Stop thinking and talking about it and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

I’ve been rereading Julie Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” and came across this Zen paradigm in the margins.  After reading it once, I stopped to think about what it meant.  When I see two negatives in a sentence, it always gives me pause.

Stop thinking and talking about it and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

When I encounter a statement I wish to ponder, I like to reword it, pull it apart and think about it more.

Stop thinking and talking about it.  That alone is something to ponder.  How often do we think about writing a book, getting a new job, making new friends, taking a cooking class - anything that requires action.  Yet we think about it and think about it until we decide it takes too much effort or we drop the idea and start thinking about doing something else – again, thinking but not acting on the thought.  We spend so much time in our heads and get nothing accomplished.

The same could be said about talking about something.  We talk to our friends when something is bothering us. We talk about our dreams, our worries, our desires, our complaints, but if we don’t take any action to change the situation, we are caught in an endless cycle of wishes and negative talk.

The second part of this Zen paradigm, there is nothing you will not be able to know.  Reworded, it says you will know.  Stop thinking and talking about it, and you will know.

What do we know?   We know the answers. 

The answers to what?  To whatever we are dreaming about and worrying about.

If we are in touch with who we truly are, we can bring the question or discussion to our heart.  Our heart knows the answer.  But in order to hear the answer, we must be still.  We must find a place of solitude and silence.

Try it now. Find a quiet space.  Sit comfortably on the floor or a chair. Take several deep breaths and let the air out slowly.  Become relaxed.  Pose the question to your heart .  Sit for several minutes or as long as it takes.  In the silence, an answer will come.

In the process of meditating, we become intuitive.  We know the answers to difficult questions.  Each of us has the capability to move from inaction to action by being silent.  Try it out.  You’ll be surprised at the answers you receive from your heart.

Posted: September 4th, 2008 under Stained Glass, meditation, mindfulness, present moment.
Comments: 1

How many times have you heard someone say “Pay Attention”?

I can remember my teacher from first grade saying that all the time.  In school, we were asked to pay attention so that we could learn.  At home, our parents would tell us to pay attention when they were giving us instructions on cleaning the house or cooking a meal.  But I don’t remember anyone telling me to pay attention to life.

We go through each day doing things, time passes.  We eat, we talk to people, we go to work, we exercise, we play video games, we email and text message, we watch TV.  Yet I wonder as we go through our day, how much of the time are we paying attention?

What does it mean to pay attention when we eat?  How many meals do we gobble down while engaged in another activity?  Eating breakfast and watching the morning news or checking email.  Eating lunch with co-workers, catching up on what everyone is working on or talking about the drama in our lives.  No one’s ever really taught us to pay attention to our meals. 

Have you ever engaged in a Mindful Eating Meditation?  It’s fairly simply.  Take a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts.  Engage all your senses in the process.  Let’s say you have a strawberry in front of you.  Pick up the strawberry.  Feel the texture between your fingers, the softness of the leaves on top, the fuzziness of the fruit.  Rub the fruit along your lips.  Smell the strawberry.  Sense the sweetness.  Lick the strawberry to get a glimmer of taste.  Take a small bite of the fruit.  Feel the juice drip into your mouth.  Chew the piece of fruit thoroughly before taking another bite.  Listen to the sound coming from your mouth as you eat.  Maybe you release a sigh of enjoyment.  Eating one strawberry in this manner may take you several minutes, but you will discover that you’ve never eaten a more flavorful strawberry in your life.  By paying attention to your food, you enjoy it more.

The same concept hold true for everything else we do in life.  If you are talking with people, listen intently to what the other person has to say without thinking of what your response is going to be.  Don’t cut off someone in mid-sentence.  If you are working, concentrate on your work and let go of your thoughts about what happened yesterday or what you’re going to do this evening.  If you are responding to email, text messaging, watching TV or playing, no matter what you are engaged in, do with the utmost attention. 

By paying attention, we live in the present moment and enjoy our lives more fully.

So when you find your mind wandering, gently remind yourself to pay attention.  You’ll have a happier day.

Namaste´.

Posted: August 19th, 2008 under Stained Glass, meditation, mindfulness, present moment.
Comments: none

Here’s a little teabag wisdom to get your day going.

“Mental happiness is total relaxation.”

Now, this is good.  What does it mean to be mentally happy?  No worries.  No arguments or judgments about yourself or others.  No anxiety about the past or the future.  No negative emotions.  But instead of defining mental happiness in terms of what it is not, let’s define it in a positive way.

Mental happiness is waking up from a good night’s sleep.  It’s gazing at a sleeping newborn.  It’s sitting alone by the ocean listening to the waves roll in.  It’s enjoying the magnificence of a sunrise or sunset.  It’s smelling the clean air surrounded by pine trees in the mountains.  It’s taking a few minutes out of each day to be silent and marvel at the wonders of the universe.  It’s being grateful for everything you have in your life.

