What the Buddha Said ... his last teaching

Be a light unto yourself, betake yourself to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth. Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves. -The Buddha

You Can Be a Light Unto Yourself...

To be aware is to watch your bodily activity, the way you walk, the way you sit, the movements of your hands: it is to hear the words you use, to observe all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your reactions. It includes awareness of the unconscious, with its traditions, its instinctual knowledge, and the immense sorrow it has accumulated—not only personal sorrow, but the sorrow of man. You have to be aware of all that; and you cannot be aware of it if you are merely judging, evaluating, saying, "This is good and that is bad, this I will keep and that I will reject," all of which only makes the mind dull, insensitive.

From awareness comes attention. Attention flows from awareness when in that awareness there is no choice, no personal choosing, no experiencing... but merely observing. And, to observe, you must have in the mind a great deal of space. A mind that is caught in ambition, greed, envy, in the pursuit of pleasure and self-fulfillment, with its inevitable sorrow, pain, despair, and anguish—such a mind has no space in which to observe, to attend. It is crowded with its own desires, going round and round in its own backwaters of reaction. You cannot attend if your mind is not highly sensitive, sharp, reasonable, logical, sane, and healthy, without the slightest shadow of neuroticism. The mind has to explore every corner of itself, leaving no spot uncovered, because if there is a single dark corner of one's mind which one is afraid to explore, from that springs illusion...

It is only in the state of attention that you can be a light unto yourself, and then every action of your daily life springs from that light—every action—whether you are doing your job, cooking, going for a walk, mending clothes, or what you will. This whole process is meditation... J. Krishnamurti


http://www.teosofia.com/meditation.html

Be A Happiness Fool

Latest research seems to point to optimism as being the attitude of winners. In the long run, and no matter what happens to you it is always better to face life with a positive attitude. Two people can experience the same event in two entirely different ways with entirely different effects on their bodies and minds. So the rule of thumb is positive self-talk. No matter what happens tell yourself why this is a good thing, and watch your life transform.
Positive self-talk is known to positively affects your heart and other body functions. Apparently we are easily fooled, and in this case it is really great to be a happiness fool.
These are some of the things that bring me happiness:
companionship & communication
feeling healthy
natural beauty
creating art
children
dogs
making my home nice
spirit
having enough money, food, shelter, clothes etc. and some to share
serendipity & synchronicity ( when the universe talks back to me)
learning and discovery

What makes you happy? Here's a quote I love:

Happiness cannot be found through great effort and willpower, but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go. Don’t strain yourself, there is nothing to do or undo. Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind has No real importance at all, has little reality whatsoever. Why identify with, and become attached to it, passing judgment upon it and ourselves? Far better to simply let the entire game happen on its own, springing up and falling back like waves, without changing or manipulating anything and notice how everything vanishes and reappears, magically, again and again, time without end. Only our searching for happiness prevents us from seeing it. It is like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching, or a dog chasing its own tail. Although peace and happiness do not exist as an actual thing or place, it is always available and accompanies you every instant. Don’t believe in the reality of good and bad experiences; they are like today’s ephemeral weather, like rainbows in the sky. Wanting to grasp the ungraspable, you exhaust yourself in vain. as soon as you open and relax this tight fist of grasping, infinite space is there open, inviting and comfortable. Make use of this spaciousness, this freedom and natural ease. Don’t search any further looking for the great awakened elephant, who is already resting quietly at home in front of your own hearth. Nothing to do or undo, nothing to force, nothing to want, and nothing missing. Emaho! Marvelous! Everything happens by itself. Lama Gendun Rinpoche

A Guide to Successful Manifesting

1) Set Goals and have Clear Intentions
Start with goals that are relatively easy to reach, ones that do not challenge your belief systems too much, thereby causing little resistance. It is good to stretch a little, in terms of your beliefs as to what is possible, but don't go too far when you first start with the process of creative manifesting and visualization

2) Create a Clear Picture / Vivid Idea
It is very important to be very specific about your wishes and desires. It is also important to let go of the specifics of how it will come to you. For example, if you want a new home, do not give a moment's thought to how the money will come to pay for the home, simply create a clear picture of your new home and allow the Universe to sort out the details.

