Insights for February 2016

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Awakening:“Waiting is a necessary ingredient to the recipe of success. While you wait know that the waiting will end and the needed nourishment will come. Impatience shows weakness and a lack of belief. Fate is at hand. Have now the inner strength to roll with fate and bide your time. This action allows all elements to align in perfect order.Waiting with grace and dignity is not something that has been part of our learning process. One of the most difficult aspects of the human condition is waiting. When we conceive a project or enter a relationship we get a glimpse of our desired outcome. Much time is spent making plans and doing the footwork to bring about success. Then, for no obvious reason, the movement toward our goal is stopped or put on hold. This brings frustration and angst. It is precisely at that moment that you will benefit from understanding and thus make a relationship with the concept of waiting. In business be confident of success and be open to change. If you are in a worrisome relationship, be patient it will improve by growing or changing. If you are not in a relationship know that it will come in its own time as you, in your crouching post of ouch cat like waiting, follow your heart to letting go so change will seem like a holiday.The elements to embrace while waiting Dignity Integrity Compassion and Kindness Xu advises us to eat, drink, and be merry during the time of waiting.  Waiting is not time wasted. Make it  a ceremonial time, a time to look inward. Quiet the inner analytical voice of doubt and laugh at negative thoughts and change inner voices of doubt and fear to words of love and correctness. This makes way for the change, the nourishment, to arrive.” www.theichingweekly.com

“Half of the practice of spiritual inquiry is to take you to silence instantly. When you inquire, ‘Who am I?’ if you are honest, you’ll notice that it takes you right back to silence instantly. The brain doesn’t have the answer, so all of a sudden there is silence. The question is meant to take you to that state of silence that is not manufactured, where thinking or searching for the right emotional experience fails.” ~ Adyashanti"

When fascination with the me dissolves, when it simply no longer holds center stage in your awareness, then all that remains in the absence of the me is revealed." ~ Adyashanti

"The benefit now comes by achieving stillness and setting all distractions aside and focus on opening to the distillation of your truth." Bobby Klein,www.theichingweekly.com

"The true sense of equanimity is not that the emotions go way, but that when we meet any emotion, we find that we have the capability to be with it - without being afraid of running away, or without letting it force us to do foolish things." Guy Armstrong, "21st Century Buddhists in Conversation", page 76.

"The karmic results of thought arising and of punching somebody in the nose are different. The resulting stress and the resulting disturbance [karma] are much greater if you act it out [act out your thoughts of anger]. It's very important for us to notice there's no way we can act without experiencing a result [karma]. When we become very clear about that, it helps temper our actions." Zenkei Blanche Hartman, "21st Century Buddhists in Conversation", page 76.

"First rule: listen to your inner voice. Second rule: be honest with yourself. The predicament is that you listen to your inner voice, and it leads you to a path, and then you outgrow it. And you don’t want to admit that you’ve outgrown it, because you’ve made a big investment in it. But you must be willing to let go, to stand as naked as a newborn child, again and again and again." Ram Daas

"When you question, 'Why the hell is this happening to me?’ sit with it as long as it takes, as if the process is compost. Turn it over and over and add some water. Sit with it and eventually the chaos transforms to rich soil and sprouts of new growth start to form - and there is your answer." Margaret Gervais

Meditation:

“In meditation, you are not trying to make anything happen. You are creating a ground of availability for meditation to occur. Check right now if there is any old programming or idea that reinforces that meditation is a kind of doing or striving. Let them go.” Adyashanti

“The art of meditation is when you do get lost in thoughts or feelings and you bring yourself back to your breath. You come back without judgment or commentary. You simply return. The more simple the better.” Adyashanti

Happiness: altruism, inner strength, inner freedom and resilience. All accrued through meditation practice. "I think happiness is basically just a cluster of the fundamental human qualities. Altruism is one of the key ones, and also inner strength, inner freedom, resilience. This kind of happiness is a way of being, and the more you experience it, the more it deepens. You can cultivate it."

We have the potential to cultivate focused attention, emotional balance, altruism and compassion. The great discovery of neuroplasticity is that through exposure to novel experiences and training, you can change. That's what practicing meditation does." Matthieu Ricard, " Put Your Compassion Into Action," Lions Roar, March 2016, pg. 60.

"Sitting in quiet and stillness and just being in a state of openness gives you a clear opportunity to watch what happens internally when you stop judging your experiences, when you stop judging your mind for being busy, or you stop judging yourself for having a particular feeling. You don't try to get rid of the feeling. You don't try to get rid of the mind. You just let go of your judgment. You let go of trying to control the moment. For a while, you surrender into what is." Adyashanti

Healing:"

Imagine for a moment, the cells in your body are able to react and respond to your emotional choices; they do so by communicating with each other; love invites communication and awareness, fear/anger repels dialogue creating confusion and distortion, often causing damage and or separation on a cellular level. I invite you to focus upon what brings you joy in your life, let your whole body drink in that peace. Do so for 10 minutes every evening before bed for seven days. Your cellular body will thank you by producing the outcome of wellbeing and empowerment from within. The sky's the limit when you invite love back in.not to mention your own body's ability to repair itself!" Cynthia Slon https://cynthiaslonblog.wordpress.com/2016/02/04/love-invitesfear-repels/

Relationships:“Your days pass like rainbows, like a flash of lightning, like a star at dawn. Your life is short. How can you quarrel?” ~Buddha