A love letter from Don: 3/12/09

Welcome
I want to welcome four folks from the international community into the family of Happy Beings. Please join me in welcoming: Angelina from Scotland; Karis from Brazil; Herminia and Jorga from Canada.

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is only a vision,

But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness

and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

- The Sufi, 1200 BC

It all boils down to just this moment. This experience that you are having right now is it.
This moment is life—it’s what is real. And it’s just what it is. You can pile all the thoughts, feelings, and imaginations into it that you want, but it still is just this. And no matter how much money you have in the bank or don’t have, how youthful or old you are, how talented or untalented you are, how successful or unsuccessful you are, you still have just this. No billionaire has any more or less of this. People try to dress it up in ideas, but it still comes down to just this simple moment. You can love it or hate it, but you still just have this. – Gina Lake, author (excerpt from Her book Living In The Now.)


Living in the Moment
From a young age we learn the dichotomies of life. We learn to differentiate good from evil, right from wrong, happy from sad, smart from ignorant, and healthy from sickly. The list that separates one person or group from the other, is continuous and far-reaching, and exists in virtually every aspect of our lives.

Dichotomous thinking shows up in our relationships with family members, co-workers, friends, and neighbors. It also appears in special interest groups, church groups,

FYI
Self-Awareness
Workshop and Rest Retreat

On one weekend in either May or June The Center for Happy Beings will host a two-day Self-Awareness retreat.

We will do several workshops in overcoming life burdening obstacles, and in revisiting/redirecting our individual Lifemap.™ The program will consist of class participation, individual life-mapping exercises, guided meditations, short silent meditations, and private reflection time.

If you are interested, please email me and let me know your most desirable weekend, and if you will be needing hotel accommodations.

Join us. It will be relaxing and participants have lots of fun. They will experience the joy that accompanies spiritual growth and being with others who are doing the same.

You will learn a new way to deal with issues that bug you, and go home with new ideas on how to reduce stress, and experience calmness and peacefulness in your everyday life. And, you will have a new Lifemap™ in your hands.
Send an email for more information and program outline. db ¤

social groups, and political groups. Dichotomous thinking is steeped in a single core thought; which is, this: I have an idea about someone or something that someone else does not uphold or condone. And as a result of this opposition, I feel like I am defending myself against a force of resistance. This core thought predisposes the mind to judgmental thinking.

This kind of thinking then creates unfavorable thoughts; which raises judgments about the opposing person or group. These judgments are propelled by the mental power put behind them. They are empowered by some degree of meaning. And based on the degree to which the judgments are meaningful, the thoughts become part of who we are. They are absorbed into our persona.

The thoughts then travel before us from moment to moment. Because they belong to us, we get attached to their meaning, and choose not to move forward without them. Past thoughts become a point of reference for living in the current moment. Thusly thoughts created by past ideas and events are carried forth into the present. The present is used as a kind of theatre screen on which we project past perceptions and judgments. The carryover of past thoughts alters the present. No longer is the current moment a space-in-mind, where we are availed to a new consciousness. Rather it is filled, till it is saturated, with thoughts that gush into the mind from the past. And as a result we lose our freedom to think and choose. Rather our minds are sunk in a moment-to-moment rut gouged out by experience that stem from the past and extended far into the future. Single present moments that are waiting in the future already are potentially filled with past perceptions and judgments. We need only arrive in the moment to find that our past
thoughts are already there.

There may seem to be no end to the inner torment and stress that we carry with us. It is no wonder. When the mind is trained to carry past judgment forward, it is availed little opportunity to retain the cluttered past from entering the pristine present. All the past junk is jammed into this pure empty, unoccupied space in the mind. Bam! There you have it. Instantly the mind is burdened, electrified by judgmental thinking.

Trinidad Hunt
Life is made of millions of moments, but we live only one of these moments at a time. As we begin to change this moment, we begin to change our lives.


“Do as little harm to others as you can; make any sacrifice for your true friends; be responsible for yourself and ask nothing of others; and grab all the fun you can. Don't give much thought to yesterday, don't worry about tomorrow, live in the moment, and trust that your existence has meaning even when the world seems to be all blind chance and chaos. When life lands a hammer blow in your face, do your best to respond to the hammer as if it had been a cream pie. Sometimes black humor is the only kind we can summon, but even dark laughter can sustain.” - Dean Koontz quotes (American author)

Sunday Morning
Notes from our inspirational sharing program on Sunday morning. We meet on Sunday and speak about an individual topic to reflect on throughout the week. A guided meditation then takes place,
Clearing the “now”
Moving from the rut to the light is possible, but it will take initiative and will. If we can train the mind to worry we can train it to be peaceful. If we can train it to judge we can train it to accept. All mind training begins with recognizing the way the mind is trained. In that recognition first, we are to become aware of how we think. Is the present moment used to rehash thoughts about past events? If the answer is yes“ then the next question to ask is this: Do I want to make a shift in the way I think? Do I want to change the way I feel? Do I want to keep the present moment, open for peaceful thoughts and a content feeling? If the answer is “yes” then here are some suggestions that I am offering you.

