need any help, please let me know.
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
Those who know Love
Know its facility in all matters,
Others find it useful occasionally
While the broken-hearted bitterly laugh
And deny Love altogether.
Can you hear in their laughter
The sound of Heaven?
God is not to blame for the separation.
He has never turned his back on you.
Blame is the disease
Which blinds you of unity’s truth.
Wake up; the nightmare is over.
The light is in them
As well as in you.
The thinest of veils
Divides the two.
You are one Self.
You are not weak, but strong.
You are not limited, but unlimited.
You are not unloved, but much beloved.
You have suffered only for this,
That you may bless those who suffer still.
Take your time to contemplate the words above my dear friends and think of ways in which you can help others to see that they too are loved, share your love with them and make their day 🙂
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
There is a story about an old Zen monk who was dying, who had finished everything and was about to get off the wheel. He was just floating away, free and in his pure Buddha-mind, when a thought passed by of a beautiful deer he had once seen in a field. And he held on to that thought for just a second because of its beauty, and immediately he took birth again as a deer. It’s as subtle as that.
It’s like when we begin to see the work that is to be done, and we go to an ashram or a monastery, or we hang out with Satsang. We surround ourselves with a community of beings who think the way we think. And then none of the stuff, the really hairy stuff inside ourselves, comes up. It all gets pushed underground. We can sit in a temple or a cave in India and get so holy, so clear and radiant, the light is pouring out of us. But when we come out of that cave, when we leave that supportive structure that worked with our strengths but seldom confronted us with our weaknesses, our old habit patterns tend to reappear, and we come back into the same old games, the games we were sure we had finished with. Because there were uncooked seeds, seeds of desires that sprout again the minute they are stimulated. We can stay in very holy places, and the seeds sit there dormant and uncooked. But there is fear in such individuals, because they know they’re still vulnerable.
Nothing goes under the rug. We can’t hide in our highness any more than we’ve hidden in our unworthiness. If we have finally decided we want God, we’ve got to give it all up. The process is one of keeping the ground as we go up, so we always have ground, so that we’re high and low at the same moment – that’s a tough game to learn, but it’s a very important one. So at the same moment that if I could, I would like to take us all up higher and higher, we see that the game isn’t to get high – the game is to get balanced and liberated.
Have a balanced weekend my friends, love life, be in peace and be thankful for who you are 🙂
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
Focussing Your Intent
You may have heard that ‘The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too’ This refers to an inexplicable yet very real power that comes into play when one truly decides to move forward. Coincidences occur and help comes in from unexpected directions. It is as iff the entire universe is conspiring to propel you toward success.
Lao Tzu taught the same lesson when he wrote “Hold the great image. All under heaven will come” The great image is the clear visualisation of what you intend to manifest. When you hold this image clearly in your mind with focussed intent, everything and everyone around you will automatically become aligned with you.
The net effect is that the Tao becomes like an omnipresent director, orchestrating entire sequences of events in your favor. When this happens, you solve problems with ease, accomplish tasks that seemed difficult before. Nothing can stand in your way.
In order to leverage the great power to move on your behalf, you must make a decision at the deepest core of your being and back it up with actual action. Thinking really hard by itself will accomplish nothing. Taking action, on the other hand, is the trigger that will open up the floodgates. Wield the great image, and let all under heaven come to you.
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
“If we cannot be happy in spite of our difficulties, what good is our spiritual practice?”
~Maha Ghosananda
Buddhist monks begin each day with a chant of gratitude for the blessings of their life. Native American elders begin each ceremony with grateful prayers to mother earth and father sky, to the four directions, to the animal, plant, and mineral brothers and sisters who share our earth and support our life. In Tibet, the monks and nuns even offer prayers of gratitude for the suffering they have been given: “Grant that I might have enough suffering to awaken in the deepest possible compassion and wisdom.”
The aim of spiritual life is to awaken a joyful freedom, a benevolent and compassionate heart in spite of everything.
Gratitude is a gracious acknowledgment of all that sustains us, a bow to our blessings, great and small, an appreciation of the moments of good fortune that sustain our life every day. We have so much to be grateful for.
Gratitude is confidence in life itself. It is not sentimental, not jealous, nor judgmental. Gratitude does not envy or compare. Gratitude receives in wonder the myriad offerings of the rain and the earth, the care that supports every single life.