I’m sure the list is endless and different for everyone.  What does mental happiness mean to you?

Posted: August 3rd, 2008 under Stained Glass, meditation, mindfulness, present moment.
Comments: 4

As an adult, we remember too many things and think too much.  We worry, become anxious and fearful.  We tend to remember the bad stuff and forget the good stuff.  But take a moment to look at life through a child’s eyes.

A child wakes up in the morning and wants to run and play.

A child looks up in the sky and imagines faces and cats and hippos in the clouds.

A child picks a bouquet of dandelion flowers and gives them to his mother.

A child sings happy songs.

A child steps in all the rain puddles as she walks down the street.

A child sits quietly and plays in the mud with his mother’s baking dishes.

A child enjoys playing baseball, soccer, and other group sports.

A child eats peanut butter off a spoon.

A child jumps on a bed.

A child learns language so she can talk to others.

A child crawls around on hands and knees.

A child oo’s and aa’s at the beauty of nature.

A child likes to stop and pet a dog or cat, their fur is so soft.

A child builds sand castles on the beach.

A child collects sea shells on vacation.

A child stands on his head to experience the world upside down.

A child smiles at friendly faces.

So for today, let’s look at life through a child’s eyes.  Let’s go through our day with a sense of awe and wonder.  Let’s be present to each moment and rejoice in it’s beauty.

Posted: June 14th, 2008 under Stained Glass, present moment.
Comments: 3

I woke up early this morning with a feeling of gratitude.

I have so much to be thankful for, as a human being, as a woman, a wife and mother, an American.  I sit here sipping my tea, looking all around me.  As an American, I have my freedom and live in a beautiful country, free to vote, to wear what I want, to choose the food I want to eat, free to do what I want in life.  As a wife and mother, I have a family to love and family that loves me.  My immediate family is small, yet the number of my extended family and friends is large and grows with each passing day.  As a woman, I am grateful to have the ability to bear children.  As a human being, I am thankful for my compassion, kindness and love, for my ability to think and reason and make my own decisions.

My gratitude also extends to the material world.  I am grateful for the home that shelters me from the weather, clothes to cover my body, furniture to sit comfortably, food that is nourishing and plentiful.  I read the newspaper and listen to the news hearing reports of so many people living in poverty, without food and shelter.  Countries are at war, destroying what little these people have.  There are so many who are out of work and don’t have the money for basic staples.  I do what I can to help, but the need is so great.

I glance outside at the green leaves of the magnolia tree, the lilies, petunias, and ornamental grass.  The sky is overcast in early morning fog, yet I know that to the west is the ocean, to the east are mountains.  Down the road there are rivers and lakes, waterfalls and streams.  The sun will appear later today, the moon will rise later this evening and fill the sky with millions of stars.  I am so grateful for this beautiful planet and this wondrous universe.

What are you grateful for?

Posted: June 11th, 2008 under Stained Glass, mindfulness, present moment.
Comments: 1

If you take the time to stop and look around, you’ll discover that you can learn a lot about life from nature.

Gaze at the clouds.  Watch them float by.  Each cloud is different.  Each day, the number of clouds are different.  Clouds are constantly changing, just like everything in life.

Smell the early morning jasmine.  It’s scent can be detected several feet away and linger in the air.  The jasmine and other natural scents remind us to take a deep breath.

Listen to the birds singing in the trees.  Their songs remind us to stop and listen and enjoy the moment.

Notice the morning glory on the vine.  It’s petals close at night and open to the sunlight.  The morning glory reminds us to get a good night’s sleep and to enjoy the day.

The river flows slow and smooth.  It reminds us of our journey in life.  Look forward, appreciate the present, don’t worry about the past.

Every beautiful tree grows tall, but bends due to the way it was planted or forces put upon it like a constant wind.  The trees mind us that each of us grows up differently - different parents, different education, different circumstances.  Yet each one of us is beautiful in our own way.

I know that there are many other ways that nature shows us how to live – what is your favorite comparison?

Posted: June 6th, 2008 under Stained Glass, present moment.
Comments: 1

Thank you for this beautiful day.

I woke up early by my standards, 5:15 a.m., and felt a lightness in my heart.  I dressed, made a cup of tea, and headed out to Mt. Soledad for a sunrise meditation. 

The sky, mottled with gray skies, did not afford the opportunity to view the sunrise, but my skin drank in the moisture of early morning dew.  My ears were treated to silence, that rare sound we so often do not  hear.  My eyes took in an air show courtesy of a flock of large black crows.  The moisture in the air brought out the pine and sage scents surrounding me.  My fingers flew over my mala beads as I quietly repeated my mantra.  The taste of green tea on my tongue warmed my mouth.

