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Mind Making, How do you see each day?
MIND MAKING – CITTA BHAVANA
Decide each day,
How you would like to see, be and feel.
Don’t leave it to the default.
Design and develop, develop and maintain
The mental states and mood, being and behaviours
That make life worth living.
Make up your mind – to make your mind up!
Don’t let it get down.
The choice is ours to choose what works.
Make use of Mindfulness and Clear Comprehension
To create the mental space and strength to choose
Don’t leave it to chance.
Choose Calm and Clarity
Choose Wisdom and...
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Peace Meal
PEACE MEAL
Peace is the feeling resulting from Freedom
Freedom results from Letting – Go
Letting – Go results from Wisdom
Wisdom results from Insightful Understanding
Insightful Understanding results from Mental Calm and Clarity
Mental Calm and Clarity results from Practicing Meditation
Practicing Meditation results from Living with Mindfulness and Morality
Living with Mindfulness and Morality results from following the Buddha’s Teachings.
If we know how we would like to feel and be in our life, maybe we need to see what causes and conditions bring that particular...
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Rains Retreat, Vassa 2017
This last week has marked the end of the Buddhist Monastic three months ‘Rains Retreat – Vassa 2017’
This verse arose in my mind on Pavarana Day – the ending of the retreat, and lends inspiration to realising reality and finding freedom.
Kind Regards
John B.
Pavarana Day – End of Vassa Rains Retreat 2017 – The Free Mind
Wander where there is no Path,
Find firm footing where there is no place to stand,
Seek shelter where no roof exists,
Live where there is no abiding...
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Our Practicing Peace
Fundamentally and ultimately, if it is Peace that we are really seeking, our ‘way of practice’ needs to focus on Peace as our path and purpose.
Here;
Our Perspective is Peace
- to see, be and relate from Peace.
Our Practice is Peace
- to exercise and enhance Peace at all times and in all places.
Our Process is Peace
- to develop and deepen our experience of Peace, both in the mind and in our life.
Our Presence is Peace
- to gift to all people and...
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Blessing of the Buddha – Real Happiness and Peace
The ‘Blessing of the Buddha’ is the gift to us all, of his realisation and revelation of a Real Happiness and Peace.
This ‘Happiness – Peace’, is not founded on or confounded by the way of things.
This ‘Happiness – Peace’, is not built and dependent on things that fundamentally do fade and falter, fatigue and fail, finalise and finish.
This ‘Happiness – Peace’, does not become, stressed and distressed, disordered and distorted. It does not diminish, dissolve, deconstruct or destruct. It...
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The Ending of Time!
The whole of I,
we, you and me;
is but a ‘cognitive creation’.
We think our self into being!
Behind and beyond the thought,
of I, we, you and me;
is simply energy manifesting as
the body and mind-ful awareness.
Meditation frees the mind,
from thought, from the activity of identification;
from ‘identity-ing’ and allows simply a
Body-Mind ‘Presence-ing’.
Here – Now, no one;
No – not now, no not here!
No story; no story teller;
no stress, no suffering; no drama and no SAMSARA.
For the I, we, you and me – self, is...
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Is It Peace?
Is it Peace?
Is it Peace that we seek?
Fundamentally and Ultimately, at the end of the day, at the end of our life, and everywhere and when in between; is it Peace that we seek?
Maybe!
So, what then is Peace?
Peace is a calm contentment, a quite joy, an ease and fulfillment.
Peace may be experienced in the external environment, but fundamentally is a quality and state of mind – heart (Citta).
Peace could be said to occur on three levels.
1. Peace is the...
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Spring Newsletter
Dear Friends
‘Ten thousand flowers in Spring,
The moon in Autumn.
A cool breeze in Summer,
Snow in Winter.
If your mind is not clouded
By unnecessary things,
This is the best season of your life.’
Wu-Men (1183 – 1260)
Welcome to Spring.
Certainly the best season or time in our life is when our mind is calm and clear. However Spring is a wonderful season to be alive in!
Spring calls us to our senses; to see, sense and feel the change in...
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Now – This – Here
NOW - THIS - HERE
Before ‘then’ – NOW
Before ‘that’ – THIS
Before ‘there’ – HERE
Our life is in Reality
Always – NOW – THIS - HERE!
Mindfulness through Meditation
Brings us back to Real Life
NOW – THIS – HERE.
Much of where we go wrong,
Is due to living where we don’t belong!
We get caught into the ‘Not Now, Not This, Not Here’.
So easily we React, Resist, Deny and Distract from
The wonderful Reality of NOW – THIS – HERE.
Our ‘Practice’ is to ‘Re-Mind’ our self,
To...
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Mindfulness is not enough!
Mindfulness is not enough!
The Great Forest Meditation Masters, including my own teacher Venerable Ajahn Chah; would often speak about the importance of ‘Sati – Paññā’.
In fact, the essence practice of the Buddha’s Teachings for those that are serious about serious results in practice is ‘Sati – Paññā ‘.
‘Sati – Paññā’ is ‘Mindfulness and Wisdom’.
Here the appreciation is that mindfulness alone is not enough! Whilst we hear and read a lot about ‘mindfulness’ the real experts have been saying and...
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