As gratitude grows it gives rise to joy. We experience the courage to rejoice in our own good fortune and in the good fortune of others.
Joy is natural to an open heart. In it, we are not afraid of pleasure. We do not mistakenly believe it is disloyal to the suffering of the world to honor the happiness we have been given.
Like gratitude, joy gladdens the heart. We can be joyful for people we love, for moments of goodness, for sunlight and trees, and for the breath within our breast. And as our joy grows we finally discover a happiness without cause. Like an innocent child who does not have to do anything to be happy, we can rejoice in life itself, in being alive.
Let yourself sit quietly and at ease. Allow your body to be relaxed and open, your breath natural, your heart easy. Begin the practice of gratitude by feeling how year after year you have cared for your own life. Now let yourself begin to acknowledge all that has supported you in this care:
With gratitude I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, all whose joyful exertion blesses my life every day.
With gratitude I remember the care and labor of a thousand generations of elders and ancestors who came before me.
I offer my gratitude for the safety and well-being I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the blessing of this earth I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the measure of health I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the family and friends I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the community I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the teachings and lessons I have been given.
I offer my gratitude for the life I have been given.
Just as we are grateful for our blessings, so we can be grateful for the blessings of others.
Continue to breathe gently. Bring to mind someone you care about, someone it is easy to rejoice for. Picture them and feel the natural joy you have for their well-being, for their happiness and success. With each breath, offer them your grateful, heartfelt wishes:
May you be joyful.
May your happiness increase.
May you not be separated from great happiness.
May your good fortune and the causes for your joy and happiness increase.
Sense the sympathetic joy and caring in each phrase. When you feel some degree of natural gratitude for the happiness of this loved one, extend this practice to another person you care about. Recite the same simple phrases that express your heart’s intention.
Then gradually open the meditation to include neutral people, difficult people, and even enemies- until you extend sympathetic joy to all beings everywhere, young and old, near and far.
This excerpt is taken from the book, “The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace“ by Jack Kornfield
My Dear friends, we certainly have so much to be thankful for, need I mention even a few? However, we do forget to give thanks and speak out our gratitude on a daily basis. It has been shown that being grateful raises our levels of happiness and joy and these raised levels of happiness attract others that are also happy; thus enabling our lives to be filled with more joy each and every day. So today, ‘Go on, give it a go’, meditate, bring people and things into your minds eye and into your heart, give thanks for everything in your life, good and bad and feel the peace and the love that this meditation brings to your heart and soul.
I did this; this morning….’A big smile on my face right now’ when I think of this process of gratitude 🙂 A simple meditation and mindful eating of my toast and honey. I gave thanks for the honey, the sweetness on my tongue, gave thanks to the Bee for collecting the honey, to the flower that attracted the bee, for the sun the rain and the soil that raised the flower in order to attract the bee, for the seedling that brought life to the flower, for the person or animal that brought that seed to that piece of soil, for the soil that gave its nutrients to the seed, for the sun that shone its warmth and helped the seeding grow, for the rain that gave the flower life, for the cloud that made the rain, for the rivers and oceans that brought about the cloud, for God for his creation of the earth and then I came on to the toast and the butter on my toast, and my mouth, my tongue for experiencing the sweet sensation of the honey, for the goodness and nutrition the honey, the toast and the butter were giving to my body, and this process of thankfulness went on, and on…Interestingly, this process of giving thanks brought about a real enlightenment to me, honestly I have never experienced mindful eating so much as I did this morning, I have experienced it many, many times before but this morning it was different, set at a really different level, I awakened to something very new, something great, something that brought peace to my heart and my soul, a total experience of joy…
Toast and Honey will never be the same again 🙂
Namaste with Love my dear friends
Always
Mark
My Dear Friends,
You may have already seen this short video, I had not but; I thought it was well worth sharing again because of the reminder of this simple but profound message within the short story. The video certainly brought tears to my eyes and I’m happy that I came across it to remind me of the importance of doing good each and every day. This simple act of kindness like so many others that we can do will help others in their time of need and bring about the receipt of goodness in response to our acts of kindness.
Please watch the video and enjoy the message.
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
The pendulum swings to and fro
From darkness to light
From sickness to health
From goodness to evil
And back again.
It’s enough to make anyone confused.
