The Power of Awareness and Attention May 4, 2010
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality , 2comments
In the last couple of years I’ve moved around a great deal living in half a dozen living situations. In the process I’ve been looking at how I create security, stability and a feeling a safety in my life. During this time I had very few of the usual things most people associate with security and stability, things like a house, a car, a job, a long term relationship or money. I’ve had all of these things in the past but in my process of transformation had to temporarily let them go one by one. My intention in letting them go for a while was not because they are negative or problematic but rather to look at my attachment to them and my motivations in having them in my life. You see, all of these so called sources of security have also been sources of suffering for me. They have caused suffering because they are unreliable, temporary and fail to meet my expectations. One thing we can say for certain about external sources of security is that they are temporary, they do not last forever and they change, often in ways we don’t like.
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"I don't mind what happens" September 5, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality, articles , 8comments
Once during a regular question and answer session with his students, spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti paused and leaned forward and asked the audience, “Do you want to know what my secret is?”. Everyone sat up and became immensely alert because here was one of the great spiritual teachers of the 20th century and he was about to tell them his secret. Krishnamurti in a soft spoken voice said “You see, I don’t mind what happens”. Who could believe that the secret or really the core teaching of such a great master could be something so simple? But it is just this simple statement and way of being that contains the key to incredible freedom and joy.
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Meditation: Finding freedom in the present June 14, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Healing, Psychology, Spirituality, Transformation, articles , 2comments
There are two things about life that never cease to amaze me, one is how painful it can be and the other is how simple and beautiful it can be. When things are going well it is very easy to grab onto that experience and expect life to remain good and comfortable but inevitably it changes and we experience pain and difficultly which we tend to want to avoid or push away. You could say that this process of attachment and aversion is one of the main causes of suffering and dissatisfaction in life because we can’t hold onto the good stuff and we can’t avoid the painful, the one constant in this is change. Often we are not aware of the way we hold onto or push away parts of our life. We can pretty much count on almost everything being temporary and this is just a reality of life which doesn’t need to be a problem, but when attachment and aversion arise it quickly becomes problematic.
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