Be open to other choices. Creating a new you is based on the willingness to consciously make choices that were not previously made. So these choices will come with difficulty. The mind, being trained as it is, will resist. It has been trained to judge, so it will judge any new idea, by first processing it through its judgmental thinking pattern. It will fight for doing things the old way, and judge new choices as being uncomfortable and unproductive. In doing so, the mind is hoping to convince you to give up on the new choice.

Seek guidance. Guides are available. Personal guides, books and DVD’s are plentiful. Find something that works, and stick with it. Without a guide, it is easier to give up and fall back and not know how to rebound. Proper guidance will serve as a coaching tool to move you to a mental space that is satisfying and fulfilling.

Learn to clear the present moment. Meditation is the best source for clearing the mind. It is a self-created phenomenon, and available to anyone who is on the pathway to inner-peace. Two kinds of meditation practices are available. The first is guided meditation where you follow your own direction or the direction of the meditation leader. During a guided meditation session you will follow instructions that focus your concentration. This helps train you in stopping the mind from instantly


And we wrap-up either in conversation about the program or in a short and quiet time of self-reflection. If you would like to attend please email me and I’ll give you the scoop.

The programs over the last couple of weeks were devoted to returning to turning points in younger years, and also understanding Love, and how we touch the Divine Mind in others through Love and forgiveness.

In our guided meditations we call the presence of God into the room, then we cleared a place in the mind where we viewed God and heard His message. It is quite an uplifting and exhilarating experience. db ¤

Mother Teresa
"Spread love everywhere you go: first of all
in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting."


filling with distracting thoughts. It can also be a very comforting and reassuring practice. The second is silent meditation or in Zen known as zazen meditation. In this meditation exercise, the mind is emptied of all thought and open to divine enlightenment. The emptied mind is purely accessible to Divine Intelligence. It is open to communicating with the mind of God. Generally in the meditation groups that I conduct, we complete a guided meditation before beginning the zazen.

Keep going. Chances are you will give up. The voice of the past will tell you that you are too busy, or that you are just too tired, or you just can’t concentrate during meditation. It happens to almost everyone. But if you truly want to find the way of inner peace and true happiness, then the way is open to you. Having stopped, you may not want to start again because you feel like you have failed . However, to start again really means that you are faithful and not a failure. You are faithful to the choice that will deliver you to a new you, to a choice that allows true love to be present in your mind, to a choice that allows you to accept rather than judge, to a choice that allows you to realize just how you fit into the Divine Plan, a choice that reveals to you your purpose.


No matter what it is you have learned, you can learn something else. The mind is fertile ground, and any thought-seed that is planted in the mind can be cultivated and harvested. You could view the mind as an orchard. Plant the trees that bare the fruit you enjoy. Nourish the trees. Protect the trees from harm, and allow the light to do its thing. Tell your self what state of mind would bring you happiness. Do you intend to harvest anguish or peace? Nourish that intention with appropriate thoughts. Protect the mind from thoughts that are counteractive to your intentions. And allow the light to do its thing. Allow the light of Love to synthesize your intentions into fruition, the fruit that you intend to receive. db ¤


About Zen
Zen can be a difficult concept to understand. Translated by many as meaning "meditation" or "a state of mind", Zen can be perceived as a new understanding on how to live one's life. Demanding persistence, patience and discipline, living a life of Zen everyday is not an easy process but can ultimately prove to be extremely meaningful and worthwhile.
Zen is not a religion. Zen does not tell you what to do. Zen is an approach that has been refined through many years that can be practiced everyday by anyone. The main aim of Zen is to develop self-awareness and an understanding of everything around you. Through the course of one's life, people are conditioned into believing things without thinking about them too deeply. Zen encourages you to release lifelong conditioning and preconceptions and enables you to find a deeper understanding of yourself and reality. Zen frees your mind to live a life of heightened awareness which in turn enriches and improves your daily life experiences.
Source - Everyday Zen
Author: Health Spa Guru, articlesbase.com