Being Separate is Good? Maybe not!

From an early age we are taught to excel, be better than the other guy...be supreme...at times run over the other person in order to get ahead. We learn to be separate...break away from the pack and be rewarded with trophies, accolades, money and jealousy. We are glad others are envious because it shows we are the best. You know where that ultimately leads us? Isolated and alone. It is wonderful to have talent and achieve, and I'm not saying do not create and develop your gifts, but shutting ourselves off from people who all possess talent in some way is NOT good. I may have abilities different from yours but that does not make me better than you. The sooner I realize that the sooner I get along with others and stop putting me first. The world is a better place for that.

The Everyday Meditator Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The Everyday Meditator St.Patrick's Day Edition 2013

Mantra Based on the Prayer of St. Francis

Here is a wonderful mantra based on the Christian saint, St. Francis. It is wonderful to anchor your attention on the sound of it as you recite the mantra and ponder its meaning. Loving Kindness and mindfulness meditation rolled into one!

May I be an agent of love in this world.
Where there is hatred, let me bring loving kindness;
Where there is injury, forgiveness;
Where there is doubt, insight;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

May I console as well as be consoled.
May I understand as well as be understood;
May I love as well as be loved;
For in giving we receive;
In forgiving, we are forgiven;
In dying to self-centeredness, we are born to the deathless.

Bill Moyers: Faith & Reason: Pema Chodron

Watch Faith & Reason: Pema Chodron on PBS. See more from Bill Moyers.

Nothing and Everything

"Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves."

Money, Karma, or a Zen Strawberry?

Money, Karma, or a Zen Strawberry?

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Dev, Wisdom Quarterly

Good verbal actions, by helping others, are also a store of merit (michaelsaso.org)

 

(Aswin/flickr.com)

For the love of money people will do a great deal. But it is not the money. Paper money grows on trees. We add the significance.

Few love money for money. "Money" is, of course, what it symbolizes -- the effective power to sway.

Money buys lots of things: speech, education, sex, medicine, life, death, knowledge, Congress, the presidency, the Internet, armies, mercenaries, even slaves.

Wait, there's something I can't buy?!

Of course, there is much moneywill not buy: intelligence, wisdom, kindness, empathy, compassion, rebirth in one of the heavens, enlightenment, happiness... These things are of inestimable value. So it is good they are free.

WTF? (idropkid/flickr.com)

 We obsess about money even as our government crashes the "greenback" dollar. Bye-bye, bank account. There will be real property, gold, silver, food, and abilities. When the gas stops flowing, we can put ethanol (alcohol) and vegetable oil in our cars. But will we know how to garden, farm, or grow edible plants? Will we have learned to survive in the concrete jungle? Do we know where every household has a few gallons of potable water hidden without knowing it?

Quit money: Interview

Get it now while it lasts -- get all that money will buy and learn about the things it won't. With a little leisure -- rather than squandering it lamenting or ruminating -- we can get all the industrial world has to offer. Soon enough the famine comes, soon the killing fields, soon the struggle overcomes us. But we are here now.

So be here now. Why worry? Act. Why stress? Do. Why not smile? Smile.

Or ask, WHAT WOULD A WISE PERSON DO RIGHT NOW?

For an answer, think of the original British comedy Bedazzled (1967). The devil is up a telephone pole in Berkshire with a foolish man named Stanley, who sold his soul for seven wishes. Half of them are used up, and he has little prospect of finding happiness and fulfillment trying to use the rest of them. The devil always outsmarts him by giving him exactly what he asked for, which naturally comes with an unsavory twist.