The sage has found the still point between;
Remaining neutral
He teaches by living a simple, honest life;
He creates by allowing,
He feeds without forcing,
And gives by receiving.
He heals by perceiving
One’s inner wholeness,
Then lets go,
He’s always in touch.
Can you find the still point between?
Meditate on this one my friends 🙂
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
My wife and I meditating at the top of the Grampian mountains on New Years Day 2015.
I would like to take a moment to thank you all for all your follows, your comments and your support during 2014 and for the friendship and love you have sent me from all around the world.
Love, compassion and awareness of life and the world we live in is what I stand for, I try my best to promote these things through my blog and my daily activities, it is not always easy, there are often set-backs, challenges and sometimes even extremely negative and abusive responses and comments to my posts, I do however take these negative comments in my stride and think of all for the love and support that you guys give me which in turn provides me with the strength to continue on in the hope that we can together help make change.
May and I had the opportunity to spend Christmas and New Year in Australia this year, we spent most of our time in nature, meditating and connecting with the beauty and spirit of Australia’s outback, the positive energy, the weather, the trees and the mountains gave us strength and we are both re-energized to do even more this year 🙂
The dawn of 2015 brought about the sad deaths of 36 people in Shanghai, the city where we live, those souls were lost to our world after a deadly stampede on New Year’s Eve killed 36 and caused the cancellation of celebrations across the city. At least 47 people were injured, including 40 still serious enough to required hospitalization, the Shanghai government said on its website. “The stampede — the city’s deadliest disaster since 2010 — started about 11:35 p.m. on New Year’s Eve as tens of thousands of people crowded into the historic Bund riverside district for a light show”.
My prayers go out to those who are no longer with us and to their families and friends during this time of sorrow, may their souls rest in peace.
2015, what will it bring us?
I do hope that 2015 will bring about greater self realization, more compassion and a greater understanding of our world to us all. For us to work together in the name of peace and move forward towards a happier world where we can all live without the need for war, where we actively work together as one to find ways in which we can bring about the end of poverty, feed the hungry and save our environment from the ravages and destruction of our insatiable greed for more!…We can, I believe; achieve great things in 2015, we are on our way, our voices are now at last being heard, the powers that be are now starting to take notice, we can make a difference, we can bring about change.
I know you are there and I am very happy!
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
Love’s rule is one,
Man’s rules are many.
Delusion and pain are a tangle of rules
While peace has no limitation.
When fear speaks
Happiness becomes pain
And desperately people cling
To straws of sorrow.
Their left hands use magic
To repel dark spirits,
And with their fright
They invite them in again.
What is pain
But Love unexpressed?
Be unshakable
But not obstinate;
Embrace fear
But do not affirm it;
Feel pain
But do not believe it.
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
A Meeting of the Minds and Heart
In the West it’s hard to even conceive of enlightened beings. We have much to learn about how to approach them, how to be with them, how to use them on our own journey into our heart. Cultures like that of India have customs and forms that, although perhaps not directly transferable, can show us how to be in the presence of a holy person.
As a teenager getting ready for a date, I would go to great lengths dressing, combing my hair, buying flowers, acquiring the money, planning the evening – there seemed to be no end to my preoccupation with the momentous trivia of going on a date. Only when everything was in order could I begin to open to the relationship. If my shoes were scuffed, I would spend a good part of the evening hiding them under an available chair or couch or being embarrassed or self-conscious about them. In its own way opening to the presence of a holy being, a lover for your soul, demands that same kind of psychological preparation.
When I first traveled around India and saw holy beings, I treated these meetings rather casually and just enjoyed being with whomever I happened to be with at whatever level we happened to meet. But as time went on, I began to appreciate receiving the presence of spiritual beings more deeply and having the opportunity to drink from the well of their experience. I came to understand that this transmission of living spirit involves preparation in order to be open to receive it. Slowing my mind down enough to be in the moment in “Indian time” was one part of that. Opening my heart to feel their love was another.
Imagine living in India twenty-five hundred years ago. You hear about an enlightened being walking the earth called Gautama Buddha. You set out to find him to receive his teachings.
