Come one come all, plenty of room, today we'll have a summer salad for the soul and of course oh so much more.
Grab a seat, a coffee, kava or tea maybe a healing aperitif, oolaala.
Bon Appétit
Summer is a great time to recharge your meditation practice, return to your meditation practice or begin a beautiful practice that will serve you for the rest of your life.
A reminder of some of the countless forms of meditation
Types of meditation
1. Mindfulness meditation: Focus on your breath or a specific sensation, bringing your attention to the present moment.
2. Loving-kindness meditation: Cultivate feelings of love and compassion towards yourself and others.
3. Transcendental Meditation: Repeat a mantra to achieve a state of relaxed awareness.
4. Body scan meditation: Direct attention to different parts of your body, releasing tension and promoting relaxation.
5. Zen meditation (Zazen): Sit in a specific posture, focus on your breath, and observe thoughts without attachment.
6. Guided meditation: Follow a recorded or live guide's instructions for visualization and relaxation.
7. Vipassana meditation: Develop insight by observing bodily sensations and thoughts with non-reactive awareness.
8. Yoga nidra: A state of conscious relaxation achieved through guided meditation while lying down.
9. Chakra meditation: Focus on energy centers in the body, visualizing and balancing them.
10. Mantra meditation: Repeat a word, phrase, or sound to quiet the mind and enhance concentration.
Tantric Meditation: including eye movements, breath, sound, mantras and mudras along with a post meditation chat, is available in my Buymeacoffee
Shamanic journey 30 minutes
Guided visualization, shamanic breath or Pranayama
For deep restoration the powerful Yogic Sleep
Yoga Nidra
Dharma, teachings, special sauce
When we talk about source, we immediately represent some kind of primary event, at first. But what does "the beginning" mean? For us, the beginning is related to time, suggesting that time exists and that this is the beginning of time.
But if we find ourselves outside the limits of time, what then does the "beginning" mean? Does not make any sense. The "beginning" is just the moment when we enter into duality. But when we are beyond that, the beginning does not exist. So we're never going to be able to illustrate all this in some scheme.
When we say, "initial," Samantabhadra and so on, many have the same idea that Christians have about God: God created the world, first was Samantabadhra, and then we were.
But by the word "initial" I don't mean this. "Initial" is a true condition. And our true state is timeless. However, those who want to connect everything with time and establish when everything began, must understand that the source, the beginning is when we have entered duality. The source, the beginning of a reflection, is the moment when an object appears in front of a mirror. But the beginning of a reflection is not the beginning of a mirror or the beginning of an object. This is what duality is.
~ Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche
Spice of Life for the Soul
🌿What we understand to be phenomena are but magical projections of mind. The hollow vastness of sky, I never saw to be afraid of anything. All this is but self-glowing light of clarity. There is no other cause at all. All that happens is my adornment.
Better, then, to stay in silent meditation.
The Life and enlightenment of Yeshe Tsogyal.
🌿It is very important to go out alone, to sit under a tree—not with a book, not with a companion, but by yourself—and observe the falling of a leaf, hear the lapping of the water, the fishermen’s song, watch the flight of a bird, and of your own thoughts as they chase each other across the space of your mind. If you are able to be alone and watch these things, then you will discover extraordinary riches which no government can tax, no human agency can corrupt, and which can never be destroyed.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Reminder
Remember to always savor the View
Happiness in Theravada Buddhism - 08
Sensual happiness
As far as the householders who live a householder's life are concerned, there is nothing wrong in enjoying the happiness from the pleasant sense objects received through the five internal sense doors. However, there is the danger that due to lack of mindfulness, lack of control over the sense doors and ignorance of the reality of pleasant feelings, they will develop lust, craving and attachment with a desire to have more and more of them.
The monastics who have left the householder's life to become monks or nuns, are expected to observe certain precepts that preclude them from enjoying certain sensual pleasures. It will help them to maintain their monastic life properly and to progress in their spiritual path. Those who are enlightened such as Arahants and the Buddha, who have totally eradicated the unwholesome roots of greed, hatred and delusion, will also experience the same sensual feelings from the five internal sense doors. But as they have fully developed mindfulness, sense control and wisdom into the true reality of feelings, they experience the feelings with equanimity and do not develop any lust, craving or attachment for them.
Desire for sensual happiness can interfere with and obstruct even when one tries to practise some form of meditation to develop the mind. It is one of five unwholesome negative mental states or mental defilements that hinder and obstruct the progression of mental development during meditation. They are: Sensual desire (kamacchanda), ill-will (vyapãda), sloth and torpor (thina-middha), restlessness and remorse (uddhacca-kukkucca) and sceptical doubt (vicikicca). During meditation, the meditator can become distracted by thinking about the happy sensual experiences one has had in the past or by fantasizing about the sensual experiences one would like to enjoy in the future.
