Fifteen Minutes of...not fame but peace

People in any profession can benefit from doing total relaxation every day. When co-workers and employees are overwhelmed by stress, they are much less effective in thier work and often miss work because of sickness. This is costly for the organization, so fifteen minutes of total relaxation after 3 or 4 hours of work is practical.

Maybe there's a place in the office where you can practice total relaxation for fifteen minutes. It's not costly to set up a stress management program in your company or organization; all that is needed is to train someone in the technique of mindful breathing. To do mindful breathing, stop what you are doing and become aware of your body, breathe in and breathe out, and relax.

For example, when the telephone rings, stop whatever you are doing and breathe in and breathe out before you pick up the phone. That way, when you answer, you are calm and compassionate; the person on the other end will hear this in the quality of your voice. It will help you become more fully present on the call.

Just one in-breath and one out-breath can help stop your habitual thinking and go back to the here and now; your mind will connect right away with your body. it's very easy and it takes maybe five or ten seconds at most-- from a state of dispersion, you become mindful and concentrated.

This is considered meditation. Meditation consists of two elements. The first is stopping, calming the mind, and concentrating. The second is looking deeply to get insight.

When you meditate, you need an OBJECT to place your attention on. You cannot concentrate on nothing. The object could be the steps of your breath, an actual object or even a concept like gratitude, appreciation etc. When you concentrate, you merge with the object of your attention.

If you sustain the concentration you will receive insight, the second element of meditation.

Actually, we cannot MAKE ourselves meditate. We can only make ourselves concentrate. To develope our ability to concentrate, we have to learn to not allow our faculty of attention to become distracted by every thought that passes through the mind. It is the nature of the mind to think. thinking is a form of talking. To interrupt it, you return again and agin to your object(the flow of breath etc).

Meditation is an effortless state that arises after continued concentration. Through practice you get closer and closer. If your concentration is interrupted many times during practice.....Stop, notice you have drifted off, and return again to your object. It doesn't matter.
What matters is that you are diligent. Don't give up---try again.

After a period of not engaging with the thoughts, they begin to quiet down. Space between thoughts becomes apparent. Your state of consciousness begins to shift and is typified by a peaceful feeling which affects both body and mind. This peacefulness is the result of identifying with the infinite rather than the finite.

Mantras can also be used as the objects of meditation. "Let Go" is a very powerful mantra. With each inhale, silently say "Let", and with each exhale say "Go". In doing so you are letting go of resistances. When you let go, you automatically let God.


By letting it go, it all gets done.
----Tao Te Ching

Unknown Pleasures

When someone sends sexually explicit images/messages to you online, what are they trying to say???? If their profile picture is half -naked or in a bathing suit, what are they trying to accomplish?????? Would it increase their chances for having some sort of relationship with me????? Do they have a handle on some "unknown pleasures" that i should be drawn to check out????? Wouldn't this have just the opposite effect on me...to delete them.

Are we all deceiving each other????? Deep down we feel there is nothing good, beautiful, and true in us; and at the same time we are desperate to show other people how good, beautiful, and truthful we are.

What would the Buddha think about this???? What is the ultimate truth of love????

Sitting at the foot of the bodhi tree on the night when he realized the truth, the Buddha discovered something that was very surprising. He saw that the good, the beautiful, and the true are to be found in everyone. People think that the true, the beautiful and the good exist somewhere else, in someone else. They don't know that they are true, beautiful, and good at their core. Our whole life, we are looking for someone else to replace what we feel is missing.

We don't need to deceive each other, because the thing we are looking for is already in us. If we have it all ourselves, couldn't we bypass having relationships with others????

Now is our best chance, actually. When the understanding is there, we know what to do and what not to do to bring happiness and peace to another person. True love is the desire to bring happiness and peace to another person.....being generous, not selfish... being sweet, not bitter.
When there is true love, the pain of the other is our own pain; the happiness of the other is our own happiness. True love is characterized by attentiveness, respect. If we have this attention then when we see the suffering of the other person, we can't go on causing them pain. If we have respect, we cannot go on like that.

Our true teacher is within us, the real object of our love is ourselves. We have to know how to love ourselves, how to return to our true nature, to see the good, the true, and the beautiful within us. Then we will be able to see it in others. When we have seen real beauty, goodness, and truth in ourselves and others, we will no longer be deceived by outer displays.

Karma does not mean Good Luck

It's not easy to explain how the circumstances of our current life situation are created. We can see it as M.C. Escher's "Drawing Hands" where people/ideas/situations are co-creating each other. People with similar ideas and ideals are brought closer together while those that differ move further away. Consciousness would be all there is then.

But why do we think what we think to begin with? What is our role in thinking? Are we the thinker of the thought or are we the listener???? Who just said that?????
After all, our brains are just really meat. When we are alive, we are animated pieces of meat. Our brains are meat with chemical reactions. If I cut your head open I would not be able to see any of your thoughts because they aren't located in your brain.

Do they come from outside the brain from something called mind???? as in the mind of God or in the case of "Drawing Hands" the mind of M.C. Escher.

What and how we think comes from Karma. Thoughts come from Karmic seeds planted by our actions from this lifetime and past lifetimes......with Karma , reincarnation is a given. Karma is actually the sanskrit word for causation. It does not mean good or bad luck. But you definately caused it......just as you caused me writing to you.

If our Karmic impurities are burned away, what do we get?????


the Law of Karma says that at some point you performed the actions that resulted in your present situation. Karma is an opportunity for us to learn, through experience, how it really feels to suffer from a particular experience. By suffering we learn compassion, which brings us closer to all beings. That's a gift not a punishment.

Okay-----so what do we get then from our good and noble actions????? lots of money, a new car, an apartment on Park Ave, Tom Brady or Giselle Bunchen????

We get ACCESS TO BETTER , MORE SERENE THOUGHTS. This is called Equanimity of mind. Equanimity of mind leads to freedom from anxiety, anger, frustration, and other bad feeling states. Equanimity of mind leads to a source of happiness that is lasting.......and leads to being with others experiencing equanimity. And perhaps, some fabulous prizes listed above.

To ensure good Karma, give thanks for whatever happens to you. The act of giving thanks itself creates good Karma. Being happy when others are happy creates good Karma. Geshe Michael Roche calls this "rejoicing in the good Karma of others". When you are happy about another's good Karma you automatically share in that good Karma. This good Karma accumualtes, creating it's own magnetic field, which attracts more good Karma.

Activities that generate good Karma---acceptance, giving thanks, forgiveness, rejoicing in other's good deeds, being happy when others are happy.

Try it and see if it generates mental clarity and peace. The way of Karma is such that it will assure us of continued placement in "bad" situations until we transcend them.