Will you choose to live to your highest potential in 2010? Will you choose to challenge every limitation you have about yourself? Will you?

To raise one's eyes and see one's destiny shining its light all the way to the horizon, is to know one's true worth lies beyond survival!

Let the joyous spirit of Christmas live in your heart and your life every day of the year.... :D

"I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live." - Martin Luther King Jr.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King Jr.

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“Great spirits have always encountered violent
opposition from mediocre minds.” - Albert Einstein -

Who are you really? An ocean of possibilities? Or a bundle of limitations, cynicisms and impossibilities?

"It takes courage to let go of cynicism, judgement and resignation. It is very easy to argue against positive possibilities." - Van Mantara

"You can neither win nor lose if you don't run the race." - David Bowie

Is life meant to be about paying bills, owning houses, travelling, having lots of stuff and being busy all the time? Or is there more?

"Who dares to face their fears lives. Who doesn't, is just waiting, marking time till death." - Van Mantara

"Who dares to face their fears lives. Who doesn't, just waits to die." - Mantara

There is a great beauty in ALL of life that is visible only to those who have dared to dive deep...

A child who has never experienced being loved unconditionally grows up fearing love...

A child who has never been burnt by disaster, challenged or hurt grows up with no knowledge of compassion or the strength to deal with life!

The stupid have judgements, skepticism, dogma and cynicism. The wise have curiosity in open minds.

How will you contribute to the world today?

The "perfect" human being is an "imperfect" being. That is the glory of the human experience! Yay to imperfection I say!

Only as high as I reach can I grow, Only as far as I seek can I go, Only as deep as I look can I see,
Only as much as I dream can I be- Ravn

"Never let the things that matter the most be at the mercy of the things that matter the least" - Goethe.

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart." Helen Keller

Power comes not from domination, aggression, control or manipulation. It comes from authentic being.

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." - Carl Sagan

To march forward even if the odds against us are impossible, to yield not to the fear that envelopes us.. Ah! That is the elixir of living!

Deep in every human's heart lies a dream of such magnificence that it scares the world to even contemplate it!

When one is living in one's Lower Mind, one is no longer alive. Instead one is limited to the collective conversations of one's past.

Every sorrow is but an ode to joy! - Ancient Veddah saying.

You are either results or you are reasons..

To know the greatness of humanity, take a look deep into a baby's eyes. There is limitless power just awaiting the guidance of a wise world!

The valiant find courage only when they acknowledge their fear. Acknowledge and overcome!

To those who dare to confront themselves and reach beyond their fears, will come the true joy of life, making every breath a special one!

The difference between purpose and survival is joy!

Did you realise that for over 500 years the world has been dominated by a Euro-centric civilization that is rooted in Fear Consciousness?

"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business!" Henry Ford

"Don't forget until too late that the business of life is not business, but living!" B.C.Forbes

"Business is the process of giving people access to whatever they wish for. In so doing, the business increases its value." - Sam Nathan

The greatest humans live lives of simplicity, courage, honour and dignity. Ask yourself is this true for you?

The world awaits with bated breath, the awakening of the leaders who will take humanity forward. Are you ready, Great Leaders?

Humanity has demonstrated collectively that we have no limits to our fear. Now how about demonstrating we have no limits to our love?

The greatest leaders are marked by quiet humility, a courageous stand in the face of cynicism & resignation and the willingness to be wrong!

To open one's heart is to invite the most joyous possibilities into one's life. To close it will deny one any propspect of happiness.

"First we need to decide what needs to be done.
Then we do it. And then we ask if it is possible." - Paul Hawken on the state of the world

Is the global economy one vast Ponzi scheme? Food for thought - http://ping.fm/IBdFh

Ask yourself what is it that you really want in a relationship. Write it down. Share it with partners, present and potential.

The field of infinite possibilities has been beckoning humans forward for millenia. It is time for humanity to dance in it!

The vaccine for the epidemic of stupidity that has infected human consciousness is the practice of Love!

The universe has a sense of humour. Why else would humans be given access to infinite intelligence AND the capacity to choose stupidity?

Smile because you know the universe ultimately works for your greatest good in unconditional love!

There is something magical and mystical in the presence of an awakened being. One cannot avoid being inspired and joyous!

The master's journey is from an unconscious reactor to a conscious responder to a conscious creator!

The greatest gift to this universe right now is you, for you are the custodian of all wisdom past and to come. Rejoice you miracle!

Today, world education is aimed solely at strengthening the Lower Mind. Even teachings of kindness etc is about what you get out of it.

Unconditional Love is incomprehensible to the Lower Mind. It gives only if it can get what it seeks.

The greatest of Leaders are those courageous enough to challenge themselves and master their egos.

Do you realise that that the present is eternal? That only the present exists? Reality is only the here and the now!

Most of Humanity today live in their Lower Minds, fearful and unwilling to look within themselves to find their truth, their Higher Minds!

The master knows that true wisdom lies beyond the "mind" which is merely the tool used by the Being to bring that wisdom to life.

Humanity as a whole has lost its wisdom, substituting illusions of rationality, science and thought as the harbingers of truth!

Mainstream humanity has still not realised the extraordinary opportunities latent in caring for the earth and its denizens!

'Tis the Lower mind that seeks to know the future. The heart welcomes the unknown future to love, learn, experience and be.

All troubles are but opportunities to learn, to grow and uncover your greatness.

To dance through life with a smile is your destiny. Forgetting it is what brings you sufferring!

In every child lies the possibility of a world of conscious humanity that is prosperous, thoughtful and caring for all!

Have you laughed till your belly ached today? well... what are you waiting for.. go find something funny and laugh!!!

At the heart of every being is love. 'Tis ignorance of this that creates fear. You have a choice in every moment; ignorance or wisdom?

Life without challenges kills the mind and soul just like inactivity destroys the body.

Leadership is the art of being alive to others so that they are moved and inspired to passionately bring their purpose to life.

The master knows that the price of freedom from the deviousness, cunning and powerful manipulation of the ego is eternal vigilance!

The present is eternal. There is no other reality than the present. All else resides only in the mind as contsructs.

The Master knows that being the change you want in the world is easier to do than think about!

An open mind is one that suspends belief and disbelief. It is the way to wisdom.

Let the tomorrow unfold without resisting it and be present to the wonderful possibilities that will arise..

Within every person lies a powerful possibility of inspiring leadership. Tap into that to see your organisation flourish

Awesome! How to get eco-laggard lads to go green! I love the strategy - http://ping.fm/YpZL6

Imagine a world of business committed to purposes for the greatness of humanity! The wise know that is where success lies.

Anyone scared of Spiders? Here is a website from Oz that helps remove the fear. http://ping.fm/thy8F

The master knows that every moment is a choice between fear and love. And the choice is free of reasons...

'Tis only the cowardly fearful who murder, torture, rape, assault, steal, cheat, bully and threaten. The courageous just love!

There is magic in sunrise. To sit silently and be present to the world waking up is a spiritual experience without equal!

Ignorance is the root of all suffering - Buddha

It's said Children are given to you so that you may learn to love unconditionally. Parents are given to you so you may learn to master Fear.

The light within you has the power to dispell all the darkness of the world! Awaken, you gorgeous beings and shine, shine, shine!

To find the beauty and grace in human beings, let them live... in YOUR heart!

Today, in everything you think, say or do, make sure you are carrying your heart with you!

To the universe, every moment and every phenomenon deserves respect as an opportunity to learn, to grow and to know!

Did you exercise your passion today? Take at least 15 minutes every day to exercise your passion lest it withers and dies!

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing" - Edmnund Burke - Will you stand up today?

