Today's DailyOM Offerings...
February 18, 2015
Meditation for Beginners
Jack Kornfield
2001
Jack Kornfeld is an author and the cofounder of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, where he teaches the "most simple and universal" processes of meditation. Problems facing the novice are foremost on Kornfeld's mind, and speaking in a frank, warming, comfortably raspy, and rooted voice, he narrates stories of ancient traditions and tricks of the trade. Meditation for Beginners is a great gift for the stressed-out soul who comes to you for help and has no experience in meditation, or for those who used to meditate but have drifted into a state of getting ready to meditate that can last for months, even years. When we're distracted in our meditations by physical sensations such as tired or itchy legs, for example, Kornfeld says that instead of ignoring it, we should "feel that quite carefully, let that energy of the body open in your attention. See if you can be aware of the sensation in a peaceful or a kind way." Often these sensations dissolve ! and evaporate in our consciousness once we stop running from them or trying to distance ourselves.
Varieties of teachings and four short meditation exercises take up the second disc, teaching us how to move into a Buddhist perspective: "The Buddha said at one point that all the teachings of the dharma have only one purpose, the sure heart's release, the opening of the heart. This is the purpose of the dharma and nothing else." Keeping it simple, Kornfeld focuses on this concept: When the heart is open, everything falls into place much easier. Letting go can be as scary as dropping backward over a cliff with your eyes closed, but once you're able to let go, you float in the arms of the interconnected universal fabric.
Many of the approaches mentioned on Meditation for Beginners might be obvious, but unless you hear them spoken while deep in a receptive state, they can be hard to bring into life, such as the idea that "the cause of our suffering is our fighting and struggling with what is." With Kornfeld's help you can stop struggling with what you cannot change, following your breath with the calm detachment of listening to a breeze through the trees: "feel the movement of the breath like a breeze; it breathes itself; your whole being is in change like a river, your breath shows you that river, that movement of impermanence." Guiding us to this place of stillness and impermanence, Kornfeld shows a calm mastery and deep understanding of what's going on in the beginning meditation practitioner's mind from moment to moment. He makes Meditation for Beginners an essential starting place for what cannot help but become the journey of a lifetime, and perhaps longer.
February 18, 2015
Into the Practical
Sagittarius Daily Horoscope
You may find yourself lost in your imagination today. As you explore a world of possibilities, the open-endedness of your visions of the future can both enthuse and unnerve you. You will have difficulty grounding yourself in any likelihood, however, if you question your ability to achieve any of them. Treating your musings as the first step in a multistep ladder of achievement can help you refine your daydreams. Consider your fantasies from a pragmatic perspective today, and you may find that there are tangible life paths and careers that will allow you to fulfill these dreams in a very real manner.
When we view our daydreams as just one step in a larger plan of goal realization, we are more apt to treat what we see in our imaginations as possible futures instead of unattainable fantasies. Though we may have to modify our visualizations to correspond to reality's rules, we will nonetheless discover that the possibilities we saw in our mind's eye are entirely attainable. Turning a daydream into a practical plan is as easy as thinking critically about what we wish to achieve. Doing this requires us to look not only at where we are in the present and where we hope to be in the future but also at the many steps we will have to take if we wish to turn our fantasies into reality. Today, your dreamy mood can become the seed of a concrete plan that helps you embark upon a journey of achievement.
February 18, 2015
Accepting Yourself
A Dynamic Choice-Maker
by Madisyn Taylor
To label yourself good or bad is to think too small.
There is no such thing as a good person or a bad person. There are choices and actions that lead us in different directions, and it is through those choices and actions that we create our realities. Sometimes we choose or do something that takes us in the opposite direction of the reality we want to create for ourselves. When we do this, we feel bad-uneasy, unhappy, unsure. We might go so far as to label ourselves “bad” when a situation like this arises. Instead of labeling ourselves, though, we could simply acknowledge that we made a choice that lead us down a particular path, and then let it go, forgiving ourselves and preparing for our next opportunity to choose, and act, in ways that support our best intentions.
Many of us experienced childhoods in which the words good and bad were used as weapons to control us-you were good if you did what you were told and bad if you didn’t. This kind of discipline undermines a person’s ability to find their own moral center and to trust and be guided by their own inner self. If you were raised this way, you may find yourself feeling shockwaves of badness when you do something you were taught was wrong, even if now you don’t agree that it’s bad. Conversely, you may feel good when you do what you learned was right. Notice how this puts you in something of a straitjacket. An important part of our spiritual unfolding requires that we grow beyond what we learned and take responsibility for our own liberation in our own terms.
You are a human being with every right to be here, learning and exploring. To label yourself good or bad is to think too small. What you are is a decision-maker and every moment provides you the opportunity to move in the direction of your higher self or in the direction of stagnation or degradation. In the end, only you know the difference. If you find yourself going into self-judgment, try to stop yourself as soon as you can and come back to center. Know that you are not good or bad, you are simply you.