In the Latukikopama sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya, the Buddha has stated the negative aspects of sensual happiness.
From Radical revolution
Little bites of love filled with Father sun's Love
Padampa Sangye teaching
You are like a traveller in this life. So don’t build a castle where you are just passing by.
***
The day you were born, your death began approaching.
Remember, there is never any time to spare.
***
Thoughts come and go like a thief in an empty house.
There is nothing to be gained or lost.
***
If grasping is obscuring your view, don’t be nervous about cutting it off.
***
A group asked the Lord for an essential mantra.
Padampa Sangye said “All you people have the same mantra!” Asked “What is it?” he said, “Your mantra is this: ‘Back and forth wandering on a path of distraction, I age,’ and then finally you say, ‘SVAHA! To an empty wasted life! You already know that mantra! Now, do you still want a mantra?”
A little Sweet nectar coming up
“By nature, the male is electric, from an alchemical standpoint, while the female is magnetic. It is the nature of electricity to move and to act, while it is the nature of magnetics to nest—enfold.”
— Judi Sion, Tom Kenyon, The Magdalen Manuscript: The Alchemies of Horus, and the Sex Magic of Isis
Finally a Reboot
Ya got breath? Ya got Soul❤
Below illustrates in detail the history and meaning of “breath” or “soul” – deciphered and examined within the context of each culture.
In ancient Egyptians referred to it as “ka” and the ancient Greeks referred to it as “pneuma”. In India it is called “prana”, in Africa it’s known as “ashe” and in Hawaii as “mana”. For Native Americans it is the “Great Spirit” and for Christians it is the “Holy Spirit”. In traditional Chinese culture it is called “Qi” (or “Chi”), literally meaning “breath”.
The ancient Egyptians believed that a human soul was made up of five parts: the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Ib. In addition to these components of the soul there was the human body. The other souls were aakhu, khaibut, and khat.
Pneuma (πνεύμα) is an ancient Greek word for “breath,” and in a religious context for “spirit” or “soul.” It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is also used in Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible and in the Greek New Testament. In classical philosophy, it is distinguishable from psyche (ψυχή), which originally meant “breath of life”, but is regularly translated as “spirit” or most often “soul”.[1]
Prana (प्राण, prāṇa) is the Sanskrit word for “vital life” (from the root prā “to fill”, cognate to Latin plenus “full”). It is one of the five organs of vitality or sensation, viz. prana “breath”, vac “speech”, chakshus “sight”, shrotra “hearing”, and manas “thought” (nose, mouth, eyes, ears and mind; ChUp. 2.7.1).
In Vedantic philosophy, prana is the notion of a vital, life-sustaining force of living beings and vital energy, comparable to the Chinese notion of Qi. Prana is a central concept in Ayurveda and Yoga, where it is believed to flow through a network of fine subtle channels called nadis. Its most subtle material form is the breath, but it is also to be found in the blood, and its most concentrated form is semen in men and vaginal fluid in women.[1] The Pranamaya-kosha is one of the five Koshas or “sheaths” of the Atman.
Prana was first expounded in the Upanishads, where it is part of the worldly, physical realm, sustaining the body and the mother of thought and thus also of the mind. Prana suffuses all living forms but is not itself the Atman or individual soul. In the Ayurveda, the Sun and sunshine are held to be a source of prana.
“Ashe” is a Yoruba word used in Western part of Nigeria. “Ashe” is something like an all-pervasive spiritual energy. It is also a term comparable to “Amen.” It could be translated as “so be it.
In anthropological discourse, mana as a generalized concept is often understood as a precursor to formal religion. It has commonly been interpreted as “the stuff of which magic is formed,” as well as the substance of which souls are made.
The Great Spirit or Great Mystery is generally believed by Native cultures to be a supreme being that is personal, close to the people, and immanent in the fabric of the material world. To the Hopi, “the Great Spirit is all powerful. He taught us how to live, to worship, where to go and what food to carry, gave us seeds to plant and harvest. He gave us a set of sacred stone tablets into which he breathed all teachings in order to safeguard his land and life. In these stone tablets were inscribed instructions, prophecies and warnings.”
The Holy Spirit is seen by mainstream Christians as one Person of the Triune God, who revealed His Holy Name YHWH to his people Israel, sent His Eternally Begotten Son Jesus to save them, and sent the Holy Spirit to Sanctify and give Life to his Church.
Qi (or Chi) energy, in Taoist thought, is the “life-force”. The concept of Qi is based on the ancient Chinese initial understanding of natural phenomena and Qi is regarded as the most basic substance of which all creation is comprised. It is believed Qi permeates everything and links all things together and even at molecular, atomic and sub-atomic levels everything in the universe results from the movements and changes of Qi.
