Walking our own path

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path." ~the Buddha

The story of the Buddha is one of the most famous of all men. Born into a life surrounded by luxuries most only dream of, one day - after finding blinding passionate love and having a child - he gave it all up to follow a spiritual path.  It took him 6 years and almost dying for him to reach nirvana - and when he finally did, he did it on his own.


In that idea is the most beautiful and revolutionary idea. It is the idea, the inside of all of us, lies the answers to everything our soul is searching for. Inside of our own human shell, we already have the truth, the answers, enlightenment. All we have to do is stop and listen to it. 


We live in a world that tells you the only way to know your true path is to have others show it to you - a guru, a professor, a boss, friend, parent - they have been given to us to lead us to our true nature. Maybe they are here for support, but the truth is until we stop to learn ourselves, we can never really move forward. 


To know thyself and to love thyself is a freedom no one can ever give us. This is something we can learn. We can learn to say "I love you" in the mirror and mean it, we can learn to move past the past and we can learn to embrace who we are in this moment. All we need to do is to face ourselves with the knowledge we are human and flawed and that is ok. 

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Fear = Transition

I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong - Benjamin Franklin

The biggest fear that ruins life is that our dreams will end in failure. We move away from scary situations, clinging onto comfort and the illusion of stability instead of reaching for our dreams assuming that bravery is lined with ease, but not understanding that failure is just a lesson brought on to teach us what we are truly capable of.

The only true way to fail is to give up completely - if you have a dream or a goal and you keep working towards it, one day you will reach that goal. It may take hours, it may take years - but nothing worth having has ever been easy to obtain.

Bravery is pushing past your fears, it is to keep moving even when you're afraid. Strength is knowing that our imagination holds the trailers to our future and this moment is the future we were worried about yesterday.

AUM VAKRATUNDAYA HUM - Ganesha Purana

It is said if you repeat this mantra 1008 times it will bring you strength and healing. It will help when things aren't working either on a personal or universal level. Locally or internationally, this mantra - and Ganesha - is here for you when our minds drift off to bad places; become negative; depressed; or we feel simply discouraged by every day life. Turning towards Ganesha will help you move back to the brighter path in your life.

Abhaya "Fearless" & Varada "Giving or Welcome" Mudras

Abhaya "Fearless" symbolized protection, peace and dispelling fear. The Right hand is held at shoulder height with your palm facing outward. "I come in peace" it is a gesture that shows the hand is empty of weapons and a sign of friendship and peace.

According to Buddhist History, the Buddha made this gesture right after receiving enlightenment.

Varada "Giving" or "Welcome" mudra symbolises charity and compassion. It is the mudra of accomplishment of the wish to devote oneself to Human Salvation. Almost always made with the left hand, it can be made with the arm hanging neutral or your palm sitting up and open on your knee.

The five fingers symbolize: Generosity, Morality, Patience, Effort and Meditative Concentration. This mudra is rarely used alone.

Crow - "Bakasana"

Crow, or Bakasana, helps to strengthen wrist, forearms, and abdomen. It improves your balance - yet crow can be a rather scary pose. Balancing all of your weight onto your two hands, with your face inches away from the floor can feel daunting and like a recipe for disaster - but crow teaches us how to let go, to be free and to fly. When you are properly aligned there is nothing to fear.

Place your hands on your mat, this is your foundation. Fingers wide and creases of your writs facing forward, walk your knees onto your upper arms - but before you begin to lift your legs be sure that your arms are aligned above your writs and that you are engaging your core. Then try to lift one foot at a time, taking your gaze forward and then organically moving into the pose.

Fear is the moment we realize that what we want is worth being brave for, and it is the moment we understand that what we were is not the only thing we were meant to be. All great things come out of conflict, transition and they push past fear.

Now go find your crow and fly.

~Namaste

Patience

When you decided to add a mantra to your meditation practice it's easy to begin a quest trying to seek out the mantra that is right for you. By surfing the internet, reading books like "Mantras: Words of Power" by Swami Sivananda Radha, then you may feel overwhelmed by the amount of mantras out there for the taking.

Should it be in Sanskrit?

Should it be Buddhist?

Should it refer to the doctrine I was raised under?

This task can become daunting and that pressure may lead you to just give up all together. So simplicity is key. Just like all things in the Universe, when we are meant to have something - it will come to us. The Buddha stated that "Money is like water, try to grab it and it flows away, open your hands and it will move towards you." This is true with everything in life, not just money. The riches of love, happiness, companionship - patience is the key.

When you are seeking out your mantra and you are met with the myriad of questions from "Who is Lakshmi?" to what the intent is, is it the same as yours?

Just wait.

I find that when I feel it's time to find a new mantra, after looking and reading and researching - somewhere in the middle of my day I'll find it rolling around in my head, my own voice chanting the words.

In Catholic Doctrine they list 52 attributes known as virtues that range from Assertiveness to Unity, but while all of them server an important purpose in life - patience should always float to the top.

If we pause

If we breathe

If we wait

What we need will come to us, no, maybe not in the form we though it would - but it will be there, I can tell you that much.

Shuni Mudra "The Seal of Patience"

Formed by placing the thumb against the tip of the middle finger, the Shuni Mudra is said to prompt patience.

Shuni is translated to "Saturn" just as the middle finger is representation of the same planet, and Saturn is known as the Task Master. In charge of the Law of Karma, taking hold of responsibility, courage, duty. Saturn helps you to be disciplined. This mudra holds the ability to give you stability and strength.

