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Meditation – Tai Chi

January 30th, 2009
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Marcelo,

Good to hear, see and feel you being back.

Let me tell you about my latest, last night, experience. I joined a Tai Chi class.

Although I was a bit sceptical and did not think I would enjoy it, I was blown away. One hour of moderate exercise, breathing and slow movement. Wow, it took my breath away and really relaxed me. Still, it feels a bit weird and uncomfortable as I need to get used to it, but generally, I really enjoy it.

What I believe is that Tai Chi will help me to concentrate better and help me meditating without falling asleep, e.g. I am moving slowly whilst meditating.

Have you ever done it?

I keep you posted on how things go. Currently I am very excited to learn it properly.

Have a good weekend,
Volker

meditation, tai chi

Meditation

January 29th, 2009
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Dear Volker

I am now back to my normal life, after being on my own holidays enjoying a especial time with my daughter, family and lovely friends.

I would like to complement your words about the purpose of this blog. You are all right, and what can I say is, Buddhism is a method to help ourselves to find our happiness and peace within ourselves. Looking inside throughout special and beautiful way.

Normally we try to be happy doing things, doing external things, getting close to someone or something, contacting to our body and health from outside, but Buddha Shakyamuny taught us that our way to accomplish ourselves is just going into ourselves. Everything is there, nothing outside of there.

Our body could get ill, our mind could be controlled by our delusions and we could talk meaningless when we follow ordinary appearences and concepts of life, happiness and peace.

When we look inside we can see our own faults, mistakes and negative actions but also we can find our peace and meaning within ourselves.

Buddha says, meditation is to focus our mind on a virtuos object, such as love, compassion, other’s Living Beings sufferings and generate a positive mind, determination and meaningful wish to help them and ourselves to attain enlightenment for the benefit of others.

If we can apply these purpose on all our daily activities, at work, with our family and friends, at ll time, our life will become meaningfulness. But we need wisdom to do that, otherwise we can make a lot of mistakes in order to attain our own benefit only.

Wisdom is the mind which can see the real nature of all phenomena and persons. By meditating and following Buddha’s words we can find and hold it up always.

Geshe-la in his book, “Transform your Life” he says:

Our human life is precious and of real value only when we use it to train in spiritual paths. In itself it is a true suffering. We experience various types of suffering because we have taken a rebirth that is contaminated by the inner poison of delusions. This experience has no beginning, because we have taken contaminated rebirths since beginningless time, and it will have no end unless we attain the supreme inner peace of nirvana. If we contemplate and meditate on how we experience sufferings and difficulties throughout our life, and in life after life, we shall come to the strong conclusion that every single one of our suffering and problems arises because we took contaminated rebirth. We shall then develop a strong wish to abandon the cycle of contaminated rebirth, samsara. This is the first step towards the happiness of nirvana, or liberation. From this point of view, contemplating and meditating on suffering has great meaning. The main purpose of this meditation is to avoid having to go through all of these experiences again in the future.

I sugest a meditation on the real meaning of our human life using the text above.

Enjoy yourself.

With Love and Kindness

Marcelo

causes of sufferings, human life, meditation, sufferings

Meditation – relying upon mental stabilization

October 25th, 2008
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What do we really want for our lifes?
We want a family, a lovely partner, friendships, good job, enough money for all position or gods we desire, good house, reputation, respect from “ALL” others, happiness, peace, time for living and to enjoying our possessions.
Unfortunately, our infinite desires to get in life brings us only discontentment and unhappiness.
We need to find our balance within us.
Shantideva gives us a Path to achieve a mental stabilization. We just need to get a try.
“…I, who am decaying moment by moment, have attached to others
Who are also decaying moment by moment.
As a result of this, I shall not be able to see
Pure, attractive objects for thousands of lifetimes.
If I do not see someone whom I find attractive,
I become unhappy and cannot place my mind in concentration;
Yet, when I do see that person, I find no satisfaction
But am just as tormented by attachment as I was before.
Having strong attachment to other living beings
Obstructs the correct view of emptiness,
Prevents renunciation for samsara,
And causes great sorrow at the time of death.”
Have a thought about this beautiful words and get a time for yourself meditating on your attachments and what could they give to you?
Remember in certain way, we need to have friends and things in life, but we do not need to be attached to them. Not in the way that their absence or lack of having them could cause us a lot of sufferings.
L&K
Marcelo

causes of sufferings, happiness, meditation

Meditation – Purify Negativity

October 20th, 2008
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Dear Volker and all other Mother Beings,

To purify our negativies we created by ours previous non-virtuous actions in this life or in the past lifes, we can apply some methods, such as, regret, patience, acceptance, collection of merits, purification practices, offerings (to the Buddhas and all Living Beings), but we need to that holding up a happy mind.

