God Hug!

God Hug!

I  Thought you could use a God hug.

Dear God:
this is my friend, whom I love and this is my prayer for her

Help her live her life
to the fullest.

Please promote her
and cause her to excel
above her expectations.

Help her to shine
in the darkest places
where it is impossible
to love.

Protect her at all times,
lift her up when she needs
you the most,

and

let her know when
she walks with you,

She will always
be safe.

Love you Girl!

Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps.
if you are not willing to move your feet.

This was sent to us by a close friend. Please pass this on if you want to!

Quote From Osho

Quote From Osho

Osho was a great teacher and wonderful speaker.

He got a bad rap because of the actions of some of his followers.

Prior to 1979, when I knew him, his teachings were so amazing.

I learned so much in my four months with him that it changed me for the rest of my life.

Osho was one of my root teachers.

Mountain Sangha

Mountain Sangha

Mountain Sangha is a community of people who enjoy meditation practices or want to learn how to meditate.
We deliver meditation practices that anyone can learn in just 9 minutes a day.
Through articles, videos, audio recordings, quotes, teachers, and other possibly controversial materials, we want to inspire you to undertake meditation practices on your path to well-being.
Our goal is that you benefit from meditation practices independent of your religious, political, economic, or social views.
We promise not to impose our views on you.

Machupicchu | Photo Jessica Freedman

Mountain Sangha was founded in 2001 on September 13. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (known` as Thay) gave a talk in Berkeley, California two days after 9/11.
I remember those days very clearly. I was heading out to Chicago for a business meeting when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center.
Needless to say, I had to cancel my trip.
I spent the next two days in mourning and feeling thankful that I could now attend Thay’s talk.
He spoke about reconciliation and bringing about peace between the attackers and the US through the practices of deep listening, loving speech, and developing understanding.
My friend approached me to help organize a sangha in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh.
A sangha is a community of people who participate in meditation practices together.
Mountain Sangha was born in the ashes of the destruction of the twin towers at the World Trade Center.

Meditation Practices

You don’t have to be a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Sufi or a Muslim or even a Christian or a Jew to engage in meditation practices.
Meditation has been scientifically shown to have a significant number of benefits. Meditation:

• Builds self confidence
• Improves mood
• Improves general sense of well-being
• Favorably impacts brain plasticity
• Regulates blood pressure
• Reduces stress by taking time for yourself
• Reduces stress by the act of meditating
• Can help you lose weight
• Reduce heart disease

Why I Can Help You

Jerome Freedman, Ph. D.

I began meditating in 1968 while in graduate school at the University of Chicago.
I was studying physics in hopes of understanding the nature of the universe and the mind of God.
One of my first classes was the Silva Mind Control Method and then I somehow found and studied with Jose Silva’s teacher, Father Eli.
My next root teacher was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho). I spent four months in India and learned to do chaotic meditation and other forms he taught. It was a very intense experience.
I then met Gabrielle Roth who helped me continue dancing my way to ecstasy. We put on an event in honor of Osho for 250 people. Then she moved to New York.
By 1985, I had taken the three refuges of Buddhism and called myself a Buddhist. I attended the San Francisco Zen Center at Green Gulch Farm for many years.
In search of a teacher, I connected with Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, whom I had heard about while being a half-minded social activist against the war in Vietnam.
My first meeting with him was very auspicious in a small church in Berkeley, California.
I have since become a member of his Order of Interbeing. I have been to Plum Village two times and was honored to have breakfast with him in his room.

Six Root Teachers – Drawing by Jerome Freedman

In 1990, I became a Certified Teacher of the Enneagram in the Oral Tradition with Helen Palmer. It was at one of the final retreats in the certification program that one of my fellow students mentioned tennis as a way to practice conscious conduct. A light went off in my brain and I resumed playing tennis after a hiatus of 20+ years.
Now my practice consists of morning meditation every day and mindful tennis four to five times a week. Publishing Meditation Practices and  Best Meditation Videos have also become part of my daily practice.
As a cancer survivor since 1997, I founded and co-facilitate Mindfulness in Healing  a well-being support group at the Pine Street Clinic in San Anselmo on Wednesday nights. I started the group during the summer solstice of 2009 to inspire people to use mindfulness to take charge of their lives and healing experience.
I have designed and contributed to a several websites that support mindfulness practices around the world. These include the website for the 30th Anniversary of Plum Village and the Thich Nhat Hanh Sangha Support website for Northern California.

We All Have What It Takes To Thrive

Thrive is a two hour movie that has been reviewed on Best Meditation Videos. The movie demonstrates that we all have what it takes to thrive rather than merely survive.

We All Have What It Takes To Thrive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OibqdwHyZxk

This article presents an expansion of three of the themes presented in the movie:

1. interbeing or interconnectedness
2. non-violation or reverence for all life
3. inner guidance or mindfulness practices

Interbeing or Interconnectedness

Interbeing is a word coined by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh to describe the interconnectedness of all things.

Interbeing is the insight that nothing can exist by itself alone.

Life on earth is not possible without the sun, the moon, liquid water, and so many countless other components.

We usually take things for granted and fail to see our interconnectedness with all things.

Government leaders and controlling bankers do not recognize this fact and proceed to act as if they were separate from all existence. Nothing they do affects their lifestyle, and they don't acknowledge how they affect the lives of people, plants, and animals when they dictate their policies.

