May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden you.
May dawn find you awake and alert, approaching your new day with dreams,
Possibilities and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night blessed, sheltered and protected.
May your soul calm, console and renew you.
John O’Donoghue, May the light of your soul gude you
Facing the bluntness of reality is the highest form of sanity and enlightened 
vision….Devotion proceeds through various stages of unmasking until we reach the point of seeing the world directly and simply without imposing our fabrications….There may be a sense of being lost or exposed a sense of vulnerability. That is simply a sign that ego is losing its grip on its territory; it is not a threat.
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
All relationships demand that we trust the other person. However, due to our personal history, this can sometimes prove a challenge. Our brains are wired to remember the risks that come from encounters with others, such as those in our childhood. Therefore certain words or situations may trigger deep felt unconscious memories and the brain automatically applies an expectation of danger to them. Our stress and anxiety rises, and we feel trapped. Our instinct is to run away. This happens even though our strengths and resources are greatly different now than what they were when we were little.
Thus it can help if we increase our capacity to see these fears as they arise in order not to be influenced by our automatic reactions to them. A way if doing so is outlined here:
Anxiety, dread, worry and even panic are just mental states like any other. Recognize fear when it arises, observe the feeling of it in your body – watch it try and convince you that you should be alarmed – see it change and move on. Verbally describe to yourself what you are feeling, to increase frontal lobe regulation of the limbic system. Notice how the awareness which contains fear is itself never fearful. Keep separating from the fear; settle back into the vast space of awareness through which fear passes like a cloud.
Rick Hanson, Buddha’s Brain
For those of us who live in nanosecond time, a moment becomes very, very short, and in 
each moment we ask how much we have gotten done. How much did I cram into it? Was I successful in multitasking? As one woman in a class I was working with said to me, “I have finally figured out how to relax. When I go from my job teaching to my consulting job and I’m driving in my car, I listen to a self-help tape, I eat lunch on the way, I talk on my cellular phone, and I relax at the same time.”
This approach to time management simply turns up the speed on the treadmill of our lives. I propose we evolve beyond time management to “timeshifting”-which is different from merely “downshifting.” The practice of timeshifting recognizes that every single moment has a particular rhythm to it, and that we have the capacity to expand or contract an individual moment as appropriate. One way to shift what’s going on in our world is not to try to rush to do more, but to allow ourselves to go deeper into that moment of being present. Our ability to shift gears, to shift our rhythm to meet that moment and be present in it, is what allows us to experience the fullness of life – to create our life in the way we want it to be.
Stephan Rechtschaffen.
The longest and most complex study of meditation ever undertaken is beginning to publish its first results after more than two years spent analyzing the significant amount of data it gathered. This research, called the Shamata Project, began in 2007 at the University of California, Davis, and uses methods drawn from fields as diverse as molecular biology, neuroscience, and anthropology. It advertised for participants via word of mouth and advertisements in meditation-themed magazines. About 140 people applied to participate, of whom 60 were selected to take part in several experiments.
The first official findings released from the Project provide evidence to support the notion that the practice of meditation improves perception. An article published last month online in Psychological Science reports that those who participated in the study became better at making fine visual distinctions and sustaining attention during a 30-minute test. This test, derived from those used to assess vigilance in radar operators, involved the participants watching a screen intently as lines flashed on it; most were of the same length, but every now and then a shorter one would appear, and the volunteer had to click the mouse in response when recognizing it. It was found that meditators were able to sustain their attention for longer periods without getting bored or distracted. Meditation seems to increase the capacity to be mindful, or pay attention, even to the small details happenig before us.
“Because this task is so boring and yet is also very neutral, it’s kind of a perfect index of meditation training,” says Katherine MacLean, the graduate student involved in the Project. “People may think meditation is something that makes you feel good and going on a meditation retreat is like going on vacation, and you get to be at peace with yourself. That’s what people think until they try it. Then you realize how challenging it is to just sit and observe something without being distracted.”
Katherine MacLean, Clifford Saron, B. Alan Wallace et al. Intensive Meditation Training Improves Perceptual Discrimination and Sustained Attention. Psychological Science, (in press)
For more details check out the press release: http://news.ucdavis.edu/in_the_news/
Or the website : http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/
“How shall I experience my oneness with creation?”
“By listening,” said the Master.
“And how am I to listen?”
“Become an ear that gives heed to every single thing the universe is saying. The moment you hear something you yourself are saying, stop.”
Anthony de Mello