We can performance these purifications during our formal meditation or meanwhile we are engaging in all other duties of our life.

Shantideva in his book “Guide to the Bodhisattva’s way of Life, tells us:

“… To the Able Ones, the supreme objects of offering,
I offer all the beautiful, scented flowers -
Mandaras, upalas, lotuses, and so forth -
And exquisite garlands, finely arranged.”

” To maintain this precious mind of Bodhichitta,
I make excellent offerings to the oceans of good qualities -
The Buddhas, the stainless jewel of th holy Dharma,
And the assembly of Bodhisattvas.

However many flowers and fruits there are,
And all the different types of medicine;
All the jewels there are in the world,
And all the pure, refreshing waters;

Mountains of jewels, forest groves,
And quiet and jouful places;
Heavenly trees adorned with flowers,
And trees whose branches hang with delicious fruits;

Scents that come from the celestial realms,
Incense, wish-granting trees, and jewelled trees;
Harvests that need no cultivation,
And all ornaments that are suitable to be offered;

Lakes and pools adorned with lotuses,
And the beautiful call of wild geese;
Everything that is unowned
Throughout all worlds as extensive as space -

Holding these in my mind, I offer them well
To the supreme beings, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
O Compassionate Ones, holy objects of offering,
Think of me kindly and accept what I offer.”

Make offerings in this way, holding up a very peaceful and beautiful mind we are applying a powerful method to overcome our attachements to material things and supassing one of our root delusion.

Even, when we go to drink some still water, and at the time we develop a thanksful mind and offer that as a precious treasure to Buddhas and dedicating this to the benefit of all Living Beings, we will be creating such strong causes to receive the Buddhas’ blessings upon our body, speech and mind.

Please, try it! Develop a peaceful mind, take breaths in and out, relax a bit, and imagine as much as you can, the space around and in front of you, full of offerings – beautiful ones, and then make a offering to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

Do not forget, after it and after all our virtuous actions, we have to dedicate the merit we have created by performance these meaningful actions.

L&K

Marcelo



buddhism meditation method, meditation, meditation guidance, merits, offerings, purification

Meditation – Relying upon Mental Stabilization

October 19th, 2008
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Dear all! Without peaceful and stable mind, we are blowing out by the breezes at all time, being not sure where we will land safely.

“…Cooled by flower-scented moonlight
And fanned by peaceful, silent breezes,
They abide joyfully without distraction,
With their minds focused on benefiting others.”

“Having generated effort in this way,
I should place my mind in concentration;
For a person whose mind is distracted
Is trapped within the fangs of the delusions.

Distractions do not arise for those
Who abide in physical and mental solitude.
Therefore, I should forsake the worldly life.
And abandon all disturbing thoughts.

Attachment to people, possessions, and reputation
Prevent me from forsaking the worldly life.
To abandon these obstacles,
I should contemplateas follows.

Realizing that delusions are throughly destroyed
By superior seeing conjoined with tranquil abiding,
I should first strive to attain tranquil abiding
By gladly forsaking attachment to wordly life.”

The meditation is to befefict us, to help us to be more concentrate in virtuous objects and less distracted by our delusions, to help us to help others – just it!

Enjoy your sunday and love the air and the sun’s lights.

L&K

Marcelo

buddhism meditation method, meditation, meditation guidance, mental stabilization

sundays around the world

October 19th, 2008
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Good morning Volker and others, I hope all of you are doing well.

Unfortunately we cannot stop this bolg for some reasons, first of all we have been developing some commitements overhere to other, at least I have got a commitment to you and vice-versa.

Secondly, life never ever stop, so how can we stop? But we can imput on it the speed we want to and also establishing our main priorities.

You have just got married, job, carrier, house, cats, friends, goals in life and now meditation. The meditation cannot be perceived as another commitment in your life but should be understanding as a method to help you to hold up all the others commitments you have in your life.

The meditation is a meaningful and special medicine for our problems, difficulties or just to provide to us a state of mind more peaceful and balanced to face our duties and commitments in life.

So, take you time, try to use your meditation to help you not to drepress you. I know sometimes when we start somethink new we want to get into it as deeper as we can. But, that is not the Buddhism message.

