Regularity in life is a key to success

Regularity in life is a key to success. If we look at nature we find there is regularity and harmony everywhere. The sun rises regularly, the seasons occur at the same time, most plants and animals are active in the daytime and rest at nighttime. In the similar manner, spiritual seekers should be regular and sincere in their own practices. It is a common experience that if students do not attend class for days, can they follow the class material? It will be difficult. If they attend the class daily and regularly, then they will grasp the continuity of the teachings...

 

Paramahamsa Hariharananda

Mindfulness meditation eases stress, anxiety

Rebeka Radcliff struggled with anxiety for a long time.

She started running marathons to try to manage it. The long distances helped, she said, but it wasn't enough.

"I would go for a run, feel relaxed for a few hours or even for the rest of the day, but then the anxiety would be back again," Radcliff said.

Eventually, she realized that running couldn't be her ultimate anxiety solution. She didn't feel it was severe enough to warrant medication, and she believed there was a way to use mind over matter to manage it.

Then, she became pregnant, which she'd been looking forward to for years.

"Not only did I want to be more happy and relaxed for myself, now I was looking forward to becoming a parent, and I want to be the best mom possible," she said.

That's when Radcliff heard about a mindful meditation class at OU-Tulsa. She dedicated herself to it to see if it could help her.

And it has.

Steven Hoppes is a teacher and researcher of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center's Department of Rehabilitation Sciences.

The originator of MBSR was John Kabat-Zinn, who started this work close to 40 years ago, Hoppes said. Now, the study is Hoppes' primary focus.

"Studying mindfulness is a study of how our minds work, in all their brilliance or all their wackiness," said Hoppes, who was a tad skeptical when he first learned about mindfulness training.

Over time, with practice, he found that it helped calm him, centered him - reduced his stress.

It's a nice tool for finding a common peace among all the expectations, worries and fears we encounter in our daily lives, Hoppes said.

But he realizes quite a few people might be arching an eyebrow or scratching their head at the concept - much like people did with yoga 20-something years ago.

Now, yoga is a mainstream practice combining exercise and a form of meditation, so Hoppes believes mindfulness training may eventually go mainstream, as well - especially when people recognize that it has health benefits.

Plus, it's easy, Hoppes said - it's all about breath and being aware. You just may need some practice.

'Truly alive ... truly healing'

We met Hoppes at his office recently to go through a few of the basic exercises, beginning with a walk outside on the Schusterman campus at 41st Street and Yale Avenue.

The first exercise is called Three Breaths - simply stopping and focusing on nothing but the fact you're inhaling and exhaling three times each. If your mind wanders to something else, no worries - just bring your focus back to breathing.

It takes practice, Hoppes said, and we could see why. We mentally wandered frequently during the first couple of exercises, the second being the Body Scan. It's the act of bringing awareness to your entire body while breathing - noticing the muscles in your face, then moving down your body from there, to your neck, shoulders, arms, fingers. Again, when the mind wanders, simply come back to the awareness of your body while breathing.

"We often forget we have bodies," Hoppe said. "They're vehicles to transport our busy minds from place to place." So Three Breaths followed by the Body Scan can help people become more grounded, less tangled in events from the past or what could happen in the future.

The coolest thing about mindfulness is that you can practice it in any situation, Radcliff said.

"It's about being here and now, and recognizing that the present moment is all we ever truly have," she said. "Yesterday and tomorrow are always just beyond our grasp, but today is full of things to be experienced. I know that sounds cheesy, but it has really changed my approach to life."

She sees mindfulness as an attitude toward life.

"Practicing mindful meditation changes you physiologically so that you stay fairly calm and relaxed even in the face of stress or adversity," said Radcliff, who experienced an increased ability to relax and enjoy each moment through mindfulness. She also started seeing problems as solvable, paid better attention to conversations, remembered details, met deadlines, arrived where she needed to be on time.

"And, most importantly for me, I feel content most days now," she said.

It's not based in any particular religion, although many religious people incorporate certain mindfulness techniques into their spiritual practices of prayer or meditation, Radcliff said.

"Above all else, (it) means accepting the present moment for what it is without necessarily trying to change it or any of the people in it," she said. "That doesn't mean you don't have goals or plans for the future, but rather just that you are making those goals and plans, and working on them when you choose to.

"You don't allow yourself to get caught up in worry or negative thoughts because you learn that these types of mental habits just make you feel bad," she said.

"Past is memory, future is fantasy," Hoppes said. "Present is this one moment when we're truly alive. When we realize that, it's truly healing."