All that the universe asks from you is..... YOU! Precious, wonderful, marvellous, magical, majestic YOU in unvarnished truth!

To waken upon a golden morning bathed in the scents and sounds of flowers and birds, with gaze upon the sleeping face of one you love!

May courage raise your mind to see the realm of extraordinary possibilities coming rapidly toward you.

There is a dream within you that if you were to bring to life, would have you waking up every morning jumping with joy!

To those who have the courage to step past the darkness of their Fear will be given the hidden treasure of extrordinary possibilities.

The mission of nature is to be everything that the being is and thus to find the being beyond. Are you living this mission?

What if human beings learnt to respect themselves, ALL life and our home, the Earth? What kind of world would we create?

Find a moment to sit under a tree, leaning against its trunk. Close your eyes and become aware of its calm energy. Bliss!

Stop for a moment. Look around. Be present to what is around you. Isn't it magnificent? Really!

When we dare to open our hearts, we find the hidden joys and courage that truly honour our lives and who we really are!

There is a fever of cowardice that has enveloped the human race. It turns people into selfish, frightened, destructive beings - Mantara

The wisdom to end suffering is within humanity's consciousness. All it needs is the collective courage to bring it to life!

The master knows that only love can overcome fear. Not logic, not rationale, not reasoning. Only love!

"There's no fire like passion, no seizure like anger, no snare like delusion, no river like craving" - Dhammapada

There is purpose in all work. 'Tis the master that knows it, finds it, lives it and enjoys it!

WizDumbs - Man who drop watch in toilet, have very crappy time!

Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die! - Van Mantara

The Darwin Awards provides ample evidence of how even human stupidity is not safe from natural selection! http://ping.fm/nDQdc

"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future" - George Bernard Shaw

Man with head above clouds never sees rain, storms, hail or snow - WizDumbs

http://ping.fm/omelY - If you have never heard little Connie sing, you have missed out on the sublime!

http://ping.fm/oq2VN - Bob Marley would have loved this version from the awesome Connie Talbot.

http://ping.fm/S0646 - Find a symposium to attend and bring your might to creating a wonderful world!

Some drink deeply of the fountain of wisdom, while others just wet their lips...

"Only from the heart can you touch the sky" - Rumi

A closed mind that clings to its narrow knowlege of life is robbed of the exhilaration of new wisdom and mastery.

Giant carcasses like mine, dancing and loose carpets together guarantee comical disasters of epic proportions as well as bruised bottoms!

Have you ever wondered why people do the same things over and over and expect a different result?

www.puppetji.com - Plotting JV to work with genius creator of "Puppetji WizDumbs" to poke fun at human (mainly mine) foibles..

Having fun messing in the catacombs of human consciousness! :D Hee Hee Hee Hee Hee (evil laugh)!

A mind filled with Scrambled, Haphazard, Incongruous Thought finds kindred spirits in the dung heap of humanity!

English language is weird. Love and Fear are both four letter words! Hmmmmm..

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.” - Rumi

At the deepest level there is only Love. There is no absence of Love. Just Love. No Fear. Just Love Get it! Know it!

The human journey is learning how to love beyond fear. This is enlightenment. This is coming home. Yes, love is your home!

Meditation and Non Meditation

One of the greatest boons to the harried human is meditation. While I teach simple forms of meditation that is easily incorporated into one's day, many have asked me for more details about meditation and its full extent. I have no claims to be a master of meditative practices. So i have searched to find you the best texts that explain this extremely simple and yet complex wisdom.

This is an extract from a brilliant teaching by the venerable Mingyur Rinpoche that is worth reading. Please read slowly and digest because the teachings are detailed. It will give you a very clear understanding of what meditation truly is.

The Very Venerable Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Meditation and Non-meditation Part 11

Halifax Shambhala Centre, Nova Scotia Canada, January 28, 2004

Translator: Tyler Dewar
Transcriber: Barbara Blouin
Editor: Judith Smith

Shamatha

Good evening, everyone.
Tonight we will continue discussing shamatha [Skt.], or calm-abiding meditation. Shamatha is the first type of meditation we engage in when we embark on the path of meditation. As we discussed yesterday, in Tibetan,shamatha is translated as shi-ne ( Zhi gnas). The first syllable, shi, means to pacify - meaning to pacify the mind over which we have no control or freedom - this wild mind that behaves like a crazy monkey, creating problems where there are no problems. This monkey-like mind that we have is ordinarily present with us throughout our day-to-day lives. It is good if we recognize this monkey-like, very wild mind. The worst situation to be in is not even knowing that the mind is behaving like a monkey. If we do not recognize this monkey-like mind, then the phenomenon of creating problems where there are no problems, and creating tasks where there are no tasks, becomes greater and greater. How is it that this wild mind causes problems for us? It causes problems through fixation and being too tight. We could use the example of looking at our face in a mirror. There is nothing wrong with our face to begin with but, because of our tight fixation, we end up making problems with our face, looking for and creating faults. That type of fixation causes greater and greater suffering.
There are three levels to this fixation: coarse, subtle and very subtle fixation. In meditation we begin to work with the coarse level of fixation first.

The syllable ne ( gnas) in shi-ne means "to abide" or "to rest" - to gain freedom or self-control over our mind.

The method we use to gain such freedom is to rest our mind in its own nature by way of mindfulness. If we are able to practice a mindfulness that is harmonious with the nature of our mind, then we will eventually gain control over our mind.

Shamatha Without Object
In terms of resting the mind naturally, I spoke last night about "shamatha without object" or "shamatha without attributes." During this type of shamatha, we relax our body and we relax our mind in its natural state, just as if we were relaxing after having done two hours of exercise, or having done a very hard job. We tire ourselves out, and then we relax completely. That is how we rest in this first type of shamatha. Shamatha without object is so easy that we don't trust it, and so for beginners we need something that is a little bit difficult - the practice of shamatha with object. Whether we're practicing shamatha with object or shamatha without object, we should simply have the attitude that we are going to try our best. We don't have to hold our mind tightly thinking, "It is absolutely not okay if I do not have a good meditation session." Relaxation We should think: "If my meditation is good, let it be good. If my meditation is bad, let it be bad. If it is mistaken, let it be mistaken. If it is correct, let it be correct. If I am to be reborn in hell, let me go to hell. If I'm to be reborn in a Pure Land, let me be go to a Pure Land." The time of meditation is precisely this state of being free from cares. We shouldn't be that carefree in our post-meditation stage, but when we meditate, we should definitely be as carefree as that.
Once when I was travelling from Delhi to the West, I met up with a Western person in the Delhi airport.
The Westerner asked "Do you meditate?"
And I said, "Yes, I do."
I returned the question, "Do you meditate too?" and he said, "Meditation is too hard for me. As soon as I meditate, about ten minutes pass, I start to feel dizzy, and like I'm about to vomit" [laughter].
Then I said, "If it is like that for you, then it must be a sign that you are not relaxing enough. So you need to relax more."
He said, "Forget about that! The more I relax, the worse I get. The more I relax, the more dizzy I get."
I asked him, "Do you have a meditation teacher?" He said, "No, I'm reading everything from books."
I said, "Well, sit down here and meditate, and I'll watch you." The Westerner said, "Very good, I will."
So he sat down on a chair and started meditating. [Rinpoche mimicked the person meditating - people laughed for a long time.]
He was just like that, with his body shaking and his eyes really tense and his lips pursed. I said, "Okay, that was okay. Now I'll meditate, and you watch me."
He said, "Good idea," and I sat down.
The Westerner looked me up and down, head to feet, and then back up to the top of my head again.
After a few minutes the Westerner said, "You're just sitting there!"
I replied to him, "Meditation is pretty much just sitting. It is just resting with your mind in whatever its nature is."
Then some announcements were made over the P.A. system in the airport, and that meant both us had to leave for our respective gates. The first leg of my flight from Delhi landed in Frankfurt. I got off the plane and went into the Frankfurt airport, and saw the same Westerner getting out of his plane.
He approached me and said, "I was just sitting on my plane ride just like you were doing in Delhi, and I didn't get dizzy. So I think you have the right method. I think I got something from it."
Meditation is just sitting, just relaxing with our mind, with whatever nature it has. Our mind has a nature that we cannot label saying it is this or it is that. But at the same time, its nature is relaxed.

