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mzzdantuma1-blog · 5 years ago

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~ The Heart of Awareness ~ If you wish to be free, shun the cravings of the senses. Seek the nectar of truth, of love and forgiveness, simplicity and happiness. If you wish to be free, know you are the Self, the witness of all, the Heart of Awareness. You will at once be happy, forever still, forever free. Joy and sorrow, these are of the mind only. They are not yours. It is not really you who acts or enjoys. You are everywhere, forever free. The single witness of all things. But if you see yourself as separate, then you are bound. “I do this. I do that.” The big black snake of selfishness has bitten you! Know you are one, pure awareness. With the fire of this conviction, burn down the forest of ignorance. Free yourself from sorrow. Be happy! For you are joy, unbounded joy. You are awareness itself. The Self looks like the world, but this is just an illusion. The Self is everywhere. One. Still. Free. Perfect. Awareness without action, clinging or desire. Meditate on the Self. One without two. Give up the illusion of the separate self. Give up the feeling, within or without, that you are this or that. Because you think you are the body, for a long time you have been bound. Know you are Pure Awareness, your Nature is Pure Awareness. You are flowing in all things, and all things are flowing in you. ~ The Ashtavakra Gita ~ Thomas Byron translation

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mzzdantuma1-blog · 5 years ago

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Love Can't Hurt

One sign of our confusion is that we believe in the notion that love hurts. Love, however, is not what hurts. Love feels great. Love lifts us up and connects us to the joy of living. Love heals.

Life hurts. Many of the things we do in the name of love cause us pain. It is not the love that causes us pain, it is our disconnection from the love that hurts. When we think we are hurting from love, we hurt from other things. If we can put all of those other things aside and focus on feeling love, we can make sense of the hurt.

When it feels like you are hurting from love, focus your mind and look into the pain. Instead of imagining that love is hurting, look into the usual suspects, fear, loneliness, sadness, anger, loss or uncertainty. These are the feelings that hurt. Love is what makes all of these feelings bearable.

We like to put love into a little box, like it is a special connection between two people. I love you. You love me. We love each other. Everything is perfect. In that view, love is like an electrical circuit. When it is complete, the light goes on. With that view of love, there will be lots of things that can interfere with the circuit, causing shocks and pain and leaving people in the dark.

Love is your life force. It is the air you breathe. It is the sun in the sky. It is the light from within you. If you are hurting because somebody that you love is not returning your text, you are hurting from insecurity, impatience, or wanting love to be something much smaller that it is. If you are hurting because you have lost love, again you are hurting from the sense of loss, not the love. The love is still there. It’s in you.

When you want to sort out the hurt from the love, breathe into the pain and see the thoughts that come with the pain. When you have explored the pain long enough, breathe it all out and imagine love. Think of times you have been filled with love. Think of love without self, like the love of a pet. When you have evoked a feeling of love, it will comfort your pain.

True love is not happily ever after. True love encompasses everything. You don’t need a perfect somebody else to practice feeling love. Practice feeling love. It can’t hurt.

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mzzdantuma1-blog · 5 years ago

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Getting Angry

No matter how zen you may be, you will also get angry. Anger is a difficult emotion. It does not always feel as awful as sadness, but it can be just as destructive. Anger has a dangerous aspect of demanding immediate action. You can sit with other emotions and wait for them to pass. With anger, you feel compelled to do something about it. It is important to recognize when you are angry, so that your angry actions do not cause unnecessary suffering for yourself or those around you.

Anger necessarily causes suffering in you. It is generally a combination of hurt and sadness that brings about anger. That is two kinds of suffering rolled into one. Acting in anger is how we try to relieve our suffering. Often, in attempting to alleviate our suffering, we inflict it on others. When you are angry, you may feel that the others deserve to experience the suffering you choose to inflict. That is not true. Nobody should suffer. When you are angry, it may be difficult to remember that and especially difficult to imagine that it could be true. That is why it is important to reserve a special form of mindfulness for when you are angry. You can use that mindfulness to help reduce your own suffering and prevent passing it on to others.

