LIFE "UNLIMITED,,: Gudi Padwa - from WIKI-bhai

LIFE "UNLIMITED,,: Gudi Padwa - from WIKI-bhai: Gudi Padwa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Gudi padwa ) Jump to: navigation , search Gudhi Padva (Gu...

Practice Without Integration is a Waste by Krishna Das

Practice Without Integration is a Waste
by Krishna Das
(Courtesy: http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=972)

[Listen to Audio!]

I once met Roshi Philip Kapleau, the author of The Three Pillars of Zen. He was one of the first Westerners to go to Japan and do intense practice there. He was suffering from very advanced Parkinson's disease and had terrible physical discomfort, along with the involuntary spasms that come from the disease. One thing he said to me really stuck. As he was sitting there, writhing, he looked into my eyes and said with great intensity, "It doesn't matter how much practice you do. If you don't bring it into your daily life, it is all a waste." The power of this statement came from the depths of his realization and his daily battle with Parkinson's, and it shot straight into my heart.

We don't want to walk around afraid. We don't want to walk around feeling hurt and separate. We don't want to continue carrying around all the feelings of betrayal and pain that we've experienced in all of the relationships of our lives. No matter how much meditation, chanting, yoga poses, or any other practice we do, it's very hard to remove the fears that come up in our daily lives and the feeling of being isolated from the rest of the world. But the result of a true spiritual practice ultimately must be the lessening of that fear and isolation. We can't be judging ourselves if we're really singing or offering ourselves or someone else lovingkindness. These are the moments we're taking energy away from unconscious programs that run all the time in our heads about how small we are or how unworthy we are of love and affection.

We have a lot to worry about in our daily lives, a lot of stress. We move very fast and often get lost in the unconscious flow of our days. We can't control the things outside of us. We can't make people act the way we want them to act. We can't even make ourselves act the way we want to act! The good news is that our feeling of unworthiness, our self-judgment, is just stuff; it's not who we are. Stuff comes and stuff goes. What doesn't come and go is who we really are and what we really are. To experience this, we need a spiritual practice.

When we are doing a practice and begin to experience lighter states of being, we start to recognize that being greedy, fearful, jealous, angry, pushy, and manipulative in our relationships actually hurts. When we're stuck in one of those heavy states - which for most of us is all we've known - who suffers more than we do? Nobody. We may feel righteous about our heaviness and think that somebody else caused our suffering, but we're the ones who are burning! At these moments, it's very hard to practice. For example, if I'm really upset about something, it's very hard to sit down and chant. Sometimes I have to burn for a while until I can begin to let go and return to my practice.

-- Krishna Das, excerpted from Chants of a Lifetime

Seeing Fully by Ajahn Brahm

Seeing Fully - by Ajahn Brahm
(Courtesy: http://www.awakin.org/read/audio.php?op=play&tid=1003)

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We were poor monks who needed buildings. We couldn't afford to employ a builder — the materials were expensive enough. So I had to learn how to build: how to prepare the foundations, lay concrete and bricks, erect the roof, put in the plumbing — the whole lot. I had been a theoretical physicist and high-school teacher in lay life, not used to working with my hands. After a few years, I became quite skilled at building.


Being a monk, I had patience and as much time as I needed. I made sure every single brick was perfect, no matter how long it took. Eventually, I completed my first brick wall and ...

Gandhi's 10 Rules for Changing the World (Courtesy: http://www.dailygood.org)

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems. --Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi's 10 Rules for Changing the World

--by Henrik Edberg,
(Courtesy: http://www.dailygood.org/story/466/gandhi-s-10-rules-for-changing-the-world-henrik-edberg/)
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.

So let’s just move on to some of my favourite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.

1. Change yourself.
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”

If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now ... ... ...