NOT MORE THAN 200 SV ELSE JHT

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We are living in a waking dream that completely defines and delimits our experience of life. The rest of the world is merely a backdrop as we struggle to get somewhere, to be a better person, to accomplish, to avoid making mistakes. As in a dream, we take our stories to be the truth—a compelling reality—and they consume most of our attention. While we eat lunch or drive home from work, while we talk to our partners or read to our children at night, we continue to replay our worries and plans. Inherent in the trance is the belief that no matter how hard we try, we are always, in some way, falling short.

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ACTIVITY MEDITN 

Activity — a More Complete Practice

Activity, standing, or dancing meditation, in other words, can be a superior method — not just a compromised alternative to sitting. If you can manage three activities of body-speech and mind together, you involve more concentration, which can be invaluable in our busy, modern lives. As Larry Mermelstein said, in a feature on modern-day Vajrayana:

“Our world is moving a lot faster than it probably was back in those days and so, yes, the stresses and complexities seem to be much greater than centuries ago. But so what? The very choicelessness of it is good for us. We have to do everything we can to incorporate the teachings on a continual basis in our lives.” [4]

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“You can meditate walking, standing, sitting or lying down,” said Buddhist monk Noah Yuttadhammo. “Each requires a different degree of effort as opposed to degree of concentration. Walking meditation having the highest degree of effort, lying meditation having the highest degree of concentration.” [2]

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While the female chicks go on to lay the more than 1.2 trillion eggs humans consume annually, 6.5 billion male chicks each year are hatched, only to be quickly snuffed out. That’s because they don’t lay eggs,

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Buddhist mindfulness meditation called vipassana, which means “to see clearly” in Pali, the language of the Buddha. It is a practice based on teachings that explicitly acknowledged the suffering I was feeling and offered a way to awaken from it.

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  “A vast shower of merit will pour down on a giver.”  –Samyutta Nikaya I.101 

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WHEN WE STOP RUNNING: BECOMING AVAILABLE TO THE LIFE OF THE MOMENT

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The real bad news

How we respond to bad news reflects not just how bad the news is but also how bad our view of the world is. Whenever some bad news comes: some people just go off on a mental spiral downward; where they become pessimistic, cynical, desperate – and while the news might be bad, their reaction reveals that their own basic view of the world is itself bad. If any news can just set us off, then that means we haven’t found some stable foundation for our own lives. And that is the real bad news.

Watch this content at: The real bad news

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BG 12.17 One who neither rejoices nor grieves, who neither laments nor desires, and who renounces both auspicious and inauspicious things – such a devotee is very dear to Me.

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