Perhaps you go to Sarnath, where he delivered his first sermon in the Deer Park. You talk to the newly ordained bikkhus, or monks, gathered there and ask his whereabouts. They direct you to a town to the north. You travel on foot, in a horse-drawn wagon, or by oxcart. In each village you receive another report, making you feel you are getting closer. Your anticipation mounts day by day as you move from village to village, your mind fixed on the moment when you will meet this being, sit before him, and receive his teaching.
Weeks go by, and you begin to meet people who have just been with the Buddha. Their eyes are alight, their hearts open. They emanate a peace that speaks of the experience they’ve had. Finally you are within a day’s travel of the Buddha. Your mind turns to how you will prepare yourself for this meeting. As you near your destination, you stop and bathe and wash your clothes, perhaps pick some flowers or fruit in one of the villages. As you get very close, you are so excited you are afraid that you will not be quiet enough to receive him. So you sit on a rock by a stream, collecting yourself.
Finally you approach the cave where the Buddha sits. You climb the hill to the door of the cave. It is dark inside. A small fire flickers, and in the firelight you see someone sitting in meditation. After some time, he becomes aware of your presence and motions you to enter. You enter, bow before him, and offer your fruit and flowers. You sit before him and finally raise your eyes to look into his. Time stops. Everything you have been anticipating is coming to fruition in this moment.
The universe disappears. Only his eyes exist. A flow of love, wisdom, consciousness passes between you. Perhaps a few words are said – words you take away and think upon again and again in the years to follow. Or perhaps he says nothing, and it is just his stillness, his presence, the incredible love that flows from him, the deep compassion you feel. You feel as if you were naked before his glance. He sees through you, he knows all – past, present, and future. He does not judge, but simply acknowledges how it all is. Even a moment of such compassion can be liberating.
– Ram Dass, excerpt from Be Love Now co-authored by Rameshwar Das
Centre Yourself on Wholeness
If all the scientists, analysts, and
theorists disappeared today,
Not one part of truth would be lost.
If all the judges,lawyers, priests, holymen and
prosecutors disappeared,
Not one part of morality would be lost.
If all the investors, speculators,
bankers and brokers disappeared,
not one part of wealth would be lost.
On the contrary, truth, love,
and abundance
Would be more easily received.
Center yourself first in Wholeness
And all the parts will be yours.
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
Fear of failure, fear of loosing face, the fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, the fear of success….Whatever fears you face in your life it’s now time for you to face them.
There are literally millions of labels we can place on words and call them fears, as in the image above, the list is endless and different fears attack each and every one of us, and we react to these fears in different ways.
Every time we turn our backs on a fear and try to fight it, it becomes a pointless exercise and waste of our time, because fighting our fears places us in a ‘battle’ with that fear forever, whilst facing these fears will give us ‘freedom’ forever.
Our minds play tricks on us all the time, ‘the devil in our head’, ‘our sub conscious mind’, our Ego’s’ constantly chatter to us laying doubts on our ability to achieve, playing reference to things that have gone wrong in the past, and nagging us to stop right there and give up!…”Don’t be stupid, you know you will fail”, “It’s no point you doing that because no one will listen to you”, “Ah, they are just begging because they are too lazy to work so don’t give them your money”, “It’s not your problem, don’t get involved or it will end in tears, “Leave your job, are you stupid”, “Your not smart enough or worthy enough to do or go somewhere”……..How many of you have had these thoughts go through your head?
Our fears of failure can limit us and keep us from living the life we want to. When we inevitably experience rejection or disappointment, we have to be hardy in our way of coping with these struggles. Overcoming our critical inner voice can be a vital step in becoming more emotionally resilient. We can learn skills to become hardier, and we can face challenges with fewer internal setbacks. Yet, the first step in taking on this new confidence is shedding the baggage of our past, the critical inner voices that falsely feed our fears of failure.
If you have chance look at a child, an elderly person or someone who is really poor, observe their behaviours and take note of how they live their lives.
And like Derek says
In action find stillness.
Seek the simple kernel
At the heart of every matter.
See the greatness in a small kindly gesture.
Make forgiveness your intention
And your enemies your allies.
Love is perceived in all you meet.
Civilized man, afraid of natures simplicity
Creates complex problems;
The healer creates wholeness
By loving whomever God has put in his way.
When there is trust, promises are not required
And the difficult challenge is met with joy.
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
It is so easy for us to talk about Inner Peace and what living in the ‘Now’ does for your life, how it brings an end to our suffering and allows us to live in contentment and look at our lives and the world around us with a different set of eyes!