Meditation With Taste and Smell
In terms of shamatha with object, we discussed last night about meditating using forms and sounds as objects of meditation. We will continue with that explanation, starting off with smells, using whatever smells that are occurring as a support for our meditation - pleasant smells and unpleasant smells. Perfume, incense - whatever it is. It is the same as forms and sounds. We can look at whatever forms are in front of us, and when we are using sounds, we listen to whatever sound is resounding at the time. Smells are something that are perceived by our nose, and when we do shamatha with smells, we simply guide our mind to perceive the smells as well - we look at the smells with our mind, but that is all. We do not need to visualize smells, or try to meditate on the smell in any special way. We simply bring our attention to the smell, with our mind being aware of the smell.
It is the same with taste. We can take any taste as our object of our meditation - sweet, sour, bitter, spicy - whatever it is. When we eat food, our tongue faculty perceives the taste. In order to practice meditation, we merely bring our attention to it and have our mind merely notice the taste. That is all.
If you go into a retreat sometime, you should prepare very nice food for your meals. If your dharma friends ask you why you are putting so much effort into your food on retreat, that you should be spending most of your time practicing, you can just tell them, "That is my meditation. I just eat tasty food."
If your friends then ask, "How is it going to help you to just eat food all day long in retreat," you can simply say, "That is my practice" [laughter]. Just joking!

Meditation With Sensations
The fifth meditation is tangible objects or tactile sensations. From among all the five senses, the tactile sensations are the best to use with meditation. Tactile sensations include headaches, backaches, leg pains, knee pains - everything like that. Being hot, cold, hungry, overstuffed, thirsty; having a toothache, being dizzy, feeling heavy - all of these are tactile sensations.
When we have a strong toothache, our mind helplessly becomes focused constantly on it. We do not have any control over it. If we try to eat a tasty meal, our mind doe not pay much attention to that; it is on our toothache. If we try to go out for a walk or try to play some sports, to refresh ourselves, or go out to watch a movie, that doesn't help too much because all we can think about is our toothache.
What is the main helper for this toothache all along? It is our own mind, thinking, "This toothache is terrible, this toothache is hurting me. When will I be free from this toothache?" Here we have hope and fear both: fear of the toothache harming us and hope for the toothache going away. These continuous thoughts in our mind make the toothache stronger and then the pain gets greater and greater. But if we bring this toothache to our shamatha meditation practice, we can place our attention on the pain. Where is this pain happening? The pain is a feeling experienced in our mind. We do not look at the tooth itself; we look at the pain that we are experiencing in our brain.
If we look directly at the pain in this way, we will genuinely experience nondistraction. Usually our mind is naturally distracted by the pain. So if we intentionally direct our attention toward the pain, there already will be a strong support for nondistraction. When we place our attention on the pain one-pointedly in this way, the pain does not go away but it will be a different pain than before. There will be a vivid sense of pain and, at the same time, a vivid sense of well-being and of joy. Thoughts like, "This pain is bad. I need to be free from this pain, I wish this pain would go away" will dissolve. So this is a very good opportunity to both improve our practice of mindfulness, and to help ourselves because we are not increasing our own pain.
We will do this practice together using tactile sensations - sore legs, sore backs or sore bums from sitting on the cushions. If you do not have any particular tactile sensation, you could create one.
Squeeze your hand in between your thumb and your index finger. Chinese doctors say that this helps headaches and stomach aches, so you should squeeze hard enough so that it hurts. The pain that you are creating is a feeling and so it exists in the mind. Look at that feeling one pointedly. Do not be distracted from that feeling, that sensation. We will meditate like this together now.
First, sit in meditation posture, with your mind relaxed, and do shamatha without object for a little while. Then create a tactile sensation and look at it. Sit with your mind relaxed. [All meditate together.]

Meditation With Thoughts
If you understand this meditation-without-object technique, you will attain Buddhahood very quickly. Maybe in two or three days [laughter]. It is a very profound meditation but there is nothing special about it.
Our biggest obstacle in meditation is the movement of thoughts - thoughts of desire, aggression, ignorance, jealousy and so on. There are all kinds of movement in our minds - we usually think of these thoughts as getting in the way of our meditation and harming or destroying our meditation.
But if we understand the key points of meditation, then those very thoughts actually will be support for our meditation and will not harm our meditation at all. It is the same as how forms become support for our meditation.
Thoughts are any type of thought: negative thoughts of mental afflictions - desire, jealousy, anger and things like that; positive thoughts about helping others or thoughts of love; neutral thoughts, like "I want to eat" or "I want to stay here" or "I want to go for a trip around Halifax" or something like that.
Any of these thoughts can become a support for our meditation simply by looking at our thoughts. It is just like looking at forms and listening to sounds. When we meditated on tactile sensations and brought sound into our meditation, they became supports for our nondistraction. They helped us to maintain undistracted mindfulness. In the very same way when we look at our thoughts, they help us to be undistracted in our meditation.
There are two different basic states that our minds could be in: stillness and movement. There is no third category for beginners on the path of meditation; there is no state of mind they could experience that is not stillness or movement. The technique of using thoughts as the support for our meditation relates with the state of mind when it is moving.
So it is important to know that we do not have to look at one thought alone, we simply look at whatever thoughts are arising. For example, thoughts are like this rosary or mala - one thought comes after the other after the other after the other after the other. Our mind usually operates like that, but when we do not look at thoughts, we are not aware of the process. We should look at them now.
Mindfulness is like my right hand, and the thoughts are like the mala. The mala is being pulled, bead-by-bead, by the right hand. In the same way, we look with our mindfulness at all of our thoughts. So our thoughts will not remain occupied with one thought because our minds are like wild monkeys. We will be filled with thoughts. We'll be thinking, "I need to eat something, I need to drink something, I need to go here and do this, and I need to stay here and do that," and that is absolutely fine. We can just observe all of it.
As we look at our thoughts in this way, even a hundred thousand thoughts, that means you have a hundred thousand supports for meditation. That is very good. The thoughts themselves become a support for holding our mind. [Brief meditation.]

Questions

Question: Rinpoche, is it necessary to label your thoughts, or is awareness simply looking at a movement or hearing a sound?

Rinpoche: The most important point about it is recognizing that we are having a thought. But it is fine to use a label as a technique for doing that, because our mind does not work without labels. The entire work of this mind, the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness that we are working with, is to join words and meanings, join words and the things to which they refer and cling to them as being the same thing. So to use the label would be fine, because that is how this mind operates. When we work with shamatha with object, there is a subject and an object, a viewer and viewed, a sense of duality, so the labelling process is fine. The looker/viewer is mindfulness, and the object being looked at is our thoughts. There is a quote from a Buddhist text that says, "Through relying on focus, the state of nonfocus excellently arises," and that is what is being pointed to here.

