Anicca, Anatta

     To leave no footprints, like a bird in flight - what does that actually mean?

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Intention

     Lovingly welcoming everything that enters my life. All events & emotions are transient and nourishing. Without preferences, there's no inner friction, no wasted time & energy externalizing, no unnecessary suffering. Releasing illusory craving, realizing love.

     (I admire and respect Tina Turner and find her song powerful & inspiring. The dancers send a mixed message.)

Agenda?

     When we wonder about a person or organization's "agenda", we're wondering about the self-serving motive that's hidden behind what they pretend is for our benefit.  Assuming that ulterior motives hide beneath apparent beneficent acts is increasingly common. To the extent that people lead "divided lives" ie their thoughts, speech & behavior are fear-driven, egocentric, in adversarial relationship with their own & society's beliefs, their deceitfulness will be proportionate. This includes "faking" honesty, professionalism, compassion, kindness, cleanliness, ... - "whatever sells."

     However, mindfulness practice is about transcending self-centeredness, and becoming fully engaged with a life of morality, integrity & wisdom ie being congruent - no ulterior motives. Mindfulness practice allows people of different or no religion to open to their personal depths, together in a safe space. The best in each of us is the same. If we see this & meet each other there, we can pull together for the common good - for each other - as mature, civilized adults.

     "... our agenda is for our intentions to be kind and compassionate, for our minds to be aware of what we are thinking, saying, and doing, and for our experience to tell us as best it can how to craft our life to reflect our intentions."

       Ingram DM. "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book." Aeon Books, London, 2008. 

 

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Basic Principle

     "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's wet and round and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -- 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "

       Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater"

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Rolling Through

     "And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man; emotion and a spirit, that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things."                                              William Wordsworth                       www.wisdomatwork.com

Bess

Enlightenment?

     "... enlightenment is an attainable goal, once our fanciful notions of it are stripped away, and we have learned to use meditation as a method for examining reality rather than an opportunity to wallow in 'self-absorbed mind-noise'."

       Ingram DM. "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book." Aeon Books, London, 2008. 

Meditation & Agency

     "What you are now is the result of what you were. What you will be tomorrow will be the result of what you are now. The consequences of an evil mind will follow you like the cart follows the ox that pulls it. The consequences of a purified mind will follow you like your own shadow. No one can do more for you than your own purified mind - no parent, no relative, no friend, no one. A well-disciplined mind brings happiness."                Dhammapada

Bess