Can extract sunshine from a cloudy day!

Join the great company of those who make the barren places of life fruitful with kindness. Carry a vision of heaven in your hearts, and you shall make your name,your college, the world, correspond to that vision. Your success and happiness lie within you. External conditions are the accidents of life, its outer wrappings. The great, enduring realities are love and service. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulty. ~ Helen Keller
L❀VE ♥´¯`•.¸¸.• ♥ •´¯`•.¸¸.♥Fiat Lux ♥´¯`•.¸¸.• ♥L❀VE ♥´¯`•.¸¸.• ♥ •´¯`•.¸¸.♥Fiat Lux ♥´¯`•.¸¸.• ♥

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Tomorrow

Painting By: Pierre Valon Click Here

"You can feel as wretched as you like and you're still be a good candidate for enlightenment. You can feel like the world's most hopeless basketcase, but that feeling is your wealth, not something to be thrown out or improved upon.  There's a richness to all of the smell stuff that we so dislike and so little desire. The delightful things - what we love so dearly about ourselves - the places in which we feel some - some sense of pride or inspiration - these also are our wealth. ~ Pema Chodron"


 How much of my self I have buried in an island of self, this I can barely fathom. I need to breath, a true breath of bursting release from this tight dark dank drum of enclosure I have built for a season. Forgetting entirely about that light that flickers gently inside, I gave my entire being, mind, body and soul to the riddle of the mundane, shunning any form, any semblance of my true self. I miss my poetry. I miss my photography. I miss painting. I miss the company of my imagination, - a world where everything I see is a refraction of reality. This has kept me sane. And I am losing it.

Tomorrow, I shall take a walk. An early morning walk. I will smell grass and cut grass and touch soil. Before  I even do anything, I shall light a candle of thankfulness and offer it to that altar in my heart where all inspiration and hope and love resides.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

"Start Where You Are" by Pema Chödron


ƸӜƷ We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves - the heavy duty fearing that we're bad and hoping that we're good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds - never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right there. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. 



Looking at ourselves this way is very different from our usual habit. from this perspective we don't need to change: You can feel as wretched as you like and you're still be a good candidate for enlightenment. You can feel like the world's most hopeless basketcase, but that feeling is your wealth, not something to be thrown out or improved upon.  There's a richness to all of the smell stuff that we so dislike and so little desire. The delightful things - what we love so dearly about ourselves - the places in which we feel some - some sense of pride or inspiration - these also are our wealth.


When we hear about compassion, it naturally brings up working with others, caring for others. The reason we're often not there for others - whether for our child or our other or someone who is insulting us or someone who frightens us is because we are not there for ourselves.


Because we escape, we escape from being right here, being right on the dot. We keep missing the moment we're in. yet, if we keep missing the moment we're in, we discover that it is unique, precious, and completely fresh. It never happens twice. One can appreciate and celebrate each moment - there's nothing more sacred. there's nothing more vast or absolute. In fact, there's nothing more.


Only to the degree we've gotten to know our personal pain,  only to the degree we've related to pain at all, will we be fearless enough, brave enough, and enough of a warrior to be willing to feel the pain of others. To that degree we aill be able to take on the pain of others because we will have discovered that their pain and our pain are no different.


However, to do this, we need all the help we can get. The tools you will be given are three very supportive practices:



  • Basic sitting meditation ( called shamatha Vipashyana)
  • The practice of taking in and sending out (called tonglen)
  • The practice of working with slogans ( called the seven points of mind training or lojong
All these practices awaken our trust that the wisdom and compassion that we need are already within us. They help us to know ourselves: our rough parts and our smooth parts, our passion, aggression, ignorance and wisdom



~ excerpt from: "Start Where You Are" by Pema Chödron