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana "One Legged King Pigeon Pose"

This pose stretched out the thighs, groin, psoas, abdominal, chest, shoulders and neck. The first in a series of pigeon poses, beginning on the right with your shin parallel with the top of your mat and your left leg stretched out behind you - making sure your left foot is lying straight and not leaning to the right or left side. Breathing in and elongating the side bodies then folding over the front leg. Holding this pose on each side for a minute each.

Breathing into your groin and the psoas and letting go.

"We find that patience is the best means we have of defending ourselves internally from anger's destructive effects"

~ The Dalai Lama

May you have a beautiful week

~Namaste~

Why we meditate

What wise man is eaten up with doubts about happiness in this life and the next? Intelligent men make meditation the essential thing.

~ Atisa Dipankara Shrijnana

When we meditate we are taking a moment to clear out the mind, by silencing the voices in our head we open ourselves up to a whole new universe of possibilities and ideas. Yes, I'm sure you've heard this all before, and yes, it can be hard to take that time to get to a point where the clutter and clamoring noised in our heads cease - but once this has been accomplished... there is just so much more to come.

Meditation is an ancient practice that over time is still as relevant and important as it was when Siddhartha sat under the bodhi tree, and just as Siddhartha obtained enlightenment and became the "Buddha" ("Awakened One"), we can sit and take the path to enlighten even if we live in a one room apartment in the middle of an industrialized city.

Peace and understand is available for all.

Why do we meditate? Because it allows us to see what is around us, removing the distractions and obstacles we place in our own path, bringing us one step closer to peace of mind and relaxation.

Some disregard meditation as something only little men in orange robes sitting deep inside a damp cave somewhere in India or Tebet, but that is a fallacy brought on by miss communication and elitist attempting to keep to themselves. You can learn to meditate by sitting with a pet and merely petting them or cooking your favorite dish for the people you love.

The secret is this - breath and let go.

When I speak of mantras and mudras - these are things that fascinate me and that fascination and love drives me to share them with you - but you do not need to memorized the 216 verses of the Gurugita in order to let go and meditate. You're mantra can simply be, "Let go" or "Who am I?" or even "Today I will just be." And your mudra can be your hands placed at your heart, fingers buried in dirt as you weed your garden or brushing against the hair of your beloved cat/dog.

This week take 10 minutes for yourself and do something that you love. Whatever it may be remember to breath, to let go and to smile.

You're mantra for this week is: WHO AM I?

You're mudra is what ever feels right

and your asana is: FULL WHEEL

~namaste~

Bhumisparsha Mudra & Letting Go

Normally, we limit the meaning of perceptions. Food reminds us of eating; dirt reminds us to clean the house; snow reminds us that we have to clean off the car to get to work; a face remind us of our love or fortable or familiar scheme. We shut any vastness or possibilities of deeper perception out of our hearts by fixating on our own interpretation of phenomena. But it is possible to go beyond personal interpretation, to let vastness into our hearts through the medium of perception. We always have a choice, we can limit our perception so that we close off vastness, or we can allow vastness to touch us.
~Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa speaks of how to find magic, and in doing so he shows us how we limit the magic around us through perception. We wake up every day ready to walk our own path but are quickly discouraged by our own perception of what life is or what life should be.

Life shouldn't be anything - it just is.

He continues to explain that when we learn to see all sides of the situation, the reality of this world, we can then just be. We are no longer fighting the world we have arrived.

Bhumisparsha Mudra

"touching the Earth"

More commonly known as the Earth Witness Mudra you come to sit with your legs folded, straight spine, placing your left hand on your left knee, fingers pointed towards the ground (or touching as shown in the above [inverted] image), palm inward towards your body. Your right hand is placed on your right knee with the palm facing up and open like a bowl or a cup.

It is said that the Buddha held his hands like this to summoned the Earth as a witness to his transformation from Siddhartha to becoming the Buddha.

A grounding mudra, one hand connect to the Earth, which is connected to everything and the other begging to the world. Showing the world that it is easier to give and to receive when you're hand is open and willing to help and be helped.

When we become grounded and connected with the Earth and the world we can begin to see other perceptions of situations we may normally only have one idea about - like love.

With red colored hearts and babies dressed with bows and arrows, falling in love is an adventure in itself, but quickly we come to learn what love really is. So many say they love "unconditionally" but then follow-up the statement with comments that place conditions on that love.

'If my grades are better my parents will love me more.'

'If I dress a certain way, my boy/girlfriend will love me more.'

'If  make more money...'

Our perception of what love should be opposed to what love is can be a hard pill to swallow. Understanding to love someone or something may mean loving things that are difficult and trying. By grounding ourselves we learn to head toward enlightenment, to see past our preconceived notions and our limited perception, connecting with the earth to extend out past the small real we preside in.

Take ten minutes to find a quiet corner coming to sit in meditation in the Bhumisparsha Mudra. Once you have found a comfortable position, soften your eyes and your belly, breathing in the world around you, and exhaling your doubts and fears. Using a simple mantra of "Let go":

On your inhalation "Let"

On your exhalation "Go"

By learning to let go, to be grounded, to be connected and willing to give and receive the things you need in life you will alter your perception bringing you closer to finding you and unconditionally loving you.

Your pose of the week: Child's Pose

Placing your arms extended on the mat out in front of you, with your forehead touching your mat, child's pose is a welcome pose in any practice. It's merely one breath away waiting for you to find your breath, help ground you and most of all help you to let go.

Allow yourself to be the person you are inside and not a perception of something less than that.  Honor yourself. Love yourself.

I can't wait to see you on the mat.

~Namaste