The Manifesto of Encouragement by Danielle LaPorte

Posted on January 27, 2019 by

Right now:
There are Tibetan Buddhist monks in a temple in the Himalayas endlessly reciting mantras for the cessation of your suffering and for the flourishing of your happiness.

Someone you haven’t met yet is already dreaming of adoring you.

Someone is writing a book that you will read in the next two years that will change how you look at life.

Nuns in the Alps are in endless vigil, praying for the Holy Spirit to alight the hearts of all of God’s children.

A farmer is looking at his organic crops and whispering, “nourish them.”

Someone wants to kiss you, to hold you, to make tea for you. Someone is willing to lend you money, wants to know what your favourite food is, and treat you to a movie. Someone in your orbit has something immensely valuable to give you — for free. Continue reading →

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Ram Dass on how to inhabit roles lightly #happiness

Posted on January 21, 2019 by

Recently my spiritual learning has mostly contracted to the talks by Ram Dass on the Here and Now podcast and talks/ books by Alan Watts. I wanted to share episode 136 of Ram Dass’s talk on ‘how to be happy with what is’, ‘how to enjoy the unfolding storyline of your life without being trapped by it’ and how to ‘learn in this lifetime how to inhabit roles lightly… with love, and joy, and passion – and with emptiness’.

Ram Dass invites us to ‘see your life experiences as grace. As a set of opportunities through which you can be free.’ And to ‘…realise there are no errors in the game. The ones handed over to you are tailor made for you. All your life is what you are here to learn as a soul.’

Sometimes you are so busy being somebody that everyone reacts to your somebody-ness and nobody reacts to your nobody-ness.

 

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Spiritual fitness – the Tibetan practice of 100,000 prostrations #happiness

Posted on January 12, 2019 by

I am not a big fan of exercise. But make it a spiritual exercise like Tibetan yoga or prostrations and suddenly I am all for it. Is there such thing as a spiritual gym? 🙂  I’ve recently started 100,000 prostrations, the Tibetan buddhist practice. I do it to show love and respect for all living beings and to send positive energy to those around me – I use it as a form of physical prayer or body meditation. I do 20 prostrations in the morning, 20 in the evening, so it will take me around 7 years to complete this practice 🙂

Since every sentient being has Buddha Nature, bowing to any person can be thought of as bowing to the Buddha Nature in all of us.

In Tibetan, the word prostration is translated as chak tsal. Chak means to “sweep away” harmful actions and obscurations. Tsal means we receive the blessings of an enlightened body, speech and mind.

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Sense of non-sense – Alan Watts on reassuring purposelessness of our existence #happiness

Posted on January 6, 2019 by

Recently two things happened – as part of the UK Psychedelic Society’s reading list I discovered The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts and I had a heated philosophical debate with an ‘old soul’ friend of mine about life purpose and it exists. As you may know, the question of life purpose acutely interests me.

This led to inspired googling and discovering Sense of Nonsense: Alan Watts on How We Find Meaning as well as Alan Watts’ lecture on life purpose below. His intriguing perspective on how we can arrive at meaning by surrendering to meaninglessness has surprisingly reassured me and given me a no doubt temporary sense of meaning. And in the world of creation for the sake of creation, this is as good as it gets. I should stop clinging to structure… I’ve included some of the best quotes from The Book below.

Continue reading →

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The Mind Explorers: A Psychedelic Weekend #documentary #psilocybin

Posted on December 22, 2018 by

And here it is – the culmination of my ‘magic mushroom’ retreat with the UK Psychedelic Society in September. The film made by Rebecca Coxon. In most of my appearances I am weeping and in one manage to sob while laughing. Perfect. Crying is a natural way of purging (another one is vomiting, eg like with ayahuasca) so it’s normal that I created a mini flood 🙂  Share your thoughts or your mind expansion experiences in the comments.

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Michael Pollan’s ‘How to change your mind’ and theory of the entropic brain #happiness

Posted on December 15, 2018 by

I continue to explore the new world that opened to me. I heard that Michael Pollan’s ‘How to change your mind’ was a sort of Bible of psychedelics so I borrowed it from the local library (interestingly, it had a long queue of reservations). I consumed 414 pages within a week and I feel like I know everything I need to know, ever. It’s a very balanced and science based historic summary and experiential account of all things psychedelics. I was pleased to see multiple mentions of British researchers in the field. Below I share 2 quotes on the theory of entropy from a British researcher Robin Carhart-Harris that as a person who tends to overorganise and overthink I found really useful. Sometimes all we need is a bit more chaos, organised of course 🙂

20674-How-to-change-your-mind_Michael-Pollan-1-1500x1500 Continue reading →

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How can someone figure out their purpose in life? #happiness #quora

Posted on December 8, 2018 by

I grappled with this question for years. Of course the answer is as simple as it’s difficult. And it’s only recently that I actually felt it. Below is an extract from Jack Kornfield’s book titled ‘After The Ecstasy, The Laundry’ that I mentioned last week. It’s a Zen story (koan) on what the purpose of life is.

Got it? There is no purpose, just life and you live it the best you can – doing good, helping people, nurturing your spirituality, just living. So yeah, this is it, just go do what the moment demands (and non doing is as valid as doing), whatever your heart/ soul call you to do and do it in the most awakened, conscious way with as much love as possible. This is what I think.

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