The Meditation is to make our happy and bring to us some peace and balaced. If these are not the fruits we are harvesting from it, that means are making mystakes in our practice.

Do you remember when I said: enjoy your Path. Yeah, we need to learn how to enjoy our lifes with all those responsabilities, commitments, pains, sufferings, hord works, happiness, excitations, anxieties, anxiounesses and all phenomena.

Get it easy and you will se the colourful life and way we have received from your karma. Mainly be Patience with yourself, but never stop!

L&K

Marcelo



karma, meditation, path of life, patience, way of life

Sunday thoughts

October 19th, 2008
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Marcelo,

First of all thank you for posting so much input. It is inspiring to see your energy and thoughts, help and advise on the Buddhism and Life. Thank you so much for it.
However, I hate to admit it, it comes at a time where it is almost too much for me to digest. I would love to put time on hold now and sit down, re-read all your entries, a couple of books and get into a routine of meditating before I continue with time. A time hole I need, if that makes sense.
I know that is not possible. What we need to do is take one step at a time. I need to revisit every entry, every book, every comment and meditate every day. 5 or 10 minutes, 7 or 12, but I need to do it.
Isn’t that the same with anything in life. If we take baby steps, it will continue to grow into a routine and we will eventually reach our goal. I have written about that a couple of times in my coaching section of my other blog. The worst thing I find is that if you know an answer but you either do not have the time to proceed or you don’t have the stamina to proceed. Or is it both?
I assume it comes back to Karma. Really liked your entry about it. Because, we can only harvest what we sow! Ergo sum. There is not, “we achieve half of what we sow” or “we achieve double of what we sow”. It is as it is. Amen. Your meditation entry is wonderful too, giving guidance. Reason me linking to them is to structure my thoughts of what you wrote.
Marcelo, you are right, we need to structure this blog a bit more. Maybe we need to move some of the entries, e.g. about meditation or about Karma as a summary on our website? Also some section about Buddhist text and teaching? We could write essays about it and publish them on publications, similar to what I do on my website?
I now need to set myself some goals. Finding time and persistence as well as stamina and routine for meditation. Secondly, I need to find a spiritual teacher.
I keep you posted on my progress.
Tust you are well, have a great Sunday.
Love and Kindness from London,
Volker

Buddhism, buddhism meditation method, happiness, inspiration, karma, love and kindness, meditation, self development

Meditation – relying upon effort

October 17th, 2008
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Good Morning Volker and all others Living Beings.

Today is Friday at this day, normally, we start to become excited because weekend is coming through. We think: my days off are here, I will have time to myself, to enjoy my life, to see friends, to do things that usually I cannot do during my working days… Uhmmm I am not sure if this is right, if this is the best thought to be hold by us….

Let we see which advises Shantideva is giving to ur today, which knowledges he’s giving to us to think about and meditate on it.

“When I find myself assailed by a host of delusions,
I will oppose them in a thousand ways.
Like a lion among a group of foxes,
I will not allow myself to be harmed by delusions.”

“…Tormented by memories of my previous non-virtuos
And hearing the sounds of impending hell,
Out of terror I shall cover myself in excrement!
What shall I be able to do in such a pathetic state?

If even in this human life I shall experience terror
Like that felt by a fish being cooked alive,
What can be said of the unbearable sufferings of hell
That I shall experience as a consequence of my non-virtuous actions?

As a result of the non-virtues I have committed,
I shall be reborn in the hot hells
Where my tender, young flesh will be scalded by hot, molten metals;
So how can I remain at ease under the control of laziness?

I wish for higher attainments without having to make any effort,
Permanent freedom without having patiently to endure any pain,
And to remain like a long-life gos while living in the jaws of death.
How foolish I am! When death comes, I shall be overwhelmed by suffering!”

Shantideva, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s way of Life.

What will choose, remain lazy and at the time of our death, to having no control upon our final destiny, or starting now to build up our Path in virtues actions to attain great results and to be carried by the Buddhas to the Pure Land?

L&K

Marcelo


buddhism meditation method, laziness, meditation

Meditation – Merits

October 16th, 2008
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Everytime we perform a virtuos action, we create a merit, even a small action like to help a friend to fix something else at home. These merits or the collection of these Merits are the cause to our enlightenment.
We have two main collections in our Buddhism practice, the first one is the collection of wisdom and the second is the collection of Merit.

