Unwrap the Gift

One needs to have appreciation to use the gifts you have. Whether you appreciate your microwave or not, it will still work the same. Alas! Not the same with ‘gifts’.

We need to acknowledge, be aware of our strengths, to bring them out, esp. when you meditate ... notice and look back, love and appreciate. Appreciate is to actually know the finer aspects, like a skilled jeweler who knows his art.

So, as you come to discover the finer aspects of your strengths, or gifts, you begin work optimally, with yourself, with all your being.

Peace

Old Tibetan Saying:
To know thoroughly one's own virtues or powers is characteristic of an excellent man [Tiy 61].

To die

How will be my last goodbye
will I rise, will I lie


Will I love, when I die
will I change when I die

Will it be unspeakable
will it be respectable

Will it just be
when I let go of me

Jewellery shopping

Sometimes as you live in the world, but not of it -U get to do a lot of things.

Sighhh

Went jewellery shopping - plain painful.

What are you breathing?

Lately have been eating a lot - with all its implied consequences.

There was a time when until two weeks back I could not eat two wraps in a go, now I can easily eat stuff.

However, I turned to think (since fluctuations in eating was not new to me), why is this happening?

There are times when little food energises - why?

Turns out the secret lies with the breath. What am I breathing?

Charging the Penniless

One who has Dhamma is abundantly rich. There is no price for love, one gives from profusion.

It is gratitude of others that enlivens spread of dhamma-wholesome way of being, that helps spread dhamma.


One can not charge money, from one who is poor, one who is penniless-dhamma to be given free.

Per the vinayana, monks abstain from money -I havent read the rules but I say this from heresay and come to believe this since I now recognize how enriching/fulfilling is dhamma, true simple dhamma.

No one can charge you for showing you dhamma, one can not charge you for dhamma, because the giver gives out of profusion, dhamma is so expansive cant be any charge :)

This is not idealist to think that the givers/vehicles of spreading dhamma need not charge any monetary stuff. The care givers will be taken care of, such is the rule. This is not idealism, this is perfection!

Is it ... is it New

In our search for 'new', we are basically seeking old impulses.
'Old' sensation s that want to be alive again.

Old tracks, patterns, REFRESH

Full Lotus

Honey Tea

Practice brings rich rewards. Of the more mundane but important things - Woke up early , yoga (twenty mins) and breakfast, and as dawn breaks am sitting outside with tulsi(basil) and honey tea, rain drops adding in as I sit outside with tea in my hand - its cold and expansive.

Enjoying the morning, loving, before work - got a regular long day at work.

Do emotions touch you?

Touch is only symbolic here. You will know you are detached when emotions do not 'touch' you

Quicksand

What is it to truly be unbiased and completely loving towards oneself and others – in practical terms?

Sigh! Overtime, many times I tried to completely forgive, the key was in observing the bodily sensations without bias.

I notice that when one is observing the nature of sensation, cognition too undergoes change. It is no longer possible to observe these sensations as ‘pain’ or ‘pleasure’ – these no longer hold as 'constructs'.

Closer to the nature of reality the mind automatically observes sensations as heat, pressure/lightness, and fluidity etc. – four elements.


Do not resist 'pain' or memory of 'pain'
One useful tip that helped me here be unbiased (was strong morality and simplistic view of things)was to not resist . Let it come up and clear off, as you watch it umoved as sensations-mere sensations. Do not deny its occurence trying to create multiple versions of your reality, because the body (or the mind) is in witnessing a state, and the effective way to just be mindful of that state to not be in denial, simultaneously the effective way to not give ‘in’ to that state and not habitually/compulsively act on it is to be detached (kind of tricky). Middle way exactly- yes! Such maginificent proportions of factors in middle way I had never imagined before, as if a middle way between two worlds:)


Quicksan metaphor (Quicksand akin to 'suffering'/woeful state)
Much like quicksand, do not fumble too much in misery, carefully move out of the state. Even as you swim through it to come out giving up resistance is like giving up nervousness and fumbling of being in quicksand. Calm and tranquility assist you to ‘act’ wisely and decision to start making your way instead of just throwing your limbs around undirected, assisted by energy, right actions and hope, you to safe land-Refuge.