Day 44

It has dawned on me that I have been suffering from writer's block and also being far too involved in my own play of life circumstances. 

In being involved in the play of life my connection to spirit has broken. I have effectively become Hamlet in my own life's play. A pretty miserable place to be.

Strangely enough as well I feel both like simultaneously laughing and crying.

Meditation itself reflects these difficulties with thoughts arising and attachment to thought becoming all too prevalent in the process. My greatest sense of freedom for my harsh circumstances came yesterday whilst doing Kundalini Yoga which I found to be very beneficial.

As now I am in danger of staying in the house and becoming sorry for myself and my lot in life; I will, instead, take my body on a strenuous run.

It is as well to remember:

• We are not our feelings
• We are not our thoughts

The remembering of this is though, pretty useless in my own experience; it is only experiencing:

• We are not our thoughts
• We are not our feelings

that results in liberation.

Be WELL :-)

Day 41

No one here

Day 40

The reason it has been over a week since I last wrote is that I have been pretty down all in all. Unable to get out of the feeling of immense hardship that my life seems to now be under, this is what I reflect to the universe and consequently this is what I seem to get back: more hardship.

Not sure what else to write at this moment....

Day 32

Permanence:

After my writing on impermanence yesterday, today has felt a struggle in meditation. Lots of monkey mind arising and a geneeral feeling of unease which I couldn't quite discover the cause of.

As I may have mentioned before I see meditation a bit like an exercise regime, in a similar way to exercise aiding a body to be better and also having an impact upon our physiological wellness, meditation is very similar. So like training for exercise, training of one's mind can sometimes become a chore. Similarly I found teh run I went on today quite hard. This just speaks volumes to me about how if I chose to be at odds with what is then it simply does not make anything better. Focus on hardship inevitably just creates more hardship.

Have fun :-)

Day 31

Impermanence:

Arising, passing away; arising, passing away; arising, passing away; arising, passing away; arising, passing away..

Everything we come across in life, and life itself, has this quality. True understanding of this is a key to joy on earth; but how does one truly understand impermanence??

In theory impermanence is fairly easy to understand; maybe in observational scenarios too we observe the flower opening at dawn and closing at dusk;

we observe migratory birds in our field of vision;

we observe our children growing and one age passing away as another arises; all these things we see; but to TRULY comprehend impermanence we need to experience it; to really feel it and this can be done when a person is fully at one with what is now; also by techniques like applying equanimity to pain we can experience impermanence. In this way impermanence becomes know to our very cores. With such knowledge we can change many situations and what we experience as negative in a blink can also be seen as a positive.

The Holosync meditation has been stepped up and I have also started running again which is good; someone who knows me a little commented yesterday on how well I looked and I thanked her for that; but also the change in raising my happiness through exercise is a tangible one.

Keep on keeping on :-)

Day 30

I have had such a headache for the last two hours and I am trying to work out whether it may be caused by drinking some very strong coffee earlier; or something else. My overall feeling is that it's the coffee.

This leads to a conclusion for me and the work I have done in meditation practise of sensing and feeling sensations in the body. 

The idea is that regardless of what feeling may arise: mindfully that feeling is treated with equanimity, and in doing so the impermanence of feelings that are painful can be seen; conversely the impermanence of pleasurable feelings is also seen.

So now when we look at god, God, being, universe, love or however you would like to label that which is. God can be felt, just like my headache (which is thankfully passing). 
Rather than potentially seeing god or Jesus or any other historical figure of reverence, the universal nature of love can be felt and unlike feelings of body sensation it is seemingly permanent BUT the big converse factor is that the impermanent nature of our own existence then makes god's presence seem impermanent. It is not the case that god is impermanent; how could it be ? Rather this is simply a reflection of our own mortality, we arise in god and god similarly arises in us. That may sound paradoxical, but for me it seems to hold truth.

Would be interested in any comments on this post

Day 28

Four weeks into this blogging thing and a friend said to me today that maybe I should write more.

