Tag: balance

Staying solid and enduring

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tree

The strong winds in Ireland this morning remind me of this teaching on being shaken and standing firm

When you look at a tree in a storm, you see that its upper branches move more violently in the wind. But if you look at its trunk, you see that it is very solid and still. Your belly is the trunk of your being. It is important to allow everything in your head to move down to your abdomen. Place your hands on your abdomen and practice your breathing.  After five, ten, fifteen minutes the storm will pass and you will be ok.

Nguyen Anh-Huong and Thich Nhat Hahn, Walking Meditation

Where we do not wobble

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A succinct teaching on practice – developing a space which does not wobble –  and how we work with changing moods.

Through meditation practice we can access a core presence, which feels like an ‘inner’ state, where things are not happening, and the flow of events has receded. Thoughts quieten down, and we feel firmly grounded. There is a sense of singularity, of ‘just being here.’  This is a valuable basis from which we can look into the roots of mental/emotional behaviour. So meditation is not about getting into that inner state just for its own sake, but about using quiet firmness as a base from which to contemplate moods and mind-states. This entails not sticking to ideas of what I want and what should be, but really relating to what is present without reactions and bias. In this way we learn and develop non-attachment. 

Ajahn Sucitto

Dont grasp the snake

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File:Flickr - DVIDSHUB - Snake Handler.jpg

If we don’t grasp hold of the snake

it won’t bite us.

If we don’t grasp onto the moods,  the feelings,  the thoughts

they won’t bite us.

Ajahn Jayasaro.

photo DVIDSHUB

Create joy

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jumping

Life will bring you pain all by itself.

Your responsibility is to create joy

Milton Erikson, American Psychologist,

What needs to be let go

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A short quote today from Andy Puddicombe, creator of the Headspace site, which does well in demystifying meditation and presenting it in a modern format. Some people have told me that they find their app a useful way of keeping their practice going, and in this modern age, technology can be sometimes helpful, even if its overall effect may be to fragment our capacity for attention. You may like to check it out here: http://www.getsomeheadspace.com/benefits-of-meditation.aspx

The journey to acceptance is about discovering what we need to let go of, rather than what we need to start doing. By noticing moments of resistance throughout the day, you can start to become more aware of what prevents acceptance from naturally arising. This in turn will allow you to view the thoughts and feelings that arise during your meditation with a much greater sense of ease.

Andy Puddicombe, Ten Tips for Living more Mindfully

Noticing the pictures

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File:Wikitude World Browser @Castle Hohensalzburg.jpg

People think they’re not computers because they have feelings and computers don’t have feelings. But feelings are just having a picture on the screen in your head of what is going to happen tomorrow or next year, or what might have happened instead of what did happen, and if it is a happy picture they smile and if it is a sad picture they cry.

Mark Hadden, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

photo pucky2012