As Fritjof Capra explains in his book “The Tao of Physics”, everything is energy. All of manifest existence is energy and quantum physics demonstrates that there is a unity behind all existence and in that unity matter forms in one huge, coherent vibration of energy, continually forming and reforming.
Qi has traditionally been described as the vibratory nature of reality and quantum physics has advanced what is called the “String Theory” which suggests that the fundamental constituents of reality are small strings, vibrating at different frequencies and like vibrating violin strings producing notes, these vibrating stings produce particles such as electrons and photons, which do not exist at any one given fixed point and that split and absorb one another, forming different particles and amazingly it even suggests that consciousness affects the behavior of these particles, which in turn suggests that within the conscious awareness of Qi energy in the “quantum mind” we have the potential to manifest our own reality.
At the heart of the nature of Qi is the concept of yin/yang which imparts the idea of how contrary forces are interconnected in the nature and how they give rise to each other in turn. Yin and yang are the basic components of Qi and only exist in relation to each other, as opposite sides of the same coin. There is a perception in the West that yin and yang correspond to evil and good, but Taoist philosophy discounts good and bad, as moral judgments in preference to the idea of balance. Yin and yang interact within a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system. Everything has both yin and yang aspects and either of these aspects may manifest more strongly in certain things at certain times and over time these manifestations will ebb and flow as the tide.
Dualities such as female and male, dark and light, low and high, cold and hot are thought of as manifestations of yin and yang.
• Yin is the feminine principle, its essence is slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, and passive; and is associated with water, the Earth and the Moon.
• Yang, by contrast, is the masculine, fast, hard, solid, focused, hot, dry, and aggressive; and is associated with fire, the sky, and the Sun. yet, there are no rigid borders between Yin and Yang and they rely on each other to “be”.
The Taoist doctrine of yin and yang includes its own theory of change. Taoism sees change as opposites interacting with each other to both compliment and oppose in a balancing act between harmony and disharmony according to the principles of which are set forth by the I Ching.
It might be easier to grasp the working of the simple balance between two parts, male or female, yin or yang, from whatever perspective fits your belief system by comparing possible outcomes based on given inputs in terms of computer programming language. Computer programs are written in binary code, which consists of only two symbols, 0 and 1, in essence representing broken and unbroken pathways. No matter how complicated a program, it can still no more than combinations of 0’s and 1’s illustrating how simple elements can be interconnected to create things of great complexity.
As stated before, from the perspective of quantum physics, with a conscious awareness in the “quantum mind” the potential exists to manifest a new state of reality. This can be achieved by harmonizing the flow of energy for mental, spiritual, physical and even environmental prosperity.
Disharmony may occur from four basic “imbalances” of energy. Achieving harmony cannot be accomplished by dealing with a single part alone. Instead, the alignment of universal personal energy as a whole determines how its intrinsic elements behave.
Practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine in such disciplines as Qigong, Tai Chi, acupuncture and herbal medicine believe that balanced and free-flowing Qi results in health and formed a unique system to diagnose and cure illness in accord with the awareness of Qi in respect to the physical body. The approach is fundamentally different from that of Western medicine in that their understanding of the human body is based on a holistic approach to wellness through the understanding of the movement of Qi energy.
Traditional Chinese Medicine asserts that the body has natural patterns of circulate in channels called meridians and the treatment of illness is based primarily the rebalancing the flow of yin/yang within them and removing any blockage that may be restricting the flow of Qi energy. But, the rebalancing of yin/yang and releasing natural flow of energy to promote wellbeing is not limited to the field of medicine.
Any given system, be it biological, chemical, social, philosophical, political or economic could be brought into harmony with the application of these same holistic principles of the balance of the energy of which they are comprised. The only obstacle to doing so is our perception of these things as separate and distinct “things”, but our perception of separateness is merely an illusion. It is a perception based upon habitual ways of conceiving of ourselves separate and distinct “things”, set apart from everything else. As we deepen our awareness of the Taoist ideas of Qi and yin/yang we become more aware of this illusion of separateness and the interconnectedness of all things in the “quantum universe” and with that awareness we awaken to the potential of manifesting reality on both the macro and the micro scale of existence.
Credit for the great article.
🥣If the pictures made you hungry remember The feed your Head Recipe edition will be up this Weekend
✨️Shamanic Teachings Passed on in tomorrow's post
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Gratitude for all your support still kicking Lupus Ass all naturally
Although this Summer the extreme weather has been brutal and I do have the Neurological that is now second to a main organ that is now compromised.
So all support from likes, to shares, to buying a sticker or a coffee helps me overcome, and continue offering the best quality care as a death doula and Chaman/shaman Contribution based.
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