Here is how Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh put it in a talk given on July 20, 1998:

Emptiness means the absence of a separate existence, such as when you look at this flower, you can touch first of all the nature of impermanence–you don’t just talk about impermanence–you actually experience the nature of impermanence at first hand. And then you can go deeper, because the insight of impermanence helps you to see the nature of interbeing. It’s always changing, and what is in front of you is made of several elements. The flower has the sunshine in it. Sunshine is a component of flower. You do not call sunshine “flower,” but you discover that without sunshine a flower cannot be. So you discover that a flower cannot be by itself alone, it has to inter-be with non-flower elements, like sunshine, like clouds, like rain, like minerals, like earth, like the gardener.

Non-Violation or Reverence For All Life

The concept on non-violation, as described in the movie, is the idea that all life forms are to be free from having their rights to live violated.

This corresponds to the ideas of the First Mindfulness Training, which is respect and reverence for all life forms.

The first Mindfulness Training, respect for life, states:

Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivate compassion and learn ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.

The protection of the rights and lives of people is the same thing as non-violation of their rights and lives.

Inner Guidance or Mindfulness Practices

Inner guidance is manifested by looking deeply into your patterns of behavior and recognizing when you are not being true to yourself.

One of the best ways of achieving this is to engage in meditation practices every day.

Mindfulness meditation is a great place to start.

Sit or lie down in a comfortable position. There is no need to sit cross legged!

Take several deep breaths to begin.

Then, simply follow your breathing.

Do this for a minimum of 9 minutes every day.

You Have What It Takes To Thrive!

Now that you know the insights of interbeing and non-harming, and you have an idea about how to tap into your inner guidance, please take a few minutes to think about how you can thrive in this world, just as it is.

You might say to your self, "I experience love, joy, wonder, and wisdom in this life just as it is."

Please share what else you could do for yourself to get out of survival mode and really thrive.

Write something about this in the comments and receive a free meditation course from 9 Minute Meditation.

Transformation

Transformation

Butterfly Emerging | Photo by Sid Mosdell

Our greatness lies not so much 

in being able to remake the world

as being able to remake ourselves.

—Gandhi

 

Loving Speech

Loving speech is the subject of the fourth mindfulness training taught by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
An older rendition of this training reads:

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy, and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or the community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.

Practicing Loving Speech | Photo Jerome Freedman 2000

Loving speech is also skillful speech and is related to skillful means.

Loving Speech

Allan Lokos, an Interfaith minister, meditation teacher, and author, teaches:

Skillful speech begins by refraining from lying, slander, profanity, and harsh language. We should avoid language that is rude, abusive, disagreeable, or malicious, and we should abstain from talk that is foolish, idle, babble, or gossip. What remains are words that are truthful, kind, gentle, useful, and meaningful. Our speech will comfort, uplift, and inspire, and we will be a joy to those around us.
The pillar of skillful speech is to speak honestly, which means that we should even avoid telling little white lies. We need to be aware of dishonesty in the forms of exaggerating, minimizing, and self-aggrandizing. These forms of unskillful speech often arise from a fear that what we are is not good enough––and that is never true. Honesty begins at home, so the practice of skillful speech begins with being honest with ourselves.

He goes on to tell a rather fascinating story about a Hasidic rabbi:

There is an old Hasidic tale of a villager who was feeling remorse for the harm his gossip had caused his neighbor. He went to his rabbi to seek advice. The rabbi suggested that he go to town and buy a chicken and bring it back to him, and that on the way back he pluck it completely. When the man returned with the featherless chicken, the rabbi told him to retrace his steps and gather every one of the scattered feathers. The man replied that it would be impossible; by now the feathers were probably blown throughout the neighboring villages. The rabbi nodded in agreement, and the man understood: we can never really take back our words.
Source.

This is reminiscent of the Buddha’s parable of the mustard seed.
In this parable, a woman comes to the Buddha with her dead child in her arms and asks the Buddha to restore the child to life. He tells the woman to go back to the village and bring him a mustard seed from a household that has never seen death. When she fails to find one, she returns to the Buddha and realizes that her child cannot be saved. Ultimately, she becomes a nun.

Mindfulness in Healing

Loving speech is one of the meditation practices we teach at our Mindfulness in Healing group at the Pine Street Clinic in San Anselmo, California.
Together with deep listening, guided meditations, and overall support, our group has been in practice for more than three years.
If you know anyone who would benefit from loving speech, please share this with them.

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True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart is the newer of the two books by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh that contain his teachings on love. I have not personally read this book. It is bound to be excellent.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed reading Teachings on Love. In it you will learn that true love requires understanding at a deep level. Loving speech and deep listening help us to understand our loved ones.

Avalokitesvara

Avalokitesvara

This quote from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh talks about Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.
A bodhisattva is a being who forgoes his own enlightenment in order to help other beings awaken.

“There is a Bodhisattva, whose name is Avalokitesvara, in Vietnamise we call her Quan The Âm, in Chinese, Quan Yin. It means: ‘Listening deeply to the sound of the cries of the world’. And listening deeply is the practice of mindfullness. But if you are full of pain, full of anxiety, full of projections, and especially full of prejudices, full of ideas and notions, it may be very difficult for you to practice deep listening. You are too full. And that is why to practice in order for you to have space, to have freedom within, to have some joy within is very important for deep listening. Avalokitesvara, Quan Yin, she practices deep listening to herself, and to the world, outside. She practices touching with her ears.”

If you like this quote, you will love the video about the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
Please share this with your friends.

Which One Is You?

Two Yogis Meditating: Which one is like you? Which one would you like to be like?