Morning meditation

Changing Habits

Like a turtle we carry this shell around which announces our arrival. The shell is made up of habitual behaviors. We are hardly aware of it because it has become associated with who we think we are. It has become fused to our identity.

Like a force field, it affects the immediate surroundings and to a certain extent determines the quality of our experience in those surroundings. I know this to be true because I have experienced how something as simple as smiling can dramatically affect my interactions and general experience of life. Things just seem to go smoother and often it feels as though the universe is arranging itself around a positive axis for me.

Once I experimented with this in the Atlanta Airport, a very busy place. While listening to the 7 universal tones on headphones I just sort of wandered around aimlessly. It seemed as though people could almost feel the positive vibration through me, and they were quite friendly and accommodating in response to this energy I was putting out.

If we want a new shell, one that will allow the universe to arrange itself in positive ways for us, then we need to change some of those negative habits; replace them with positive habits.

Here are a few habits worth changing:
1. Always having the last word
2. The need to be right
3. Reluctance to show joy or smile
4. Seeing seriousness as more worthy than playfulness
5. Reluctance to be silly and playful
6. Paying too much attention to the outcome and not the process or intention
7. Being bi polar instead of omni polar (seeing the points in-between)
8. Judging
9. Being critical instead of inquisitive
10. Expecting people to understand you

My 2 Moms

Watch and reflect on the question: What defines a family?




To read the article follow the link


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/06/a-tale-of-two-moms-a-teenage-son-and-a-video-that-wouldn-t-die.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

Morning Meditation

Many of my friends are turning 60! In fact we just celebrated Jane's 60th and I will turn 60 in a few months as well. Visiting family have already passed that milestone. We are all getting older. Often in my men's group (where everyone except me is 60+) our discussions turn around the fact that life as we know it is speeding up toward the end of the road.

So that tends to focus the mind on the question "How do I want to spend my remaining moments? What is important now?"

It seems to me that I have spent my life polishing the mirror of ego, making it conform to some idea of what is admirable from an external perspective. And from an internal perspective, much of what is deemed admirable has been shaped by society. For example, much effort and thought have gone into comparing myself to the physical ideal put forth by the culture, which is a struggle since rising to the level put forth by the culture is not achievable by most. I am often left feeling inadequate or defective somehow. One never gets to arrive at that destination! That target is always moving and never quite achievable.

So now I am surrounded by this somewhat crumbling matrix of scaffold holding up the ego. And it seems to me an increasing folly to think in terms of keeping up the effort of maintaining this scaffold. The more sensible approach is to begin dismantling it bit by bit until it no longer exists; until the true immutable nature of pure mind, pure soul is revealed.

I vow to look carefully at how ego obscures the true nature of pure mind and prevents me from living in the moment, which diminishes true happiness by externalizing the idea of perfection.

We Are The Many

A voice for the 99%

Stage Directions: A meditation on beauty (WS)

Background:

Soft pink clouds floating by. The sunlight should diffuse through the cloud and accumulate in exquisite brilliance around the edges. All this against an almost indescribable blue. This seen through the lattice of gently swaying tulip poplar branches; upon which sseveral tenacious leaves still quiver. 

Action:

To and fro the small warm body of a squirrel gathers twigs for its winter nest. Each twig carefully examined for suitability, then delicately excised and carried into the crook of the tree below. Up and down tirelessly, collecting each twig with single mindedness, agility, and most of all, natural grace.  

Audience participation

It is intended that the audience become aware of the beauty that is innate in the mundane.

WZEN radio: Food For Thought

Click on the link for Zen Mountain Radio. The radio loop is 12 hours. There is an hourly program on various topics.

http://wzen.org/

Also check out Bioneers at

http://www.bioneers.org/

You can listen to the entire audio selection for 2011 by clicking on the "radio" button at the top.

Pushing into the light

Morning meditation

The imagination is always pushing against the confines of language just as the interior world of ideas constantly seeks to transcend the cultural limits of society. There is a never ending struggle on the frontier between light and dark, knowledge and ignorance, creativity and destruction. The uncovering of the soul is accomplished through this dynamic interplay of opposites, and it is always progressive toward God, however incremental it might seem.  (WPS)