Q: I noticed yesterday with the practice we did looking at a small object, that the mind would see the object, and then it would sort of fade out, like bad reception on a TV set, and come back in. Today, when doing the sort of physical negative-pain practice, the same quality would happen: even though you wouldn't like the pain, the mind would fade out and come back in the same way. Then when doing the thought-watching practice, the contrast wasn't as sharp. So that when there was sight, versus sort of foggy sight, going back and forth, and pain ...

Translator: Did the thoughts get replaced by sense perceptions?

Q: Yes.

Rinpoche: It is fine if the thoughts get replaced by a sense perception. When we are working with this mental consciousness, our main object is whatever appears to the mental consciousness. Usually in a special sense, what appears to mental consciousness are thoughts, but of course our mental consciousness can also focus on any of the five sense perceptions. If we are not having thoughts, but what is appearing more clearly is a form or a sound, then that is fine - we can focus on that.

Q: Does the practice mean that you just indulge in thoughts with the mindfulness? For me, it was more that you produce more and more thoughts and just stay with the train of the thoughts, and actually the more they come up, the better that is?

Rinpoche: The technique that we are practicing now is not about producing thoughts or creating thoughts, but rather looking at thoughts if they arise, recognizing that thoughts have arisen. This recognition is mindfulness. It is looking at what is happening in the mind, what the mind is thinking. "Oh, it's thinking about my house now. Oh, it's thinking about the city now," and so on.

Q: So, is it that when there are not so many thoughts you are more into the sense perceptions, or what you said before?

Rinpoche [laughs]: We'll discuss a little later what you do when there are no thoughts,

Q: Thank you.

Q: When I was trying to relax my mind during meditation, that's when I would be thinking a lot of thoughts. And when I was trying just to think thoughts, I didn't really have any thoughts [laughter].

Rinpoche [laughs]: Okay. We'll talk about that later too [laughter].

Q: Earlier when you were talking about meditation, the first translation came that it is a way to "control the mind," and then it changed to "hold the mind." The transmission that most of us received from Trungpa Rinpoche was that controlling the mind was the problem, and he very much encouraged us to allow space for things to arise and dissolve. So I just want to clarify what you mean - could you comment on controlling the mind or holding the mind?

Rinpoche: With respect to the choice of words there, "control" has more of a sense of fabrication than "hold" does, a sense of contrivance to it. So that is why "hold" is a little bit better. As to the general meditation technique that Trungpa Rinpoche presented, that was more connected to shamatha without object. The main instruction was to allow thoughts to arise and allow thoughts to depart. Whereas the particular technique that we have been discussing is slightly different: It is to look at the thoughts and use the thoughts that arise as the support for mindfulness. In this context, it is best if thoughts arise; it is slightly preferable if thoughts arise. If more thoughts arise, then that is number one for this particular technique.
We'll practice together again. This time, if you do not have any thoughts, make them. Make many thoughts quickly, clearly. There are three qualities to this technique: quickly, many and clearly. But there's one important point: You have to look at every single one. Don't let one thought go by without being looked at. The looking is important. [All practice.]

Q: Rinpoche, although that seemed a little fabricated, there was a sense of moving the mind quickly, like scanning a television screen. Actually, the eyes move too.

Rinpoche: The fabricated or the contrived part that you referred to is fine, because we are working with shamatha with object, and when you do this meditation technique, there is always going to be some fabrication. As was said before, through relying on a focus, the state of nonfocus excellently arises. We'll talk about your second point, scanning the TV screen, a little bit later.

Q: Rinpoche, as someone who has been trying to get rid of thoughts for thirty years, it was interesting to dredge them up from where they had been hiding. It was almost like shining a spotlight on them one at a time - spotlight, then rest in the next one, spotlight on that one. It was almost like a cartoon cat that sticks his finger in a plug and gets all fuzzy. These thoughts didn't really go anywhere, they sort of got nailed, or paralysed, somehow.

Rinpoche: That's very good.

Q: In the beginning and it the end when we were relaxed, there was this space that if a thought occurred, I would relax and let go, but I would notice it. And then when it was important to look at the thoughts and a thought would arise, when I looked, the thought would not be there. It's hard - the mind is either looking or thinking.

Rinpoche: Okay. That's good. Meditation Without Thoughts When you are looking at thoughts, like this, and in particular for beginners, there are two types of things that can happen.
Most people try to look at thoughts and don't see anything happening. There is a gap that happens, but it only lasts for about three or four seconds. Then another thought arises and we look at it. As soon as we start looking at it, we don't see it anymore. It goes back and forth in this way. A thought arises, we look at it, and we don't see it anymore; a thought arises, we look at it, and then we can't identify it. This is very good. It is just like sitting here. If you are someone who has already received pointing-out instructions on the essence of mind, this type of practice is particularly beneficial. The meditation during which we cannot see any thoughts becomes shamatha without object. The meditation during which we can look at thoughts becomes shamatha with object. Both of these are very good. This is what happens to most people. For other people it is like looking at a TV screen.
The example used to illustrate this is of an elderly person watching two children who are very involved in what they're playing. They might be crashing two trucks together, or they might be building a house, or they might be playing video games, and they're very involved and very excited. But the old person is able to sit back and just laugh, no matter what is happening. Therefore, we can look at the thoughts. When we look at thoughts this way they're rendered powerless. It is like taking a snapshot of our thoughts or zapping our thoughts in this way.
When we are doing this, it does not matter how many thoughts are arising. If we can look at them, all of our thoughts become a support for meditation. When the hand is telling beads of a mala, it is going through the beads one after the other in unbroken succession. We can do so in a way in which we are mindful of each bead as it passes. In the same way, when we are mindful of thoughts, it is impossible for us to be mindful of just one thought and keep our attention on that for any period of time, because the nature of thoughts is they come one after the other, and one thought does not stay around. It's an easy meditation, isn't it?
It is okay if we have thoughts; it is okay if we do not have thoughts; and there is no state of mind we can experience that is beyond these two - having thoughts or not having thoughts - so how much easier can you get?
With our last meditation session, the instruction was to create thoughts. But when we practice in the ordinary sense, there is no particular need to create thoughts. In meditation, one main point is to simply pay attention with mindfulness. We do not need to identify what we are paying attention to. It is the paying attention itself that is most important.
When we continue practicing in this way, we begin with a sense of duality, with a viewer and viewed, or a looker and object looked at. As we become more and more familiar with the practice, the viewer and the viewed will become the same thing. When that happens, we are very close to seeing the essence of our mind.
During the shamatha audience this morning, one student asked if it were possible for shamatha to turn into vipashyana, or insight, without applying any particular effort. In most cases, the answer is no. You would have to apply some other view, such as the view of emptiness. But there is one situation where shamatha could change into vipashana without bringing in any other technique. This is that very instance. Meditation With Negative Thoughts As we said earlier, there are three main types of thoughts we could have: negative, positive or neutral. For beginners on the path there is a special method for working with negative thoughts.
When we have negative emotions, such as strong anger or aggression in our mind, the first thing is to recognize that "anger has arisen in my mind."
At this stage we don't try to stop the anger, we simply recognize it. So don't hit the other person right away. Look at the anger not at your enemy. For beginners, we chiefly look at the perceiving subject, instead of the perceived object. That is the key point, that is the key difference. In this moment of anger, there is a mind thinking, "I want to hit that person." There is a mind that feels uncomfortable and painful and angry, all at the same time. So we look at that - we look at that mind of anger and we place our mindfulness on it as one-pointedly as we can. This helps us to relate with our anger in the same way that placing our attention on a toothache helps us to relate with the toothache. It helps us to stop creating more pain for ourselves, and the unbearable aspect of the anger becomes pacified. There is still going to be a sense of anger or a sense of wrath, but the unbearability and the uncomfortableness of it will be slowly pacified as we use this as our object of meditation. As well, the anger itself will become a support for our nondistraction. We can apply this technique for other negative mental states too, such as depression, fear or any other type of suffering. Meditation With Neutral and Positive Thoughts If we are working with neutral thoughts or positive thoughts, we can look at both subject and object. For example, if you are thinking, "I am going to go to downtown Halifax," you can look at the object aspect of those thoughts. You can look at what buildings appear in your mind, the streets, the lights, people coming and going - all of that. If you looked at all those images as they are arising in your mind, it is the same thing as visualizing a deity in the creation stage. It is the same thing as visualizing yourself as a deity inside a palace and another deity in the sky in front of you. It is also the same thing as taking refuge, and visualizing all the objects of refuge in the sky in front. What is the difference between thinking about going to downtown Halifax and visualizing deities? The main difference is that there is an aspect of pure appearance in the visualization of deities, and there is none of that in just thinking about going to downtown Halifax. But from the perspective of nondistraction and practicing mindfulness, accomplishing shamatha or calm abiding, there is no difference between the two. However, there is a separate benefit from working with pure appearance rather than with just thinking about Halifax.
If you ask yourself, "What is the difference between my usual thinking about going to downtown Halifax, and thinking about it with mindfulness," you're not aware of what you are thinking. You are not aware of how you arrived in your thoughts at downtown Halifax. There will not be any awareness of your thoughts of getting in the car and driving down the road, and then finally arriving in downtown Halifax. But if you have mindfulness, you will be aware and have a recognition of each stage. You will know when you entered the car and how it is that you are travelling. If we keep meditating in that way, finally we will arrive at a state where the object we are looking at and the looker become one, and all of our mental afflictions - desire, aggression, jealousy, and so on - will be self liberated. The power of our disturbing emotions or mental afflictions (kleshas) will be gradually diminished. This has been an explanation of the sixth method of shamatha. The main point of shamatha is to gain freedom over our mind, to tap into the natural energy of our mind and tame the mind's wild monkey. When we do that, we will become like a well-tamed elephant. They don't go about following their every whim or harming people randomly. They walk with a purpose. What do we do with this shamatha mind that is like a well-tamed elephant? We put it to work on the path of liberation. In order to join fully with the path of liberation, we need to join with the practice of vipashyana or special-seeing, insight. Vipashyana is of two types: the vipashyana of emptiness and the vipashyana of the essence of mind. If emptiness and the essence of mind are joined with shamatha we attain the state of Buddhahood. That's all. Are there any questions?