Getting angry produces a lot of energy and sometimes that energy can feel good. When you are mindful, you are aware of the good and bad feelings of anger. It is important to notice both so that you don’t fall into the trap of getting angry as a means of accessing that good feeling. More suffering than good comes out of anger and the person that suffers most consistently is the angry person.

Like any suffering, anger is a good teacher. It comes and goes. It can carry you away and it can burn down your kingdom. If you pay close attention to your anger, you can prevent the fires from burning. With enough focused attention you can find peace from your anger. When you learn to master anger, then you can start working on desire. Desire can drive you mad.

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mzzdantuma1-blog · 5 years ago

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Curious Compassion

To get past suffering, you need compassion. You need others to be compassionate towards you. You need to be compassionate with yourself, and you need to be compassionate towards others. Compassion gives you a handle on suffering.

An important thing to know as you learn to practice compassion is that everybody suffers. Most people suffer a lot. People generally know that they suffer themselves, but some people don’t even know that. When recognizing suffering in yourself is difficult, recognizing it in others is even harder. To practice compassion and remedy suffering all around it is good to know that suffering is everywhere.

Pervasive suffering is why meditation is so hard. As soon as we sit still and stop doing all of those things that keep our suffering at arms length, the suffering is there to experience and can be intense. Sitting still and noticing the nuances of your own suffering can open your eyes to the world of suffering in you and around you. Seeing how common suffering is helps awaken compassion.

Although regular meditation is a great way to build compassion, for many it is too hard to even do. Whether you meditate or not, you can build your compassion skills by recognizing suffering and doing what you can to help it move on. Noticing suffering and meeting it with curiosity is a good first step.

Becoming curious gives you an approach. Whether you notice the suffering in yourself or somebody else, you can always ask, where does the suffering come from and what can I do about it? Those two questions arouse curiosity and are the foundation of a compassionate approach to suffering.

Practicing a new approach to suffering changes how you suffer and how you meet suffering in the world. Looking into root causes and possible cures, leads to insights and more effective compassion. Effective compassion makes life better all around.

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mzzdantuma1-blog · 5 years ago

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Finding Peace

In order to find peace in your life, you must focus on creating peace in your life. The creation of peace has to be as important as any of your other life goals. Finding love will not create peace in your life unless you look for a love that supports your quest for peace. Acquiring wealth will not create peace if you do not use peaceful means of obtaining wealth and using your wealth. If you want peace in your life, peace has to be a part of everything you do.

It is difficult to fight through your day and expect to be peaceful at night. It is hard to bully your way through the week and hope to find peace on the weekend. The times when peace is most needed is when it is difficult to find. When you are feeling scared, sad, nervous, stressed or angry, those are good times to work on creating peace. When you find yourself in conflict with others, it is a good time to create peace. When you are faced with a daunting task, it is a good time to bring peace into your efforts.

Creating peace in your life is a constant process and a skill. The more you practice, the better you get. Even if you never find wealth or love, if you find peace, you have peace. Of course, if you have peace, you also have wealth and love. Peace.

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mzzdantuma1-blog · 5 years ago

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I will be renewed. I will be remade. In this, I need God’s help. His spirit shall flow through me and, in flowing through me, it shall sweep away all the bitter past. I will take heart. The way will open for me. Each day will unfold something good, as long as I am trying to live the way I believe God wants me to live.

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mzzdantuma1-blog · 5 years ago

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In the new year, I will live one day at a time. I will make each day one of preparation for better things ahead. I will not dwell on the past or the future, only on the present. I will bury every fear of the future, all thoughts of unkindness and bitterness, all my dislikes, my resentments, my sense of failure, my disappointments in others and in myself, my gloom and my despondency. I will leave all these things buried and go forward, in this new year, into a new life.

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mzzdantuma1-blog · 5 years ago

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Let me carry only the weight of 24 hours at one time, without the extra bulk of yesterday’s regrets or tomorrow’s anxieties. Let me breathe the blessings of each new day for itself, by itself, and keep my human burdens contained in daily perspective. May I learn the balance of soul that comes through keeping close to God.

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mzzdantuma1-blog · 6 years ago

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