Waking Up

"The coming to consciousness is not a discovery of something new; it is a long and painful process to that which has always been."  Helen Luke

Meditation

‎"Practice helps us let the thoughts (like clouds) pass through the sky of the heart - we don't have to think them. The natural response of the heart is to expand in Love when it's not afraid." Krishna Das

Truth and Belief

‎"To be aware is to open your eyes to see the truth. When we see the truth, we see everything just as it is, not the way we believe it is, not the way we wish it to be." ~Toltec Wisdom

Essence

‎"You are the sky. Everything else - it's just the weather." Pema Chondron

What Is

"The ego neuroses that once preoccupied me haven't all gone away.  What is gone is my identification with them.  Now they are merely quaint and fascinating...a passing show...More and more I am just awareness.  Life lives itself.   I am involved with it all, yet I cling to none of it.   It is what is.  No big deal."  Ram Das

Perhaps

"Perhaps we wouldn't eat so much or smoke, or drink so much, if we were paying attention to ourselves.   Perhaps we wouldn't talk so much if we were paying attention to each other.   All of these oral activities are trying to meet a need, and perhaps the greatest need is to be seen and heard."  Christina Baldwin

Awakening

"Over the years I have seen the power of taking an unconditional relationship to life.   I am surprised to have found a sort of willingness to show up for whatever life may offer and meet with it rather than wishing to edit and change the inevitable.   When people begin to take such an attitude they seem to become intensely alive, intensely present."   Rachel Naomi Remen

Chui-ta-ka-ma

This is what the Native American's call the place of choiceless awareness, the place where it is clear which choice is a choice for life, where we can make no other.

"Can you make the choice that's for life even when that choice is hard, when doing so means others will see you as faithless?

Can you make the choice without putting yourself or the other person - no matter who is betrayed, who is the betrayer in this moment, out of your heart?

Sometimes to choose life, we must break agreements; sometimes we must keep them although they are hard to keep."  Oriah

Gratitude

"The world offers itself to me in a thousand ways, and I ache with an awareness of how infrequently I am able to receive more than a small fraction of what is offered, of how often I reject what is because I feel it is not good enough."   Oriah

Awareness

"The man of awareness lives in the world like a bee.   He never mars the beauty of this world, he never destroys the perfume of this world.   He lives silently, moves silently.  He asks only as much as is needed.   His life is simple, it is not complex.   He does not gather for tomorrow.  The bee never gathers for tomorrow; today is enough unto itself."   Buddha