Questions

Question: First, I would like to thank the Shambhala Centre for affording me the opportunity to experience all four of your talks, and to be able to experience your profound wisdom. "Thought thought thought thought" - I have about a million of them, and I'm finding them in questions, so be patient with me. I'll try to be very brief. I've experienced so much wisdom and knowledge from you in these last few days that I'm wondering, as a beginner, what would you like me to leave with if you could tell me one thing? Secondly, [to the translator] and I think you're a wonderful interpreter, I know that with different languages sometimes it is difficult to translate thoughts and phrases, and I'm wondering if Rinpoche is feeling confident that you gave expressed [laughter] everything. I don't blame you if you don't ask him! Like, is he confident that you have expressed properly everything that people wanted to be expressed? And thirdly, he seems like such a calming person, I'm wondering if he ever experiences "monkey-mind."
Rinpoche: So, as to your first question, in relation to the talks on loving-kindness and compassion, the one point to keep in mind is to benefit others with a sense of balance. In relation to the meditation talks, mainly stay with shamatha without object.

Q: Okay.

Rinpoche [in English]: Good translator! I've been many places. Some translators make things worse. Tyler is very direct and very clear. Very good [applause]. Okay. Monkey-mind? Yes, I do have monkey mind.

Q: Thank God! Thank you. Q: I was curious if Rinpoche believes that certain negative emotions might hide themselves? And if so, how does one encourage negative emotions, specifically anger, to come to your conscious mind?

Rinpoche: The main thing is to try to get into the habit of recognizing anger. Once you are able to do this, then slowly you will be able to see it more and more clearly. For example, you might experience anger and then only later be able to recognize that you were feeling anger. You can take whatever moment it is that you remember that and say, "Oh I was feeling anger back then" and just appreciate that moment of recognition. Try to get into that habit slowly in that way. There is anger that arose before that you weren't aware of, and there is the moment of recognition later on. When you have that moment of recognition, you can ask yourself, "How did I feel back then when anger was arising, and how do I feel now that I have recognized it?" You can take that as an example - kind of inform yourself with that and then move forward into this habit of recognition.

Q: If there is no arising is there no anger?

Rinpoche: If anger does not arise that does not mean that there is no anger. Everyone has the root of anger present in them in a dormant form. So there is obvious anger then there is dormant anger. That seems to be what you're asking about. But the dormant anger does not disappear until you attain what is called the first bodhisattva bhumi. Until you first directly realize emptiness, everyone has dormant anger, and you don't need to worry about that.

Q: But it could take a while [laughter].

Rinpoche: A little while.

Q: Firstly, I would like to say thank you. Secondly, last night you answered a question about the amount of time a beginner should meditate or sit, and you said an hour. As the mother of a young family, I think that was rather discouraging for me, that amount of time. Thirdly, I have been practicing my spirituality as a Christian for the better part of my life, and I have come to a part of life where I feel that needs to change, but at the same time I do not feel that I am finished with Christianity. So I feel confused.

Rinpoche: With the example of one or two hours of meditation, that is not necessarily how long you should have to meditate. That recommendation was for those who are very serious about really training in this meditation technique and have time. You could try to do it for that long. But it is not saying that if you could do it for an hour you will get the benefit, and if you don't do it for an hour you do not get the benefit. You could start by doing fifteen minutes of meditation, even one minute of meditation or even five. If you do one minute of meditation then there is the benefit of one minute of meditation. If you do an hour, then there's the benefit of doing an hour. So you could begin by meditating for fifteen minutes - there is a very good benefit to doing that.
With regard to the second question about spiritual traditions, you absolutely do not have to give up your old tradition at all to practice these meditation techniques. It is completely fine to maintain your practice of Christianity and still meditate by using these Buddhist practices. Furthermore, you can bring some of your Christian images into the practice of shamatha with object, as we have been talking about. Instead of using a Buddhist figure as an object of your focus you could, for example, use a cross as the object of meditation and do shamatha with that. Sometimes in Buddhist meditation we visualize Buddhas in the sky in front and do shamatha with those objects. You could visualize Jesus and use that as a support for shamatha. It is a question of personal preference - I prefer Buddhist view and meditation techniques and Buddhist teachings as a spiritual path, but that does not necessarily mean that this is what everyone wants. It is up to each individual.

Q: I feel that it is time to move on spiritually and learn about other things. That is where the confusion lies. I've learned about Christianity, not that I'm any expert, but as well I feel it's time to learn about another spiritual ...

Rinpoche: What to do will depend on your own feelings. Examine them and examine what your desires are in that regard. People may have a lot of questions about their old religious tradition. They might start thinking that some things are untenable or do not make sense to them. Then they might encounter something new and have a sense of coming home. They might think, "This is really making sense to me. I feel like I am coming home with this." If that happens then it is fine to go with that new tradition. You can examine for yourself how you feel.

Q: Rinpoche, I was a bit distracted by a negative thought when you gave the instruction on the technique for working with negative thoughts. So I wonder if you could go over that again, and perhaps expand a little bit on the part about working with the subject rather than the object.

Rinpoche: What's your practice level in the Buddhist curriculum?