Unfornately as Geshe-la says in his book Transform your life:

“…Unfortunately, it is easier to destroy our positive potentialities, for if we fail to dedicate our virtuous actions they can be made completely powerless by just one moment of anger. Our mind is like a treasure chest and our virtuous actions are like the jewels. If we do not safeguard these through dedication, whenever we become angry it is as if we had put a thief among our treasures.”

For that reason we need to dedicate all our positive or virtuous actions, and then we will create our collection of Merit. Remember we perform virtuous actions with our body, speech and mind. Thoughts are causes for Merit or not. If we perform virtuous mind, thoughts all day long, we will be collecting Merits all day, and easily our Collection of Merit will give us a lot of causes to become a Buddha.

After our meditation session, because we have create the correct intentions, we have gathered together a lot of merits and then we need to dedicate them for a virtuous object, like as, the world peace, for someone to get well for his sickness, for our true happiness, for someone else’s happiness and so forth.

It is very important, that we dedicate all our merits we have collected, otherwise as Geshe-la’s explained to us…we will loss all of them, and our practice and effort will become useless.

So, do not forget ever to dedicate your virtuous actions,

L&K

Marcelo

buddhism meditation method, meditation, meditation guidance, merits

Meditation – Relying upon Effort

October 16th, 2008
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Good Morning! From the deepest of my heart I wish everyone to be happier and more peaceful today and these feeling could longer be in your mind.

Today We have got these wonderful words about Effort to meditate on:

“… If I check carefully, I can see that the Lord of Death
Is systematically slaughtering everyone;
Yet still I am not concerned about my death,
Just like an animal unconcerned about being butchered.

The Lord of Death is looking for his next victim
So that he can prevent him from traveling the path to liberation,
And that victim might well be me;
So how can I just indulge in worldly plesures?

The time of death will com quickly,
So accumulate wisdom and merit while you can.
Do not wait until the time of death to abandon laziness,
For then it will be too late!

With some things not yet started
And others half-finished,
The Lord of Death will suddenly strike
And I shall think, “Oh no, this is the end for me!”

When I become a victim of the Lord of Death,
My relatives – their eyes red and swollen with sorrow
And their faces flushed with tears -
Will finally give up hope.”

Shantideva, Guide to The Bodhissatva’s Way of Life.
Now, please sit down quietly, close your eyes very gentle allowing some streams of light come through in our eyes. For some while concentrate your mind and thoughts on your breath – without force or slowing down, a normal and gentle rhythm. Stay still in this position and focusing your mind on your breath until you feel better.
After to get your body and mind calm down, you are ready to start your meditation.
Now, first of all, we have to create the right reasons to become better in this life and the correct motivation to receive the Buddha’s Blessings. At first, we just imagine that we are surrounding by all Living Beings, that we are not alone and we can imagine that our family, partner, friends and other closest persons are close to us and after them all other Living Beings. Afterwhile we can try to visualize all these people surrounding us.
Now, we can generate a mind of compassion towards all Living Beings or to someone close to us who is having some probems right now, such as a member of our family, friends, partner or if we feel confortable we can generate this kind of virtuos mind towards everyone, without exception, but do not worry if this is to hard to imagine we can keep our intentions upon the closest people to us.
Holding this intentation in our mind, we can go to third stage: request to all Buddhas to bless us, and then we imagine that from their hearts lights and nectar are flowing down to us, entering to our body, speech and mind and purify them, purify completely from all of our faults and negative actions that we have create since begginingless time.
We keep our atention as longer as we can – without distractions.
Each time we loss our atention, concentration or focus, we do not need to be discouraged, just start again. With patience day by day our atention and focus on a virtuos object will improve easily with we put our effort on it.
Please, do not worry, in the beggining is very hard to keep our focus on our meditation object for more than 5 seconds. That’s true no longer than 5 seconds is our capacity or hability to keep our mind focus on a single object. Our minds are full of distractions. But we need to persist with a very patience mind and do not worry about the results at now. They will can sooner!
So, now on we can read this words again and try to thinking and analizing the real meaning of these words…after we get a conclusion we can place our mind on this conclusion, and then focusing on his meaning and how does it affect our guide my actions, we remain in this position for a while or for the time we have got free to practice it. Normally this practice does not take more than 10 min.
So it is just 10 minutes!
Day by day we normally feel more comfortable with this practice and then we will wish to do it longer.
I hope you enjoy it.
L&K
Marcelo

buddhism meditation method, meditation guidance