This past week has been chaos in my house, but today I begin again, without judgment, without worry.  I pay attention to my heart.  I pay attention to my body.  I pay attention to the beautiful world around me.  Living in the present moment keeps me at peace.  Living in the present moment allows me to be thankful for the preciousness of today.

So, how are you living in the present moment today?

Posted: May 21st, 2008 under Stained Glass, present moment.
Comments: 3

A mantram is a word or phrase with spiritual meaning.  I learned mantram in my yoga class.  I repeat Om mam everyday. These are Sanskrit words that translate to God heart. I began sayingthis mantram after my heart attack in 2006.  I say these two words 1,080 times in the morning.  I use mala beads (108 beads strungtogether in a necklace) to keep track of the count.  It starts my day in a quiet reflective mood that keeps mecalm the rest of the day. 

I just came across a item in a local health newsletter.  Researchers confirmed what I alreadyknew.  Mantram repetition is helpful for managing stress, emotions other than stress, insomnia and unwantedthoughts.  The article by JillBormann can be accessed online from the Journal of Advanced Nursing.

Posted: May 3rd, 2008 under Stained Glass, heart disease, meditation, yoga.
Comments: 5

As I drink my cup of of sereni-tea, I’m reading more teabag wisdom.  Here are two to get you through the weekend.

“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.” Carl Gustav Jung

When I was younger, I dreamed a lot.  I dreamed about graduating college, dreamed of my ideal career, dreamed of marriage and having a family, dreamed of buying a home, and a car.  While I managed to accomplish most of my dreams, I found only temporary satisfaction in the accomplishments.  It felt like riding a rollercoaster, a series of ups and downs.  I’ve heard many say “That’s what life is all about.”  But for a long time, deep inside, I felt something missing.  When I finally began to look inside myself, to see and feel the essence of me, I found the dream that had always eluded me.  Peace.

“When the heart is at ease, the body is healthy.” Chinese Proverb

This second teabag saying goes hand-in-hand with Carl Jung.  As I went through life on my rollercoaster, I not only rushed through each day, but was filled with negative emotions – anxiety, depression, stress, anger.  At the same time, my body reacted with back pain, osteoporosis, arthritis, heartburn, heart disease, indigestion.  After looking inside myself, letting go of expectations, forgiving others and myself, my aches and pains diminished.  My body became healthier.  I no longer hold onto negative emotions.  I began living in the present moment.  I became mindful of my thoughts, my actions, my words.

So as you go about your day, I encourage you to find a quiet space.  Take some time.  Look within and see what happens.

Have a great day.

Posted: May 2nd, 2008 under Stained Glass, mindfulness, present moment, yoga.
Comments: 2

Last night I saw the play 33 Variations.  It’s a fictional story surrounding the composition of Ludwig von Beethoven’s  thirty-three variations of Anton Diabelli’s waltz.  It was a wonderful play written and directed by Moises Kaufman.  But while some might view the play from the perspective of seeing one of Beethoven’s works come alive, I viewed it as a process of change and living in the present moment.

One the surface, Beethoven began with a simple waltz by Diabelli and transformed it into thirty-three different musical works of art.  During the play, we discovered the process of composing a piece of music, showing through Beethoven’s sketchbooks how he would draft a set of notes in pencil, then pen over a revision until he arrived at the final product.  In addition to depicting the music, Kaufman also portrayed the life of Beethoven as he descended into deafness, the process of a maestro at the height of fame plunging into the depths of illness.  Kaufman blended the past with the present day by including a musicologist sleuth, diagnosed with a debilitating illness, who’s out to discover why Beethoven was so obsessed with these musical variations.

The play made me pause and think about the process of life, how nothing stays the same, how everything changes, yet change happens day by day, moment by moment. 

At the macro level, we are born and grow.  At each stage of our life, the process continues.  We learn.  We work.  We love.  We experience the world around us.  Each year, each week, each day, each breath, is a new beginning.  As we focus more closely on our life, we can examine our career, and home life and see how each successive event in our live transforms us into the person we are today. 

As a writer, I think about the process of writing.  Typing subjects and verbs. Stringing sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into pages of text until the words are transformed into a story.  As a stained glass artist, I think about the process of creating a work of art.  Designing a window, cutting the glass, leading and soldering and mudding until what was once small plates of glass and strips of lead have been transformed into a piece of art.

Everything is a process.  And every process begins and ends in the present moment.  

Posted: April 27th, 2008 under Stained Glass, present moment, writing.
Comments: 4