Q: Sadhaka.

Rinpoche: You can refer to the teachings on the Three Words that Strike the Vital Point. Listen to the tapes and read the text. The basic point here is that even negative thoughts can become the support for mindfulness. When you look at them they become the support for mindfulness and the support for nondistraction, just like concentrating on a form or listening to a sound. To further clarify this, you can listen to the tape of tonight's talk.

Q: Thank you.

Q: Hi. I am actually in a Buddhism class at Dalhousie University [in Halifax], and I have an exam tomorrow [laughter]. There has been considerable debate in my class over the nature of impermanence. There are certain students in my class who seem to feel that Buddhist doctrine in its own essence contradicts itself because they are saying that everything is impermanent. But then our professor also taught about the state of nirvana, and enlightenment being a permanent thing. That's where they are feeling the confusion and the contradiction: If everything is impermanent, how can the state of enlightenment be permanent? I'm just wondering what you think, and if you yourself believe that the state of nirvana to be permanent.

Rinpoche: This seeming contradiction of enlightenment or nirvana being permanent on the one hand, and all apparent reality being impermanent on the other, actually is not a contradiction. Seeing them as a contradiction is a case of mixing the way things appear with the way things are. In other words, the way things appear is the relative, the way things are is the ultimate truth. Truth, and the way things are.
When we refer to the true nature of reality, that is a synonym for Buddhahood. Buddhahood is the true nature of everything - the true nature of all sentient beings, the true nature of Buddhas - and the true nature of sentient beings is enlightenment. It is nirvana, ultimate reality. It is said to be permanent because it is free from arising - it never came into being and it never will go out of being. Something that is devoid of arising can never be said to be impermanent, because to be impermanent, something has to go through the stages of arising, abiding and ceasing - arising in the beginning, abiding in the middle, and ceasing in the end. The ultimate nature, the true nature of things, never arose so it can not be permanent. But as long as something arose, then it is necessarily impermanent. That refers to all phenomena of relative truth, or apparent reality, the way things appear.
From the perspective of the way things appear, everything arises, abides and ceases. As soon as something comes into being, it is marked by the quality of impermanence. It has to abide and then it has to cease.
But on the other side, ultimate reality, there is no such impermanence because there is no arising. You can't call it permanent either because if there is no impermanence, there cannot be permanence.
Nevertheless, it is sometimes called the permanence that is beyond impermanence and permanence.

Q: If Buddhahood can never arise, how does one become enlightened, or how does one transcend from the relative?

Rinpoche: We go back to the distinction between the way things appear are. Buddhahood, or the state of enlightenment, is actually the way things are, the way we are ultimately. But from the perspective of the way things appear, we appear as confused sentient beings. The way we appear is not really the way we are. So when we attain Buddhahood, when we recognize the way we really are, the way things appear and the way things are become the same thing. and the way things

Q: Thank you.

Conclusion

Rinpoche: We'll conclude at this point.
I have received some requests to say a few words about Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok. Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok was a great lama, a great teacher and a great practitioner. He was mainly a Nyingma practitioner, but he also practiced Kagyü lineage practices. He also was a tertön, a treasure discoverer. In particular, he was a great siddha, a mahasiddha. Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok would fill an entire valley in Tibet with people and give teachings to gatherings of upwards of fifteen thousand people - ten thousand monastic monks and nuns, and five or six thousand lay people. The people would create a little city by building earth houses to stay in along the sides of hills on both sides of the valley, and then gather together under a huge tent to hear Jigme Phuntsok's teachings. He would teach all day long.
From the perspective of the students it was never a very elaborate situation. Basically they studied the dharma and meditated together. They did not have much to eat or fancy clothes to wear or anything like that. Nevertheless, Jigme Khenpo Phuntsok produced a lot of master scholars (khenpos) from these gatherings. He also produced a lot of master practitioners from amongst the monks and nuns. On that very ground there were two monastic colleges (shedras) - one Kagyü and one Nyingma. Sometimes Jigme Phuntsok would give teachings to his students, and at the same time he would take them to a place where he would discover treasure teachings (terma), which he would reveal in front of everyone.
There are two khenpos at Sherab Ling monastery, my primary residence in India, both of whom came from this place in Tibet where they studied with Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok. Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok passed away two or three weeks ago. Everything is impermanent. Right?
I have been very delighted to be able to come to Halifax for a few days to talk about the dharma with you, and am very happy that you have listened with such enthusiasm and interest. In particular, I'm very pleased with the way the vajrayana students listened to the teachings, and have a good feeling that you have understood the material. The shamatha talks and audiences also were very good. So thank you to everyone, especially to all who were involved in the preparation and coordination of the program. Everything was done excellently. When I was going down the stairs, there always was someone there ready to support me. There was someone ready to open the door and help me with my seat. It was just like being a king. I've never been treated that way before. Also thank you to everyone who works at this centre.
I greatly appreciate the stages that have been laid forth by Trungpa Rinpoche - how to practice and study on the path. They are very good stages, and it makes me very happy that you are all practicing them.

Richard John [Director of Halifax Shambhala Centre]: Rinpoche, you know by now how we all feel about you. We have benefited tremendously from your wisdom and clarity. It is extraordinary how you have been able to inspire all of us from beginners to dinosaurs, so we are tremendously grateful and very moved to be able to study with you. I would like to offer a token of our appreciation to you. There is an extra little package for you - a copy of Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior [by Chögyam Trungpa], which is one of our very favourite books. Tyler, Rinpoche wants you to read this book to him.

Rinpoche: Thank you.

RJ: Lama Chhewang, it has been delightful to have you with us here. Tyler, thank you again. Superb translator. You're getting more creative too. Are you really from Truro [a small town near Halifax]? [Laughter and applause].

Rinpoche [in English]: Thank you very much, Translator!

RJ: Many many people have made the obvious request for Rinpoche to come back to Halifax often. I presented this request to him formally before the talk tonight, and I am very pleased, with your permission Rinpoche, to tell everyone that you will be back next year and the year after that.

[Dedications of Merit and singing of the Shambhala Anthem.]

You are Brilliant and the Earth is Hiring - Paul Hawken

Please forgive me for putting this speech on my blog. I could not resist it. It is one the most brilliant essays I have ever heard. Please read and enjoy the conversation of this extraordinary man. You WILL be inspired. I promise you.

"You are brilliant, and the earth is hiring…”

The Unforgettable Commencement Address to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

By Paul Hawken

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.

But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation – but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food – but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown – Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood – and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit.. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe – exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.
--
Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech.

