Category Archives: Uncategorized
End of Year Message from John
YEARS END
Dear Friends
Welcome to another – Years End in this journey of Life.
Such a time offers us a powerful point to pause and ponder, look back and reflect on what has been this year.
What has been the worth of this year, another year of life for us?
Certainly, if we wish to live mindfully, consciously; to learn and grow through our life, then it is about the ‘getting of wisdom’.
At the time of certain experiences, especially the challenging ones, it...
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Dates for Weekly Meditation Group Farrants Hill
Our WELL-AWARE-NESS Monday Evening Meditation Group will have its last session for the year on Monday 18th December, 6.30 – 7.30 pm (NSW time).
If you have not been able to attend for some time, it would be wonderful to see you again for our last session for the year.
For our Session if you would like to bring a small plate of (party) food to share for the occasion.
I hope to see many of you that have attended over the...
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You are Remembered, more or less …..
Recent reflections around the experience of Dementia, Alzheimer’s and the process of aging, inspired these reflections regarding the fundamental nature of the self.
You are Remembered – more or less!
This I, this you, this me, this we;
This psychological seeming self;
This apparent appearing person;
Is merely a collection of memory moments.
Whilst this I, this you, this me, this we,
might also be made of ideas and plans, posed for the future;
for the most part, the greater part;
We are the remembered moments of this...
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Have the Time of your Life, Message from John
Dear Friends
OUR LIFE – TIME
Our Life is our time and thus our ‘Life Time’!
In the same way, our life time includes our,
Year time, month time, week time, day time and
Hour, minute, second, moment – present time; all ours!
Strangely always passing, yet always present – now.
So, this year; our year time 2017, is moving towards an end,
Expressing the Truth of Impermanence, that the Buddha spoke so much about.
Yet in his great Wisdom and Compassion, the Buddha also taught...
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Life as our STRESS TEST
LIFE AS OUR ‘STRESS – TEST’
So, as it turns out, ‘Life’ is our big ‘Stress – Test’!
To see if we can proceed, process and make progress,
Without compromising our integrity;
Without giving into selfish wanting and greed,
Without getting caught into reactive anger and rage.
Maybe ‘Life’ is not about the accumulation of wealth,
Maybe it is not about the collection of material things.
Maybe ‘Life’ is not about growth in great knowledge,
Maybe it is not about just gaining and gathering family or friends.
‘Life’ might...
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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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Buddhist Psychology – ‘The Four Noble Truths’
Buddhist Psychology - The Four Noble Truths
Buddhist Psychology is much more that a psychology of psycho-pathology of the human condition.
Buddhist Psychology in its depth and breadth also offers the Practice - Principles, Perspectives and Path to complete psychological freedom - Awakening - Enlightenment!
The Buddha's Teachings, the Buddha - Dhamma, is wonderfully summarised in the Four Noble Truths (about Dukkha - dissatisfaction, distress and suffering).
These Truths are:
The Acknowledgement -of the reality of dissatisfaction, distress and suffering in our lives.
...
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Mindfulness moves us …….
Mindfulness moves us!
Mindfulness.
Mindfulness moves.
Mindfulness moves us!
Mindfulness moves us from havoc to harmony.
Mindfulness moves us from havoc to hope, from hope to healing, from healing to harmony and from harmony to happiness.
Mindfulness moves us from havoc to hope to healing to harmony to Happiness!
Without Mindfulness in our life, as our life; life can not only become messy but be a mess!
Mindfulness helps to create balance and harmony out of havoc. When we are mindful, all sorts of things begin to...
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