Cheers

I sometimes look around in a room and say to myself – “what’s this??” – I find it all so strange and weird and pointless. There can be so much beauty in some things, and especially inside oneself – the energy inside that makes you feel alive and vibrant and one with the Universe, but then, there are computers that crash, plastic bags looking all ugly – you move around the house and you hit something – and it all seems so inadequate given our true nature within. It is hard to fathom why should one participate in this theater.

Today’s conventional wisdom tell us there is a big-bang event called enlightenment and we should strive for it, and we have a false identity and so on. It’s funny that the same people who tell us to drop assumptions and beliefs, encourage us to build all sorts of nonsense around enlightenment. Maybe it’s true, but it’s not true until it is true for you.

I like the words awakening or flow because they indicate a continuum, and something available to everyday people and not just the spiritually-obsessed. Why should we live in flow? We can continue to live in the world of fear and sadness, or we can live in flow. The fear and effort go away. It makes no other promises.

Well written article with truthful information.

It was once said, “It is easy to be mindful, but it is hard to REMEMBER to be mindful.” Ideas for remembering to be mindful:

1) Tie a string around your index finger. This really works! People will ask you what you are trying to remember. Since you are trying to remember to be present, it often starts great conversations about being present.

2) Wear a Mala (a bead necklace used in Buddhism with 108 beads plus a guru bead) on the outside of your clothes. Take it off only to shower and sleep. It gets in the way, which reminds. You see it in the mirror, others ask about it.

3) Sticky notes. “Be…Here…now…and Breathe.”

4) Sit still in silence. Allow the mind to have time to get bored and grow quiet.

5) Associate with others who are also wishing to live in a present way.

As with any skill, it takes time and concentrated effort to develop. Set aside time each day to practice being present. After a while, in a future Now, the practice will become the habit…and the habit of remaining present is a valuable habit to have!

In love and peace.

” It’s about coming to terms with your practical mind, and creating a relationship between your head and your heart. It’s about taking ownership of your mind, and realizing that that is the most powerful and precious gift that you have. “

I want to make a comment too. Enlightenment, what it is in itself cannot be explained properly.

Explanation is a partial aspect. And it holds purpose.

Isn’t the unhappiness in it’s most profound state institutionalized in the identification with partialism as supposed holder of ground and center. Isn’t this the illusion called I, the great divider? Without this, everything is a constant flow of expression, there is no reflection and therefor no partialism. But without the division what’s the purpose of continuation, that’s the question of this piece of work right? Life without a purpose, a life in which nothing matters, for purpose defines what matters -and what matters not. Imagine a world in which everybody truely lived the purposeless life. Wouldn’t that be a heavenly world, because suffering has it’s place in purpose. Try imagining this world, where everybody doesn’t live by the sake of purpose but only lives life for the sake of living. Can you see this world? But, actually, it’s there right? People Are living this life.. It’s already there!

It’s there. If you can see it, then you’re there, living the life of living.

I’ve found that the best way to combat slipping into the black-hole of monotony is by realizing each moment is brand new. Past and present are illusions. Even if you feel like you’ve been doing the same thing, you really haven’t. This moment is all there is and each time you do something, it’s for the first time….Rather this is the only time you’ve done whatever you’re doing now, and it always will be.

If you notice – it’s very hard to define a present moment, because once you think you’ve done so – it’s the past already. You can experience life in the present moment and that feels like the present… but what constitutes the present? Is it a tiny fraction of a second that quickly ticks by? I keep trying to find the present -and there doesn’t even seem to be one. All this talk of the present moment might be missing something.

I know when I’m in the flow state or just experiencing life without thoughts – and I feel like what I’ve always labeled as the present moment – it feels good. It feels like I’m alive. It feels like I’m not separate from anything going on in the world. It’s as present as it gets.

But, is it really living in the present moment?

hmm.

Good food for thought your statements today – thanks for that! I’ll read more of your blog…

And I have a monkey wrench thought to throw in here about routine/monotony…

Resistance to monotony and routine is actually a reaction of the ego to being usurped. You could even go so far as to call it addition to novelty (which will really mess with ye old Beautification of the Mind).

Far as I can tell, routine and monotony is as much a place of beauty, peace and breakthrough as the rest are, and an unusual expression of creativity. I don’t always like it – and chafe against it just like everybody else – but as a form of self-governance and ’surrender’ nothing else beats it.

You’ve written some great stuff on simplicity, and I see routine as a kind of simplicity – a parring down of action as a form of devotion to what matters mos. The dust that’s kicked up in reaction to ‘monotony’ seems to be the way the ego tries to regain control by using what seems like a very justifiable argument to distract and disarm.

Never fails to amaze me how the novelty of the new is really one more bright shiny toy that takes my eyes off my focus PDQ!