walking meditation

Walking meditation consists of paying attention to the walking process. If you are moving fairly rapidly, make a mental note of the movement of the legs, "Left, right, left, right" and use your awareness to follow the actual sensations throughout the leg area. If you are moving more slowly, note the lifting, moving, and placing of each foot. In each case you must try to keep your mind on just the sensations of walking. Notice what processes occur when you stop at the end of the lane, when you stand still, when you turn and begin walking again.

Do not watch your feet unless this becomes necessary due to some obstacle on the ground; it is unhelpful to hold the image of a foot in your mind while you are trying to be aware of sensations. You want to focus on the sensations themselves, and these are not visual. For many people it is a fascinating discovery when they are able to have a pure, bare perception of physical objects such as lightness, tingling, cold, and warmth.

Walking meditation is usually divided into three distinct movements: lifting, moving, and placing the foot. If you have a difficult time connecting with the inner-body, place your attention on your breath. When you do make the connection with the breath, feel your hands. Then start feeling other parts of your body as you feel the in and out flow of your breath. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. It's important that you direct the breath into the lower abdomen. Doing this will bring a sense of calmness to the walk.

-- from an email invitation for a walking meditation by a "power of now" group

God's Presence

We feel G-d's presence when we realize that our willpower, wisdom, insights and love are really not ours but His and experience ourselves as merely serving to channel His powers into the world. In this state of connectivity we feel the joy of purposeful and meaningful living. We also experience G-d's presence when we encounter His mastery in the wonders of nature and see everything as a divine masterpiece-a piece of the master.

However, G-d cannot give us this great gift of His presence, unless we want Him in our lives. We must first know in our hearts that G-d's presence is, indeed, the greatest gift we could ever hope to receive; that it is pure ecstasy. We give G-d pleasure, so to speak when we want to receive what He wants to give us.

- Rabbi David Aaron

letting go of doing

Letting Go of Doing

letting go

Letting Go

But How Difficult It Is ...

But Why Do We Hold on?

The Parable of the Rope.

tips on effective communication

a good day

-- gratefulness.org

religion and spirituality

- Religion is the container and spirituality is the contents.
- Our problem is that we focus on the container and not the content, our attachment to the container is the source of countless wars.
- The container is also needed but the most important is the contents.
- Spirituality is the spirit, spirit is the reality, [the truth].
- To become spiritual, one needs a spiritual practice or Sadhana.
- There are many practices depending on religious background.
- Any Sadhana is liable to become a mechanical act.
- Awareness, total alertness makes sadhana, spiritual.
- Any sadhana without awareness is a mechanical act.
- We need to keep our mind where our hands are.
- Don't multi-task, focus on what you're doing at the moment.
- Doing one thing and thinking about something else is the source of stress.
- We are here but we want to be there - a source of stress.
- We need to put attention where our effort is.
- Thoughts of past and future keeps us away from present.
- We are not living, we are either dying (past) or dreaming (future).
- How to stay awake:
* focus on what you're doing in present moment.
* catch yourself every moment you stay away from present.
* use your breath to focus back to present. [or we can focus on inner energy]
* develop detachment.
- The cause of our wondering mind is our attachments. [i think to be detached we need to develop the role of being an observer or a witness. Witnessing everything happening around us including inside us without any judgment.]

-- paraphrased from a lecture by Swami Prakashananda - Chinmaya Mission (except what's in [ ...])

life and life situation

Forget about your life situation and pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time. Your life is now. Your life situation is mind-stuff. Your life is real.

- Eckhart Tolle

do you know what time it is?

click here to find out

explaining a spiritual experience

check out this presentation

hope

Why fill the heart with hopes? Leave it empty for God.

Robert Mertens

Hope assumes future. Future takes us away from Present. Hope requires mind stuff such as concepts, expectations, and results. Hope implies some type of resistance to what is Now. There's an opportunity to accept something. Let's accept whatever that is and it will give us a lasting peace, unlike hope.

today, right now

focus on current moment, that's real life; past is just a memory; future is just imagination.
be grateful for whatever is going on in current moment.
if you can't find a good reason, how about being grateful for being able to experience the current moment...