An interesting comment, and when I asked "why?" she said that it seemed that maybe some areas that I was talking about lacked content.

So just to reiterate something from very early on:
I am not a teacher of anything spiritual; if you really want one then go and see an egoic person who claims to be one and all your learning may be achieved whilst at the same time potentially completely missing the point of life.

There is no-one to teach this stuff, the whole world arises and passes away in an instant in front of our own eyes; you are both the centre of the known universe and also completely at the edge of it.

There is nothing here and at the same time there is also everything. In an instant you or I could fully experience the pain and suffering of any other and know it as our own just as Jesus and Buddha did, it's not beyond your way. Forget everything you know and at the same time become a sponge to everything around you.

ENJOY :-)

This May be of Interest

http://www.centerpointe.com/blog/

Day 26

Could it be that women, by the very nature of having to accept such bodily challenges as child-birth (maybe once or more per lifetime) and menstruation (once per month) and the menopause (once per lifetime), are able to be generally more accepting of the situations and challenges that may be presented in life than men are??

I think so: it is my belief that women have probably an easier route to self-realisation than men by the nature of the pain that they have which is a part of their form and a part of their life. As men, therefore, we have a lot to potentially learn from our female counterparts if they are willing to teach us.

I have a sebaceous cyst on my back. It is unpleasant but I am not going to see the doctor unless something dramatic changes. I have had one before, a couple of summers ago,and the doctor gave me antibiotics (not keen on those) and then after them not making much difference the cyst was drained. This made not much difference either so then I took matters into my own hands and whilst at Thorpe Park in the summer of 2008 I rode the rides to destruction and smashed up the cyst in my back to boot. What this did was enable my GP on the next visit to say:

"I think I can take this out if you can take the pain, I can't localise the area with anaesthetic very well, but do you want to try?"

"Sure"

He got a scalpel and removed the offending Cyst from my back and then I had to have the wound packed for a few weeks to stop it healing over and forming an abscess. Pretty grotty really.

So now I have another cyst, in a similar place. In fact, when I went to Vipassana in September 2008 I felt a cyst starting on my back but somehow the healing power that was magnified at such a spiritual place as Dipa Dhamma managed to keep it at bay.

So now I am trying a similar technique with this new cyst. Meditation, Reiki, asking god to heal. These are all techniques I am trying to get rid of the cyst. Will let you know the outcome.

Be HAPPY :-).

Day 25

My quietness of late has been down to being almost wholly involved with past, future and the troubles and woes of life. This is not the way to live if one hopes to have a happy and peaceful life; it is away from the present moment and seemingly also away from true being and god. This inevitably makes one miserable. That one, in this case, being me...

Although meditating each day, and that time of connection being very pleasant. It  was not enough to turn my mind away from the woes and difficulties in my life.

Fortunately, I sat with a good friend yesterday for 45 minutes in silence and afterwards explained to him, in part, some of the problems I faced. My friend suggested that I maybe try to think of the things in my life that I am grateful for and then write them down; then say the things that I am grateful for each morning to myself a few times when I wake, and hopefully my day may then seem brighter. 

Indeed, today this very simple technique has worked and really helped I feel. So here are the things I am grateful for, in no particular order:

• Good friends, like the one mentioned above;
• My good health
• My children's good health
• That I don't drink alcohol any-more
• My beautiful caring girlfriend
• My parents
• My sister
• Morning Spirit and the folk who attend.
• My skills, of which there are a few, but I won't egoistically blab on about them !!

After that the list gets more difficult to extend but hopefully you get the idea.

BE WELL :-)

Day 21

You go to church and pray - Jesus is by your side

You go to the Mosque and pray - Allah is bowing with you

You meditate in Lotus and Gautama is sat near you

Whether you notice this is up to you; it's not up to anyone else nor up to your belief, your path or whatever

All paths lead to the same place and you don't necessarily need to follow a path to be at that place

If there's no-one here then who am I talking about anyway ??