Category Archives: Blogs
For the Contemplatives, Without and Within
For the Contemplatives – Without and Within
We need to rediscover and reclaim Spirituality for the Contemplatives.
The Contemplatives that are around us; in quiet corners of silent rooms, in dim lit caves in foreign lands; in green moist jungles and in cathedrals of forest groves.
Yet we also need to rediscover and reclaim Spirituality for the Contemplative that is within us; dwelling deeply beyond the surface level surging of worldly issues and concerns, fears and frustrations, fictions and fantasies.
If we leave...
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The Science of the Self – Three Levels
The whole experience of life, the experience of our life, is referenced from, back and to the self – our self.
It is well worth, wondering, what is this reference point, what is the form and function of this phenomena that we call the self – ATTA?
Accommodating a scientific, psychological and spiritual perspective; a personal and trans-personal appreciation; the self maybe seen to find form and function on three interrelated levels.
These Three Levels of the Self are:
The ‘Psychological Self’
...
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AUTUMN, FIND YOUR WAY TO THE MIDDLE WAY
Dear Friends
Welcome to Autumn.
As we know extremes are exciting!
Extreme sports, extreme seasons, extreme places, extreme people, extreme practices; all distract us from the norm and attract us to the exciting.
Yet such extremes can also be unpleasant and even painful.
However, that which is in between the extreme, that which is the moderate , the middle, can be much more manageable, bearable, even pleasant and pleasing.
Such is our new Season of Autumn, here in the Southern Hemisphere of our Planet Earth.
Autumn...
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Renovate our real home with meditative mind training
RENOVATE OUR REAL HOME WITH MEDITATIVE MIND TRAINING
Of all the varieties of practices and processes, psychologies and psychotherapies for ‘self-improvement’; there is however no adequate replacement or alternative for Mindfulness based Meditation.
Mindfulness based Meditation is the main way to exercise, develop and enhance the fundamental functioning of the ‘hard ware’ of the brain for enabling and engaging the resultant mind and functioning ‘self’. Many of the life- long unhelpful habits of self can be brought into the calm and...
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The Freedom Gift of Forgiveness
We are all seeking Freedom in some form or another.
One special form of Freedom is through the gift of Forgiveness.
Have you noticed that in giving the great gift of Forgiveness it offers Freedom on various levels.
1. Forgiveness firstly frees our own mind from the psychological poison and prison of anger, resentment and self- centered concern.
2. Forgiveness frees the perpetrator from our directed anger, resentment and disconnection.
3. Forgiveness frees the troubled relationship from distress and fear, allowing understanding,...
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Neutral Knowing
Have you ever noticed how easily it is for our mind to become caught up and caught out; reacting, resisting, denying and distracting from just noticing and noting what is, with Calm, Clarity and Peace!
With SATI PANNA- mindfulness and wisdom, we can understand and see the ways and workings of SAMSARA – the rounds of rebirth into existence.
The energy that perpetuates SAMSARA is life energy, the universe’s energy, manifesting through the ‘Three Ills’ or defilements – KILESA, of Greed,...
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Rains Retreat, Vassa 2017
This last week has marked the end of the Buddhist Monastic three months ‘Rains Retreat – Vassa 2017’
This verse arose in my mind on Pavarana Day – the ending of the retreat, and lends inspiration to realising reality and finding freedom.
Kind Regards
John B.
Pavarana Day – End of Vassa Rains Retreat 2017 – The Free Mind
Wander where there is no Path,
Find firm footing where there is no place to stand,
Seek shelter where no roof exists,
Live where there is no abiding...
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Our Practicing Peace
Fundamentally and ultimately, if it is Peace that we are really seeking, our ‘way of practice’ needs to focus on Peace as our path and purpose.
Here;
Our Perspective is Peace
- to see, be and relate from Peace.
Our Practice is Peace
- to exercise and enhance Peace at all times and in all places.
Our Process is Peace
- to develop and deepen our experience of Peace, both in the mind and in our life.
Our Presence is Peace
- to gift to all people and...
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Blessing of the Buddha – Real Happiness and Peace
The ‘Blessing of the Buddha’ is the gift to us all, of his realisation and revelation of a Real Happiness and Peace.
This ‘Happiness – Peace’, is not founded on or confounded by the way of things.
This ‘Happiness – Peace’, is not built and dependent on things that fundamentally do fade and falter, fatigue and fail, finalise and finish.
This ‘Happiness – Peace’, does not become, stressed and distressed, disordered and distorted. It does not diminish, dissolve, deconstruct or destruct. It...
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The Ending of Time!
The whole of I,
we, you and me;
is but a ‘cognitive creation’.
We think our self into being!
Behind and beyond the thought,
of I, we, you and me;
is simply energy manifesting as
the body and mind-ful awareness.
Meditation frees the mind,
from thought, from the activity of identification;
from ‘identity-ing’ and allows simply a
Body-Mind ‘Presence-ing’.
Here – Now, no one;
No – not now, no not here!
No story; no story teller;
no stress, no suffering; no drama and no SAMSARA.
For the I, we, you and me – self, is...
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