3) Frequent Focus/Discipline
The more you visualize, the more real it will become. Call upon your natural skills of discipline and make your manifesting a part of your daily routine

4) Focus on having, not on lack
Do not give any thought, power or energy to the thought of not having what you want.

5) Challenge your feelings
When feelings of "I can't have this", "I am not worthy" or "This is impossible" come, simply stop yourself in your tracks and ask "How do I want to feel?" or "What thought do I wish to have", then get back on track with thinking along the lines of having.

6) Inner Work
Make it a part of your life to work on your inner negative images and beliefs concerning yourself. Use regular mediation to re-program your beliefs, seek out therapists, counselors and workshops that can assist you to change your inner dialogue. Manifesting can take you on to a path of deep inner healing.

7) Make Manifesting a daily part of your life
You are already expending a lot of thought energy towards lack, and creating conditions that don't suit you. Simply use that energy consciously to create your hearts desire.

8) Contact Soul
Spend time sitting with yourself and ask your inner being or Soul to be with you. The more you do this, the more you will be infused with the natural creative abundance of your Soul.

9) Do not use Manifesting to manipulate others
If you are looking for a life partner, do not use manifesting techniques for getting a specific person to love you. Simply make a clear request to the Universe for your ideal love, and allow the Universe to take care of the details.

10) Practice Generosity and Gratitude
The more you appreciate what you have, the more open you will be to receive more. Acts of generosity will affirm your belief in unlimited abundance.

From: http://www.choosingprosperity.com

Summer Slipped By

Summer slipped away, this one going faster than any other summer I can remember. We didn’t seem to have those doldrums… the days and days of intense heat when the air has ripples and the ozone warnings stay in the red zone. It was a lovely summer of green leaves and bright blue skies. No hurricanes came our way. Such blessings! I got to re-experience summer through my friendship with my granddaughter. Together we discovered a box turtle hiding in the long grass. We watched families of deer run through the pasture. I got to enjoy the fun of jumping over the waves together at the edge of the shore.
Life has become very simple. There’s work and there’s time to play with Jasmine. I find time for dog walks but not much for housework.

Designing My Day

Penney sent me a postcard. It says “Make Life Your Work of Art”.
I have added a one liner to my signature, “Live life as a creation.”

What are we saying? How will I design my day today?

World Peace comes to mind… I will look for signs that World Peace is a reality.
Today someone sent me a link to this site: http://www.onlyloveprevails.org/
ONLY LOVE PREVAILS... 29,436 people in 160 Countries have already signed up to participate in a World Peace Experiment!

Also found on the web the World Peace Society http://www.worldpeace.org/


I have help from spiritual forces available to me at all times.

It does seem to me that I am frequently “helped”. In asking for help with a friend’s situation the timing and connections were awesome. Just the right people came forward to assist me at every step. I got into the jail to see him, I found an awesome bail bondswoman, I didn’t have to come up with any money, he got a new living situation, all his stuff got moved etc. It was very smooth. All I had to do was my part, and that was what I could do without compromising myself. It also left him with renewed self-confidence because he also was able to actively participate in resolving his own problems. Each step of the way I asked for divine help, and although I didn't see any angels many wonderful people gave me enormous help to accomplish what needed to be done.

We Were Made for These Times

by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph. D

My friends do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people. You are right in your assessments. The luster and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement...

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind...Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your vaneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear.

Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to a voice greater? Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and peace, but only a small determined group who will not give up during the first, second, One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these---to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I, too, have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours.
They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

You Can Be a Light Unto Yourself...

