Finally
I ask myself
Am I ready?
Can I commit one day of silence?
A month, a lifetime?
Am I able to one hour,
every now and again,
to sit and follow my breath?
At least this practice will lengthen the spaces between the thoughts.
As we become aware it is the spaces that are important,
not the thoughts.
What would happen should the thoughts become less, do we become a lesser person?
Not when we realize how calm we are.
How peaceful our surroundings, how vibrant the colours.
This place must be where The Divine resides.
With the practice comes realization that when there is no thought, we are one with the universe.
Nothing external
All is joined.
All is one.
Our entire practice is based on this premise of oneness.
Enlightenment comes when we let go all past, let go of all future, only the present moment.
We actually achieve serenity beyond our wildest imagination
This enlightenment,
this realization,
frees us from the mundane.
So many Masters offer so much
All we have to do is practice.
One of the greatest lessons we can learn in our practice is the lesson of destiny.
My question is do we have a clear path to ordain our own destiny or are our lives at the whim of others?
I love my life and everything I do.
I love everyone I come into contact with.
It's a choice, a decision.
We start our short existence on the graph of life and it ends before we have even learnt to forgive.
There's a choice how we live, how we behave,
a karmic choice.
We all have a decision to make regarding our destiny.
Our lives are similar to when we build a house.
We start with a strong foundation.
Then we start to build the walls and then build inside rooms.
We start placing stuff inside.
After many years our house collects so much rubbish and stuff, the house falls in on it's self, exactly like what is happening to most of us right now.
How can we succeed in our practice when we have so much rubbish in our head.
Let me tell you a story
A famous yogi from Tibet, Ddromponpa saw a young man circling a stupa chanting.
The Yogi said,
"circling a stupa is well and good but wouldn't it be
better if you practiced dharma."
The young man said to himself perhaps he means this is too simple a practice for me and I'd be better off studying texts.
Later the yogi saw him reading holy books and he said.
"Reading texts is well and good but wouldn't it be better to practice Dharma?"
What should I do the young man thought, maybe meditate.
Again the yogi said when he saw the young man sitting in
meditation,
"wouldn't it be better if you practiced Dharma?"
The young man was getting agitated .
"What do you mean practice dharma ?"
The great yogi replied...
" Turn your mind away from attachment to the worldly life.
You can go round holy objects, go to temples,
meditate in some corner doing nothing, but unless you change your mental attitude, your old habits of attachment, your games you learnt from parents, you won't find peace,
and your practice will be ineffective."
"If you don't change your mind, no matter how many
external things you do, you'll never progress along your spiritual path."
"The cause of agitation will remain with you."
"It's your mental attitude that
determines whether your actions become the path to inner realization and liberation, or to suffering and confusion."
"Dharma practise is the method for totally releasing attachment."
"One Dharma is to understand that we have a destiny to fulfill."
" To choose our own destiny,
or to be steered by others, suffering greatly on the way to death."
"Your life is in the balance right now."
"Do you live an ordinary life in an extraordinary way, or do you stumble from day to day suffering and in pain?"
"Make a choice, make a decision and create destiny."
"It is only when we practice Dharma, that our path is clear"
Nathan
Sent from my iPhone and
http://www.dharmamaster.com
With love
