How to train the mind

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Consider all phenomena to be dreams.
Don’t be swayed by outer circumstances.
Be grateful to everyone.
Don’t brood over the faults of others.
Explore the nature of unborn awareness.
At all times simply rely on a joyful mind.
Don’t expect a standing ovation

Atiśa, 980 – 1054, Seven Points for Training the Mind and Heart

photo Ed Yourdon

Sunday Quote: Mystery

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The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved;

it is a reality to be experienced

Jacobus Johannes van der Leeuw Dutch author, 1893 – 1934

photo rennett stowe

Fear-driven stories

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The quality of our lives depends heavily on whether we assume a world of scarcity or a world of abundance.

By embracing the scarcity assumption, we create the very scarcities we fear.  We create scarcity by competing with others for resources as if we were stranded on the Sahara at the last oasis. In the human world, abundance does not happen automatically  It is created when we have the sense to choose community, to come together to celebrate and share our common story. Whether the “scarce resource” is money or love or power or words, the true law of life is that we generate more of whatever seems scarce by trusting its supply and passing it around. Authentic abundance does not lie in secured stockpiles of food or cash or influence or affection, but in belonging to a community where we can give those goods to others who need them – and receive them from others when we are in need.

Parker Palmer, The Active Life and Let Your Life Speak

photo john liu

Content where we are

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We all want to be famous people,

and the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.

Jiddu Krisnamurti

photo jonathan billinger

The difference between joy and happiness

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Joy in the context of spirituality
is not the same as happiness.
Happiness is a feeling that, like all feelings, comes and goes,
while joy is a more fundamental attitude toward life.

This joy doesn’t change your circumstance; it embraces it.
Joy doesn’t make your situation other than it is;
but reveals the greater reality in which it is.
Being aware of the greater reality
always manifests as joy.

The more narrow the attention,
the more focused we are on fleeting moments
of happiness and sadness.
The wider our attention becomes
the more aware we are
of an unending flow of joy.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro

photo martin cathrae

Wonder and astonishment

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Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!”

and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver

photo s04av