Meditation for Beginners
Jack Kornfield
2001
Jack Kornfeld is an author and the cofounder of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, where he teaches the "most simple and universal" processes of meditation. Problems facing the novice are foremost on Kornfeld's mind, and speaking in a frank, warming, comfortably raspy, and rooted voice, he narrates stories of ancient traditions and tricks of the trade. Meditation for Beginners is a great gift for the stressed-out soul who comes to you for help and has no experience in meditation, or for those who used to meditate but have drifted into a state of getting ready to meditate that can last for months, even years. When we're distracted in our meditations by physical sensations such as tired or itchy legs, for example, Kornfeld says that instead of ignoring it, we should "feel that quite carefully, let that energy of the body open in your attention. See if you can be aware of the sensation in a peaceful or a kind way." Often these sensations dissolve ! and evaporate in our consciousness once we stop running from them or trying to distance ourselves.
Varieties of teachings and four short meditation exercises take up the second disc, teaching us how to move into a Buddhist perspective: "The Buddha said at one point that all the teachings of the dharma have only one purpose, the sure heart's release, the opening of the heart. This is the purpose of the dharma and nothing else." Keeping it simple, Kornfeld focuses on this concept: When the heart is open, everything falls into place much easier. Letting go can be as scary as dropping backward over a cliff with your eyes closed, but once you're able to let go, you float in the arms of the interconnected universal fabric.
Many of the approaches mentioned on Meditation for Beginners might be obvious, but unless you hear them spoken while deep in a receptive state, they can be hard to bring into life, such as the idea that "the cause of our suffering is our fighting and struggling with what is." With Kornfeld's help you can stop struggling with what you cannot change, following your breath with the calm detachment of listening to a breeze through the trees: "feel the movement of the breath like a breeze; it breathes itself; your whole being is in change like a river, your breath shows you that river, that movement of impermanence." Guiding us to this place of stillness and impermanence, Kornfeld shows a calm mastery and deep understanding of what's going on in the beginning meditation practitioner's mind from moment to moment. He makes Meditation for Beginners an essential starting place for what cannot help but become the journey of a lifetime, and perhaps longer.
February 18, 2015
Into the Practical
Sagittarius Daily Horoscope
You may find yourself lost in your imagination today. As you explore a world of possibilities, the open-endedness of your visions of the future can both enthuse and unnerve you. You will have difficulty grounding yourself in any likelihood, however, if you question your ability to achieve any of them. Treating your musings as the first step in a multistep ladder of achievement can help you refine your daydreams. Consider your fantasies from a pragmatic perspective today, and you may find that there are tangible life paths and careers that will allow you to fulfill these dreams in a very real manner.
When we view our daydreams as just one step in a larger plan of goal realization, we are more apt to treat what we see in our imaginations as possible futures instead of unattainable fantasies. Though we may have to modify our visualizations to correspond to reality's rules, we will nonetheless discover that the possibilities we saw in our mind's eye are entirely attainable. Turning a daydream into a practical plan is as easy as thinking critically about what we wish to achieve. Doing this requires us to look not only at where we are in the present and where we hope to be in the future but also at the many steps we will have to take if we wish to turn our fantasies into reality. Today, your dreamy mood can become the seed of a concrete plan that helps you embark upon a journey of achievement.
February 18, 2015
Accepting Yourself
A Dynamic Choice-Maker
by Madisyn Taylor
To label yourself good or bad is to think too small.
There is no such thing as a good person or a bad person. There are choices and actions that lead us in different directions, and it is through those choices and actions that we create our realities. Sometimes we choose or do something that takes us in the opposite direction of the reality we want to create for ourselves. When we do this, we feel bad-uneasy, unhappy, unsure. We might go so far as to label ourselves “bad” when a situation like this arises. Instead of labeling ourselves, though, we could simply acknowledge that we made a choice that lead us down a particular path, and then let it go, forgiving ourselves and preparing for our next opportunity to choose, and act, in ways that support our best intentions.
Many of us experienced childhoods in which the words good and bad were used as weapons to control us-you were good if you did what you were told and bad if you didn’t. This kind of discipline undermines a person’s ability to find their own moral center and to trust and be guided by their own inner self. If you were raised this way, you may find yourself feeling shockwaves of badness when you do something you were taught was wrong, even if now you don’t agree that it’s bad. Conversely, you may feel good when you do what you learned was right. Notice how this puts you in something of a straitjacket. An important part of our spiritual unfolding requires that we grow beyond what we learned and take responsibility for our own liberation in our own terms.
You are a human being with every right to be here, learning and exploring. To label yourself good or bad is to think too small. What you are is a decision-maker and every moment provides you the opportunity to move in the direction of your higher self or in the direction of stagnation or degradation. In the end, only you know the difference. If you find yourself going into self-judgment, try to stop yourself as soon as you can and come back to center. Know that you are not good or bad, you are simply you.