Beauty - Oliver

Problems? - Michael A. Singer

"When a problem is disturbing you, don't ask, 'What should I do about it?' Ask, 'What part of me is being disturbed by this?' If you ask, 'What should I do about it?' you've already fallen into believing that there really is a problem outside that must be dealt with.  If you want to achieve peace in the face of your problems, you must understand why you perceive a particular situation as a problem." 

~ Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul

Fears - Parker J. Palmer

I will always have fears, but I need not be my fears, for I have other places within myself from which to speak and act. - Parker J. Palmer

— Susannah Azzaro (@swazzaro) August 29, 2013

Definition and Purpose of Meditation - Chopra

Be serene in the oneness of things
and erroneous views
will disappear by themselves.
~ Seng-Ts'an

your life is your life - Charles Bukowski

The Ultimate Goal of Hatha

"The ultimate goal of hatha is to garner the scattered instinctive energies of life and harness them for the inward journey." 

~ excerpted from the Himalayan Institute's Yoga Teacher Training Manual

Quote from Rodney Yee's and Nina Zolotow's *Yoga: The Poetry of the Body*

Falling. Falling is what is always happening.  To hold a yoga pose is not possible; it's a sensuous dance, moment by moment. And rigidity is simply the illusion that we can create a world in which we're not falling.

Can you mindfully practice falling? Falling away from your habits, falling out of your habits? Can you play with center?  Question center? Use falling as a way to question what you think of as center?

Centering. Center is not a place but a dialogue.  Your dialogue with the floor and sometimes with the wall.  The dialogue between your mind and your body.  A playful dialogue.  A relaxed dialogue.  A curious dialogue.

Can you observe and respond?  Pose and repose? Can you be in the pose instead of doing the pose?  Can you let yourself shimmer in the center?

Balance. Balance is your ability to fall and then retrieve yourself.  As you fall out of center and then into it and then out of it - again and again - you may begin to lose your old sense of orientation.  And to feel fear.  Fear of what? Of change? Of not knowing? Of losing control?

Yoga: The Poetry of the Body
by Rodney Yee and Nina Zolotow

Showing Up - Meditation Journal Summary

I had to complete a meditation journal summary as part of the requirements for the yoga teacher training certification program I did through the Himalayan Institute this year.  I had fun with it, and decided to record an audio version of it.

Profile: Alice Walker

Home - Ram Dass

We are all just walking each other home. ~ Ram Dass

Emotions - Back Pain - Yoga - Leslie Kaminoff

Parker Palmer - Rumi Reflection

Parker Palmer reflects on Rumi - From his Facebook Page... 

First....the poem: 

"Rumi's great poem "The Guest House" reminds me of an important fact about being human: I have a lot of characters inside of me, and each has a voice of its own.

I like some of those characters and voices—others, not so much! But my job is to listen to ALL of them, without censoring the ones I don't like, trying to host a life-giving inner conversation.

In my new book [http://tinyurl.com/3c2xmjy], I argue that practicing hospitality toward people and viewpoints that seem "alien" to us is key to restoring the civil community on which democracy depends.

Hospitality doesn't mean pretending to agree with things we don't agree with. It means listening openly and with respect, learning what we can, and responding in ways that build bridges, not walls.

But here's the rub: We can't receive the external "alien" respectfully if we can't do the same for the inner voices we don't want to hear. Hospitality, like all human virtues, begins within.

All of this is more easily said than done! But Rumi gives us a great gift: A vivid image that makes something challenging feel possible...

Each of us is a "guest house." Our job is to "Be grateful for whoever comes/because each has been sent/as a guide from beyond."

P.S. "Beyond" means different things to different people. But if it means nothing more than "beyond the limits of my own experience and imagination," that's good enough for me!"

The Courage to Give Birth - Rilke

You must give birth to your images.
They are the future waiting to be born.
Fear not the strangeness you feel.
The future must enter you
long before it happens.
Just wait for the birth,
for the hour of new clarity.

Intimacy - Richard Miller

We all have the innate yearning to feel intimately connected, both to the world outside, but more importantly to ourselves. We all share the deep needs to be seen, heard, and belong.

When our intimacy needs go unfulfilled, we feel unwelcomed both by our self, and by the so-called outside world. We then live disconnected, in reaction, trying to ingest indigestible judgments from our inner critic, and/or from the outside world, such as: “How could I be so…?” or, “I’m unlovable.” or, “Something’s wrong with me.”

To truly feel intimately connected we first need to feel intimately connected with ourselves. Only then can we respond, rather than react to the world around and within. Only then can we truly realize the deep intimacy of Being, in which we realize that everything we are in intimate contact with is our own self. In reality, there is no other, there is only the One self, that we are each a unique expression of. In order to live true intimacy, we need to inquire, “What is it that life wants to live as me?” rather than, “What do I want?” Only when “I” and “Thy” are a unified movement will we be at peace and truly feel the intimacy that is our birthright.

Silence nourishes inner inquiry, where we are able to see, hear, respond to, and heal the inner splits that otherwise prevent our experiencing true intimacy. I look forward to having you on one of our retreats this year, at Santa Sabina in May, Kripalu in August, or Edmonton in October, where you can take the time to truly stop, look within, and realize the deep healing that enables you to live your true undivided and intimate place in the universe.

~ Richard Miller, https://www.irest.us/civicrm/mailing/view?reset=1&id=434

2 Quotes by Pema

“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.”
― Pema Chödrön

“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

Definition of "Intention" - Zukav

"The WHY beneath all the other whys"

Lives as Mandalas - Pema Chodron

Each person’s life is like a mandala—a vast, limitless circle. We stand in the center of our own circle, and everything we see, hear and think forms the mandala of our life. We enter a room, and the room is our mandala. We get on the subway, and the subway car is our mandala, down to the teenager checking messages on her iPhone and the homeless man slumped in the corner. We go for a hike in the mountains, and everything as far as we can see is our mandala: the clouds, the trees, the snow on the peeks, even the rattlesnake coiled in the corner. We’re lying in a hospital bed, and the hospital is our mandala. We don’t set it up, we don’t get to choose what or who shows up in it. It is, As Chogyam Trungpa said, “the mandala that is never arranged but is always complete.” And we embrace it just as it is.

Everything that shows up in your mandala is a vehicle for your awakening. From this point of view, awakening is right at your fingertips continually. There’s not a drop of rain or a pile of dog poop that appears in your life that isn’t the manifestation of enlightened energy, that isn’t a doorway to sacred world. But it’s up to you whether your life is a mandala of neurosis or a mandala of sanity.

~Pema Chodron, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change