But how easy is it for us to reach this state of ‘Inner Peace’? Well I guess there is no short answer to that question because some of us find ‘Inner Peace’ very quickly whilst others look for it throughout their lives and never actually find it. And for some they gain ‘Inner Peace’ then slip right back into their old ways of living like they are on that never ending diet, loosing weight, gaining fitness only to return to old habits, gain weight and on goes that perpetual circle of life!
I know I have struggled throughout my life, battling with Ego, past life issues, memories of terrible relationships, pain and bad experiences in life but when i actually ‘walk the talk’ and live in the now, when I stop focussing on ‘how stressed I am’ and remember ‘how blessed I am’, my life changes immediately for the better, my health improves rapidly, my smiles bring about other smiles, my laughter heals my pain and I see the world how it should and could be and I gain strength each day to get out there and do some good for mankind and mother earth.
Inner Peace is controlled by you and you alone, once you realize this and start to manage your mind, your life can, and will change for the better…
Go on, give it a try, for once the old saying is true…’The Grass Is Greener On The Other Side’
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
If we are to start making any headway towards changing our world for the better, to bring about peace, to eradicate disease and to bring about an end to poverty and starvation for millions of our brothers and sisters around the world, we will need to bring out the ‘Big Guns’
We need to start listening to each other, start to understand the other side of the story, give our compassion to others irrespective of their colour, religion or social status, forgive and forget what has gone on in the past and forge forward together as one humanity in the search of peace and in love of each other toward a common goal of life and environmental sustainability of our crops and waters and the protection of our planet, we need to build up our patience and understanding of other cultures and ways of life and most of all we need to be truthful and honest with each other.
OM
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
Some people say that living in the Now is impossible.
How can you possibly trust those who might harm you?
How can you survive without planning and toil?
How can you heal without first being schooled?
Fear of death,
Fear of want,
The fear of separation from your God.
To choose to trust allows the fullest expression of life.
To choose to serve creates the greatest abundance.
To choose compassion brings oneness and health.
Values found only in the Now
Banishing all fear.
The only rational response to life.
Being in the Now, forgiving all and being thankful for all
Bringing you closer to your God, your Spirit and your Life.
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
Wise words indeed from H.H The Dalai Lama
Today is the only day for you to be concerned with, because today is the only day you can act, stop thinking and worrying about yesterday and tomorrow, concentrate all your effort on today, live your life to the full, love everyone and everything that comes into your life today, give from your heart and do all you can for yourself, for humanity, for mother earth.
Today is your day 🙂
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
I would like to sage a re-post with you from a dear blogging friend David Hare over at http://thankingthespoon.com , its a great piece of advice 🙂
Namaste with Love
Always
Mark
22 years ago when I first went to a senior Buddhist to ask for advice, I said to him: “I have a very big problem,” and he, the late John Delnevo of SGI UK (pictured), replied with a broad smile and a twinkle in his eye: “Congratulations.” I thought he must have misheard me so I repeated that I really was struggling with something (can’t remember what but it would’ve felt massive at the time – money / job / girlfriend / studies… or possibly all four…)
Again he smiled broadly and said, “that’s great news, well done!” Seeing my perplexed face, he made seven points over the next hour’s conversation that have stayed with me ever since:
‘John D’, as we called him, was an incredibly wise, strict and compassionate man and it is hard in a list of 7 points to convey the warm encouragement that always shone from his life, earning the trust of people all around him. In fact it has taken me 21 years to really understand with my whole life what he said to me on that day in 1991. And some days I still forget.
The advice he gave was born of his own heartfelt personal struggles or ‘human revolution’ as we say in Buddhism, he lived what he taught, it was never about theory with John D. And looking back I realise he treated me with the deepest appreciation, seeing past my whingeing self-centredness and talking to the person I might one day become. I believe this is the mark of a great mentor.
So, as this wise man repeated at the end of our little chat: “You have a problem? Congratulations…”
Davidx
PS. When I began writing this post, I didn’t intend it to become a tribute to John Delnevo, it was just going to be a list of 7 hopefully helpful points. Now I realise that it is the profound human connection that counted even more than what he actually said. ‘John D’, you rocked. Still in my daimoku. Thank you.
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.
Endless Light and Love 