For more information on mindfulness, as well as to find out about upcoming training classes, call the St. John's Center for Spiritual Formation, 5840 S. Memorial Drive, at 918-663-4747. You can also email [e-mail] or visit tulsaworld.com/sjcenter

Sjá: http://www.tulsaworld.com/scene/article.aspx?subjectid=425&articleid=20130110_4_D1_CUTLIN592681 

Dagskrá Lífspekifélagsins um helgina

			11. jan		Guðmundur G Þórarinsson: Eru taflmennirnir frá Suðureyjum íslenskir? Taflmenn, sem fundust í fjöru á eyjunni Lewis (Ljóthús) í Suðureyjum við Skotland, hafa lengi verið taldir norsk smíð. Rannsóknir Guðmundar hafa leitt fram rök fyrir íslenskum uppruna þeirra.

12. jan.

Halldór Haraldsson: Umfjöllunarefni 16:30: Hagnýt atriði í hugleiðingu

www.lifspekifelagid.is

Námskeið hjá Zen á Íslandi

 

 

Nýtt fimm vikna námskeiðið hefst miðvikudaginn 16. janúar kl. 19:30-21:00. Allir hjartanlega velkomnir. Nánar um það og HÉR

Vorönn Zen á Íslandi 2013 hefst mánudaginn 7. janúar. Dagskrá vorannar er HÉR

HÉR má sjá yfirlit yfir daglega iðkun hjá Zen á Íslandi.

Skráðu þig á póstlistann okkar HÉR.

 

 

The politician and the so-called religious person

So, it is extraordinarily difficult in this world for the mind to be free. The politician and the so-called religious person talk about freedom, that is one of their catchwords, but they jolly well take care that you are not free because, the moment you are free, you obviously become a danger to society, to organized religion, to all the rotten things that exist about you. It is only the free mind that will find out what is true, it is only the free mind that can be creative; and it is essential, in a culture of this kind, that importance be given, not to the following of a pattern, a doctrine, or a tradition, but to allowing the mind to be creative. But the mind can be creative only when it is free from conditioning, and such freedom is not easily come by; you have to work extraordinarily hard for it.

J. Krishnamurti

Myndbönd um kriya yoga

Hér getið þið nálgast mörg myndbönd þar sem verið er að fjalla um kriya yoga:

https://learn.kriya.org/

www.kriya.org

Hit the ground sitting! Day 1 of our 100 Day Meditation Challenge

Welcome to Day One of our 100 Day Meditation Challenge. The aim is to develop a strong habit of meditating daily through committing to sit. To support you, you’ll have an opportunity to share how things are going, and to learn from others.

Three “rules.”

1. Sit for a minimum of five minutes. We hope you’ll sit for much longer — 20 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour — but if you sit for at least five minutes you can put that day in the “done” column.
2. A “day” is the time between getting up and going to bed again, rather than clock time from midnight to midnight. So if you’re up late and don’t manage to sit until after midnight, you can count that “day” as one in which you’ve meditated.
3. Walking meditation “counts.” And you can count one yoga session a week as part of your meditation practice, but we do want to focus on sitting practice.

If you join us late, that’s fine!

Some advice:

Redefine yourself
If you sincerely want to develop a habit of meditating, it’s going to take some work, but this can be easier than you think. Here’s a post I wrote on the topic of Becoming a rock-solid regular meditator. It’s worked for me.

The short version: tell yourself repeatedly, “I meditate every day. It’s what I do. It’s just who I am.” There may be a little voice that says “that’s not true!” Acknowledge that voice, but choose not to believe it. It’s true from now on. What we need to do is to change our self-definition from “someone who can’t meditate regularly” or “someone who meditates most days” to “someone who meditates every day. This affirmation is a way of imprinting a new sense of who you are and what you’re capable of. It’s just a temporary thing; once you’ve used this affirmation for 100 days you probably won’t need it any more. You’ll just be someone who meditates every day. It’ll be part of who you are.

Say it now: “I meditate every day. It’s what I do. It’s just who I am.” Say it often. Say it at the start and end of your meditations.

And you’re not alone. Post a comment below, or on our Facebook page or official Google+ page to let us know how you got on. 

Gleðilegt ár - Without knowing yourself, there is no peace

To bring about peace in the world, to stop all wars, there must be a revolution in the individual, in you and me. Economic revolution without this inward revolution is meaningless, for hunger is the result of the maladjustment of economic conditions produced by our psychological states: greed, envy, ill-will, and possessiveness. To put an end to sorrow, to hunger, to war, there must be a psychological revolution, and few of us are willing to face that. We will discuss peace, plan legislation, create new leagues, the United Nations and so on and on; but we will not win peace because we will not give up our position, our authority, our money, our properties, our stupid lives. To rely on others is utterly futile: others cannot bring us peace. No leader is going to give us peace, no government, no army, no country. What will bring peace is inward transformation which will lead to outward action. Inward transformation is not isolation, is not a withdrawal from outward action. On the contrary, there can be right action only when there is right thinking, and there is no right thinking when there is no self-knowledge. Without knowing yourself, there is no peace.

Krishnamurti - The First and Last Freedom,184,Indivual and Society