Be a light unto yourself, betake yourself to no external refuge. Hold fast to the Truth. Look not for refuge to anyone besides yourselves. -The Buddha

To be aware is to watch your bodily activity, the way you walk, the way you sit, the movements of your hands: it is to hear the words you use, to observe all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your reactions. It includes awareness of the unconscious, with its traditions, its instinctual knowledge, and the immense sorrow it has accumulated—not only personal sorrow, but the sorrow of man. You have to be aware of all that; and you cannot be aware of it if you are merely judging, evaluating, saying, "This is good and that is bad, this I will keep and that I will reject," all of which only makes the mind dull, insensitive. From awareness comes attention. Attention flows from awareness when in that awareness there is no choice, no personal choosing, no experiencing... but merely observing. And, to observe, you must have in the mind a great deal of space. A mind that is caught in ambition, greed, envy, in the pursuit of pleasure and self-fulfillment, with its inevitable sorrow, pain, despair, anguish—such a mind has no space in which to observe, to attend. It is crowded with its own desires, going round and round in its own backwaters of reaction. You cannot attend if your mind is not highly sensitive, sharp, reasonable, logical, sane, healthy, without the slightest shadow of neuroticism. The mind has to explore every corner of itself, leaving no spot uncovered, because if there is a single dark corner of one's mind which one is afraid to explore, from that springs illusion... It is only in the state of attention that you can be a light unto yourself, and then every action of your daily life springs from that light—every action—whether you are doing your job, cooking, going for a walk, mending clothes, or what you will. This whole process is meditation... J. Krishnamurti

http://www.teosofia.com/meditation.html

Over In the Meadow

I will ask a question in honor of the new moon. Yesterday I was awake around five and looked out to see the moon, just the finest sliver of a moon, and Venus sitting just to her right about ten degrees apart, it was so pretty and looked so delicate in the sky. A moment later I looked again and it was gone, obscured by clouds and then hidden by the sunrise.

So here is my question since new moons are for wishes, “What do I wish for?”

I wish to be lifted up spiritually. I wish to be lifted up to a new perspective where all my problems have simple solutions. I wish to increase my vibration, to vibrate at a higher octave.



What do I wish for? I wish for a closer connection to the natural world. I live very closely with my dogs. They are my family. They are a lot of fun, and a lot of trouble. Happily we live in the best place ever for dogs… a great farm with woods so they can run around free all day. They like to spend a good part of each day lying at my feet, usually sprawled under my computer table, or right behind my chair. Each day we go for a walk. It is not a long walk but it winds through the farm and out to a large meadow, and then into the woods. I don’t usually go into the woods. I have a chair down in the meadow and I usually sit down there for a while and contemplate the sky and the woods, watch butterflies and centipedes. If I get down to the meadow before the dogs, who run wherever their noses take them, I will sometimes see deer running across the meadow, slipping into the trees. The meadow is my meditation room, so large and peaceful and painted in such beautiful colors.

From my office I can see another meadow, a pasture where five black Angus bulls roam daily eating the grass. Sometimes the deer jump the electric fence to join the bulls in the pasture. When you look back a minute later they have vanished, kind of the way the Moon and Venus vanished. I know they are still there, but I can’t see them.

Spirit is like this for me. Sometimes I see it so clearly in my life. I come around a bend in the path, and suddenly there it is. The next minute it is gone, and all I have is the memory of its beauty, and the pure conviction of its presence even when I can’t see it. What will you wish for?

Spring Again

Another year has passed. For years I marked time by my daughter's growing, but after a certain point kids are just grown and you are surprised when birthdays roll around and they are suddenly 25 or 30. Now I mark time by my granddaughter. I have lost my identity and taken on a new persona. I am "Grammie".

Today she went out with a watering can to water the daffodils and found that they had all gone. I saw her out in the field crying and went to see what was wrong. Her flowers were all withered up. "Its okay!" I tried to tell her. "They will come back again next year."

It is so interesting to see life through her eyes. I too have cried for many things that seemed as if they were gone forever. Then after awhile they showed up again, sometimes in a new form. Everything in her world is new, and what she doesn't know she expects me to understand and handle. She trusts me, the daffodils will come again. I show her the buttercups, the dandelions, life will go on.