Why we humans make it so hard to be great - A view through the dimension of consciousness

Ever since I have been a young boy, I have been fascinated by the human journey. Between my family and my teachers I was filled with the fables of the great humans of yore from the legends, myths and stories of the East. Prince Rama, the Warrior Mantara, Lord Krishna, Veena the maid warrior, Nesan the Untouchable King, Lord Vishnu, Mihindu the Blessed Monk.. so many extraordinary beings who through their lives, challenged their deepest fears, never knowing the outcome of their challenges. At times these giants, conquered themselves in grand adventures and sometimes failed themselves in cruel agonies.
These women and men inspired in me, the desire to truly travel my own journey. They gave me the thirst, the hunger that has fueled all my life. So off I went and here I am writing blogs, sharing the lives of so many beautiful radiant beings, feeling blessed in every breath I take... What a ride! Yeeeeeehah!
One of the first things I learned from listening to all these wonderful tales is that the greatest facet of those who conquered themselves was and is courage. Courage! The virtue that Winston Churchill said was "first of all virtues, for without it, none else becomes possible"!
As I walk amongst the images, experiences and wisdoms of my life, I am struck by the contrasts that I face every day. This weekend, I spent in the company of some enlightened and passionate beings who have set out to create something greater than themselves. Their programme is called "Awakening the Dream" and it was focused at opening the deepest levels of our consciousness to create a new vision for the world and for humanity. Their vision and passion is awe inspiring. How far they have got to now, will bring shivers to your heart. However to me, what was really prevalent in their "space" was their courage. They were stepping into a place of great unknown. They had no idea how they were going to get to their destinations. They had nothing but the strength of their commitment, their impenetrable will and their courage.
What one is struck by is the way these amazing people have stepped into the "flow" and created an extraordinary network of human beings from across the planet in an endeavour worthy of any life. Wow! Breathtaking!
However, as I walked back to the train and got in and travelled an extra few kilometres so i could share some time with some of the participants, I was present to another world. Here I saw many human beings walking through life lost in the reveries of their miseries. They were so caught up in issues that would to most others seem trivial that they missed the brilliance of the sky and the night. One person sat in the train telling her friend how she felt so angry because another girl was wearing the same earrings. Another was speaking on the phone and seemed upset because the person he was speaking to was not agreeing to come out with him.
And outside was a brilliant night with a bright moon and balmy skies.
In the very same carriage was a little girl with her mother and she was filled with the aura and brilliance of her innocence. She was smiling at everything, even though it was close to 9:30 PM and probably well past her bedtime. She seemed tired but at the same time she was definitely alive to everything that was going on. She and I spent the journey just looking and smiling, sharing an energy of love that was blissful and serene.
When I got home, I reflected a little bit about this. Over the past 10,000+ years, we have had some extraordinary teachings come to us. From the Buddha to Christ to prophet Muhammed to Krishnamurthy to the ancient Masters of Wisdom.. so many wonderful amazing people who taught us about life and self mastery. Then why is it so difficult for us as a species to find that mastery? Why have so many amazing teachings and wisdoms just not been accessible to the vast majority of us? Why are we living so removed from ourselves that we have unconsciously manifested widespread destruction on our world and on ourselves?
As I have discussed before, in studying consciousness, I have observed how the dominion of Fear Consciousness has gradually overwhelming humanity, spreading to envelope far flung communities, even the more enlightened ones. Perhaps this is why find it so hard to master ourselves. Let's explore it.
First let's look at the nature of Fear Consciousness. It sees all around it as potentials for threat. So a person operating in Fear Consciousness, will view everything in the world with an expectation that they will constitute some form of threat to her/his well being. Why do you think we are unable to love unconditionally? Wouldn't it be because at some point we expect that there will be a condition within the other that will "hurt" us?
So what do you think happens to us when we see extraordinary teachings? First we judge them. Then we work out whether or not they will work for us. We look for the things that we do not "like". We then select what we believe to be the ones that "will work for us".
Now take a look at this. Does this process actually make sense? How would someone who has never really experienced any of these teachings before KNOW what works and what doesn't? What foundation of knowledge do we base our judgements on? It is funny isn't it?
So now we have used our unknown and untested wisdom to choose what we must do to enlighten ourselves. In itself this is a wonderful prescription for disaster isn't it?
Then, once we have chosen, we collect all the doubts we have accumulated through a lifetime of judgement from a negative viewpoint, onto the teachings. Now we have a battle on our hands. We are now engaged in a battle with ourselves. Our desire to expand ourselves against the Fears that dominates our lives and our time. Ahhhh.. this is what Prophet Muhammed so aptly called the Jihad, the holiest of wars, the war against one's ego.
What do you think would happen if we just learnt how to "act despite"? If we learnt to let go of judgement and act despite our Fear mechanisms? How amazing would that be? Would you be able to have a loving conversation with your husband/wife without reservation and done solely for the expression of your love? Would you be able to wake up at dawn and greet the day even though your Fear consciousness is filled with excuses to justify staying in bed? Would you be able to say "good morning" to the people in the train while looking into their eyes not giving into the fear of looking bad? Would you see in yourself a desire to live at a level greater than your small world demanded by the ego?
So here is a challenge. You will have some great teachings in your hand. It may be from Buddha, Christ, Prophet Muhammed, the Bhagavad Gita or even from modern day teachers like Sri Bhagavan, Amma, Ramtha or Rhainon. Take them upon yourself. Remove every judgement you have about them and go practice them as if you have nothing to lose. Give it a go for one week. ONE WEEK... At the end of that time, take stock and ask yourself has my life become more exciting, enriched and enlivened? I have no doubt of the answer.
Enlightenment is an option that is open to all human beings. All it needs is for people to make a choice if they are willing to challenge themselves; if they are willing to FREE themselves from the yoke of fear. Enlightenment is a journey that begins with but a single thought, a moment in the timeline of your life. Imagine if all human beings become aware of this little set of distinctions. What kind of world would we humans be able to create? What kind of lives will we live? Aaahhh.. the mind boggles does it not?
I leave you with a quotation from a human being i greatly admire, the irrepressible George Bernard Shaw;
"This is the true joy of life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; The being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it onto future generations."
Wow! What a ride!!!!

Why do we pay an actor $20 Million to pretend to be a fire fighter and pay the real fireperson a pittance to risk her/his life?

Like most people in Australia and around the world, I am saddened by the devastation of the fires in Victoria and New South Wales. Watching this tragedy unfold has been and continues to be a moving experience. I am seeing humanity at its best. Wouldn't you agree? Courage, lacking in most of us in our day to day dealing with our Fear Consciousness, has truly come to the fore.

The stories that are emerging are inspirational even if some of them are saddening. I am in awe. I am truly uplifted. My tears are not just those of sadness. They are of the sense of infinite blessing at being in the presence of such courage and strength.

What awakenings do you see for yourself? Have you taken a few moments to sit quietly and contemplate for a few moments on these devastating stories and what they truly mean? This is an opportunity for us to learn, explore our depths and awaken.

While I was exploring myself, an observation I made several months ago came to light. I had gone with the wonderful volunteers of ALIV (http://www.aliv.org.au) and their charges, the kids who had been held in immigration detention, to visit Police and Fire stations. While in the fire station, I noticed the posters on the wall from their union, demanding a pay rise. Of course, being curious, I asked a few questions and was blown away with what I found. A day or so later, I watched an item in the news about the salaries of Hollywood stars. Wow!

Here I am reflecting on it again.

Think about it for a moment. We pay the people who entertain us, a thousand times more than those who put their lives at risk in order to save ours. It got me thinking.
Try and imagine what the world economy would be like if we were to transform the values that we attribute in monetary terms...

That would require us to value the professions who contribute to enhancing our lives higher than those that help us escape our lives.... Hmmmm..

Would, for example, farmers, factory workers, nurses, teachers, police, firepersons etc be the highest paid people in a market economy? Interesting isn't it?

Ask yourself what the difference is? Would the world be sustainable in a model that values the expansion of human lives rather than the escape from it? Intriguing propositions isn't it?

I digress. I want to talk more about the state of the world and the illusions that we keep alive.

In our subconscious space, Fear Consciousness dominates. It creates a fear of the world, of the universe, of people and of life. We believe we are surrounded by that which threatens the existence of our identities and threatens to expose that which we are hiding.

Remember that when we create the "I" in our infanthood, we see ourselves as separate from all. This separation then manifests an identity, created when we are about 3-6 years old, as a response to something going "wrong". This definition of ourselves then creates two strata. One which collects a whole range of beliefs that validate the identity. The other that builds a protective layer that intends to hide the "real" identity from being found out. The first becomes the foundation of what we believe to be the Truth about ourselves. The second becomes the layer that prevents us from connecting with others because we don't want them to know the "truth" about ourselves.

