Acceptance and Change are related. For positive changes to occur, first acceptance is of the current situation, or reality is required. If you don’t accept the current situation, if you’re “in denial” there will be no efforts made to change. There will be no vision of something requiring change, so no change can occur.
Trying to force change without acceptance causes clinging to the very thing you’re trying to change. Fighting something is much harder than having it willingly walk out the door. If you do manage to fight, and win, the issue is left unresolved, actually planting a seed/time bomb somewhere in the mind through a mental rift.
I know a lady who’s very sure of what and who she is. Any form of arguing with her, strengthens her clinging to her identity. Yet, the second she’s accepted for who she is, she ever slowly starts to let go of the definitions, and bit by bit opens up, slowly changing and expanding.
Accept, Change and you’ll begin to Appreciate. Fight, and go the other way.
Kenton provides a different approach to Zen Blogging. Subtitled with “Zen-Inspired Self Development“, the lucidity and thought provoking methods caught me.
The blog includes thought experiments such as Identity Games and What We Really Want. These experiments are flashing neon lights pointing the reader directly to their own dharma nature.
Posts such as Become Happy With Where You Are look at the roots of happiness and deliver methods to guide the reader towards an un-dogmatic approach.
A fantastic blog that I will be closely following, and the first Blog to be Profiled.
Practice is a long term result and eventually, we will become our practice. Training, however, is required like in any profession for many years before one is allowed to practice. This is part of the message I understood today as part of a Chod initiation given by by His Holiness the Ninth Khalkha Jetsun Dampa Rinpoche.
Whether, in the end, you believe in spiritual practice involves stages or not, authentic spirituality does involve practice. This is not to deny that for many people beliefs are important, faith is important, religious mythology is important. It is simply to add that, as the testimony of the world’s great yogis, saints, and sages had made quite clear, authentic spirituality can also involve direct experience of a living Reality, disclosed immediately and intimately in the heart of consciousness of individuals, and fostered by diligent, sincere, prolonged spiritual practice. Even if you can relate spirituality as a peak experience, those peak experiences can often be specifically induced, or at least invited, by various forms of spiritual practice, such as active ritual, contemplative prayer, shamanic voyage, intensive meditation, and so forth. All of those open one to a direct experience of Spirit, and not merely beliefs or ideas about Spirit.
Whenever asked a question, you face 2 options. To say YES and Grow, or to say No. By answering YES to a question, regardless of what is asked, you are opening a door or path to some future action. Regardless of the experience, it is something greater than doing nothing. Wisdom is gained through experience; experience is gained through saying yes to offers.
Namaste, or respectful bow to you, dear read. Your support and comments, each day touch me, inspire me, and encourage me.
Today, together as one we offer Dana to the sources, that along with you, allow this place to take form. This offering is our way of giving thanks and praise, it’s an embrace of the Bodhisattva’s path that we collectively walk.
Dana has been offered under our collective banner, to the below in equal parts. If you would like to suggest a source for future Dana, please leave a comment.
If you are after the Authentic S.N. Goenka Vipassana Meditation Timers, look no further. I’ve finally managed to get digital copies of all 3 group sit cd’s.
Included on each CD is his chanting, instructions, final chanting as well as metta meditation practice.
It’s time for Thoughtful Linking 7. This time we’re starting with a video displaying how amazing the modern world is. Did You Know; Shift Happens – Globalization; Information Age
Vera Nadine – After weeks of reading, I’m still struggling to sum up the raw power and intense spirituality of Vera’s site. A medium and psychic worker talking about her experiences
Understanding Wisdom, from MindHacks – An interesting post talking about how western Psychologists are now trying to quantify what exactly wisdom is.
Enjoy the Twists, a great reminder from Jim that we are always learning in life, regardless of the outcome. That we should use each interaction as something to aid in our growth.
Acceptance and Change are related. For positive changes to occur, first acceptance is of the current situation, or reality is required. If you don’t accept the current situation, if you’re “in denial” there will be no efforts made to change. There will be no vision of something requiring change, so no change can occur.
Practice is a long term result and eventually, we will become our practice. Training, however, is required like in any profession for many years before one is allowed to practice. This is part of the message I understood today as part of a 
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