When we live in this space, we are stressed every moment of our lives. It doesn't matter what status in life we have achieved, our consciousness is still that of Fear. So long as we live in that consciousness we live in the stress of constant threat. In fact we have become so used to it, we don't know any other way. Remember a time when you were in love? Today that just seems like a fantasy that does not really exist. What a terrible illusion!!!!

So no wonder, we seek escape. No wonder we slowly convert everything in our lives into our escape. Music, dance, theatre, cinema are all part of what has become the traditional forms of escape for the majority. To them we have added things like relationships, children, work, rest days, hobbies, almost everything we can think of. In fact when you examine why people all over are so greedy for wealth, you will observe that most do it to actually find an escape from their world. They create an illusion that they are no longer a part of the life that prevails for most of the world.

Take a look at your life and ask yourself an honest question; What do each phenomena in your life represent? Is it an escape or a part of the greater purpose of your life?

It is our collective subjugation to Fear Consciousness that has created this topsy turvey world. We are dominated by our need to escape from the life that we fear. We value the things that give us the least. From the material desires for possessions, the obsession with status and prestige to the drive for fame, the insane need for power, humanity is embroiled in a struggle with itself.

In this madness, we have lost our abilities to respect, to trust, to accept, to love, to grow, to master, to BE!!!

Here is my challenge to all of us. Take ourselves on. Face what we fear. Let go of our fear driven obsessions. Turn our minds to seeking the reality within us. Open our hearts to each other in open generosity. Be willing to be vulnerable. As we each master Fear, so will humanity move a step closer to its true nature.

Imagine what a world we could create! Imagine....

Moment to moment; Mastering awareness

Here is an observation of humanity...

"Much of our time is spent in a mindless rush as we flit from task to task, image to image, thought to thought. We walk through life so lost in the manic frenzy of our own making, that we are completely unaware of what we are creating or what the impact of our creations are."

How do you relate to this? How does your day to day activity run?

Cairo, in his comment, shares a great insight; " However, I also see that the results of all my actions tend to mirror the source from which they arose." This is the illustration of cause and effect. When we act, we see an effect is manifested. What Cairo has observed is that the effect is dependent not on the cause but upon the source of the cause. Isn't that interesting? Would that mean that when the same action is sourced from a different consciousness, that the effect would be different? No, because no action is the same when sourced from a different consciousness.
There are some significant issues here that have to do with the reality of cause and effect and how they relate to the different consciousness we operate out of. However, I will not discuss that in this post. I will instead concentrate on the perceptions of cause and effect as is seen in our day to day lives.

On the surface, the source of the cause is what determines its effect. When we operate out of fear consciousness, we create the effects that are in line with fear. When we operate out of Love Consciousness, we create effects that are in line with love.

Let's take an example of a teacher who admonishes the student;
When done from Fear Consciousness, the admonishment creates effects such as belittling, humiliation, degradation etc. Just bear in mind that the effect is actually happening within the teacher. The student has a real choice on deciding whether or not to receive this admonishment and if doing so, in what Consciousness to receive it. If the student chose to receive the admonishment in Love Consciousness, none of those effects would have manifested within her/him. Instead, the effects that are created are learning, knowledge, awareness, expansion etc.

So the key lesson here is that the cause and effect of all actions happen within each individual dependent on the consciousness she/he is operating in.

Congruence of cause and effect happen when the perpetrator of an action and the receiver are both operating from the same Consciousness.

There is a caveat here though. When one creates causes and effects from Fear Consciousness but is met by Love Consciousness, at some point Love will prevail, because the illusion of fear shall breakdown in the face of the unyielding truth. That is the experience. Observe around you. See what prevails in the end.

So we come to questions; How do we develop our awareness of what consciousness we operate from? Can we consciously choose where we operate from?

How to develop your awareness;
Start by diligently reflecting upon your day every night. Reflect upon which consciousness you operated in during each significant event in the day. Bring to mind your emotions and feelings that you experienced in the moment at each event. Create a stand for the behaviours, emotions and experiences you want to create the next day.

This exercise must become a daily practice as you build your awareness, you will notice that very soon you will able to catch yourself in the moment. Your awareness of yourself will increase every day. In time you will become aware not only of yourself but of others around you, not just from your protective perspective, but from theirs too.

Choosing your Consciousness;
Most days adult human beings wake up beset by anxieties and worries. Even when one is seemingly in a "happy" state, one is always conscious of a sense of unease. This is more wide spread and prevalent in our species than ever before in our recorded history. It is here that the fruits of Fear Consciousness are firmly embedded.

How does one overcome this? The best tool for accessing Love Consciousness is gratitude. Compile a list of all the things, people, events, emotions and possibilities that you are grateful for. Read them every morning as you wake up. Read them with passion and with feeling. Let yourself be immersed in the sensations awakened by the expression of gratitude. Observe and reflect on the event at night. You will notice that subtly, your life will change. You will notice that your days are changing. When you practice your reflections, you will start to distinguish your consciousness, not just in thought, but in emotion and feeling. Over time, you will start waking up like a child does, with the joy of adventurous possibilities ahead.

The two practices of reflection (at night) and gratitude (in the morning) are your best sources of developing your capacity to be aware of and choose the Consciousness from which you operate.

There are a myriad of other practices that you can do. I do recommend Ekhardt Tolle's marvelous book, "Practicing the Power of Now", for further practices. Meditation, Yogic practices and Contemplative practices are others that I recommend.

Thank you Cairo, for your stand for humanity, your dedication to the possibilities inherent in your stand and your courage at facing yourself. Your journey is an inspiration to all who have the courage to observe it.

Humanity takes another great leap

Tuesday the 20th is a probably one of the most significant dates of the 21st Century. On this day a dream articulated so beautifully by Martin Luther King Jr and echoed by billions all over the world, comes to life in the form of the inaguration of Barack Obama as the President of the United States. It is fitting that it also signals a new hope, the promise of a new direction for the US and consequently the world. No it is not because the US is the centre of the world, but rather because it is the cause of much of the effects prevalent around us. The promise coming to life is the shift in consciousness; the shift from Fear Consciousness to Love Consciousness.

Over the last several millenia, human beings have gradually shifted into the dominion of Fear Consciousness. By the end of World War II, the world was encased. Human beings were living completely within its dominion. Our thoughts were predominantly focused on our individual needs to survive and protect/defend what is "mine". At the depest level this fear created the world prevalent today.

What does this world look like? Look around you. Know why there are more countries, communities and societies in conflict today than has ever been seen before in our recorded history. Know why the wealth of the world is controlled by less than 0.00007% of our population. Know why millions are dying as a result of diseases for which they cannot BUY drugs. Know why the rate of suicide and depression among young people in developed countries is the growing at the fastest rate in history. Know why a global economic collapse is created by the activities within just one country. Know why you and I face every morning with a sense of anxiety and concern at the very least...

However, are you conscious of an uprising? Anarchy in our consciousness is happening in a huge scale. Perhaps for the first time in mankind's recorded history, human beings are beginning to be aware of their collective consciousness. Hundred's of thousands of human beings are reaching out consciously, seeking a new vista of possibilities for humanity. Many like myself, are learning the power of living in Love Consciousness; learning the amazing resonance, joy, connection, wisdom and inspiration of having true choices to face life with. Yes, humanity has begun a new march that will alter the very foundations of our societies, our countries and our ways of life. The genesis of a new vista of possibilities is nigh. Dawn on the 20th signals another significant step toward an unimaginable future...

http://www.awakenwisdom.com/