Laughing Buddha and Feng Shui by Jenny Lin

In Feng Shui, the Laughing Buddha, also known by Buddhists as Matreiya, is one of the most supreme symbols of joy and wellbeing. When this jolly character is placed within any home, he will do wonders for all the residents inside; in addition to revitalizing any dead or negative chi and relieving tension, he will also summon fortune and riches for all family members. The Laughing Buddha is now also displayed in the office and prominent places in business venues, such as the front counter, lobby or cashier. He is also a highly revered figure worshipped in many temples.

The Laughing Buddha himself is a vision of happiness; his face is always in a happy, laughing expression and his position is jolly. He is a manifestation of wealth luck due to all the auspicious symbols that he holds, some of these being a Ru Yi, Wu Lou, and various gold ingots and coins. He also usually keeps beside him pots and bags filled with treasures.

The Laughing Buddha is a sure mood lifter when looked at, no matter how down one can be. Everyone could definitely use one of these in their home or office.

In Feng Shui, the Laughing Buddha can be used in many ways to best reap his abundant rewards:

1.) If your family suffers from arguments and tensions, then an image or figurine of the Laughing Buddha will solve these problems. Simply place him in the East Sector (Family Luck) (Feng Shui Bagua Formula) or a location where he can be seen when everyone is sitting around in your living room or main hall.

2.) For those who wish to enhance their luck in the aspects of wealth, self-development, wellbeing and victory, displaying the Laughing Buddha in your personal Sheng Chi direction (Feng Shui Kua Formula) will serve to help you achieve your goals.

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3.) When the Laughing Buddha is displayed in the Southeast Sector (Feng Shui Bagua Formula) of the main hall, dining room or bedroom of your home, he will bring family members windfall luck and increased income.

4.) For those in competitive careers or high positions, such as CEOs or politicians, a Feng Shui Laughing Buddha placed in the workplace or household will serve to summon luck and eliminate enemies‘ effects. It will also allow for a clear mind and reduction of tension.

5) To prevent betrayals and arguments with colleagues, display this Feng Shui product on your desk at work. This will also allow you to excel in your career.

6) For students who are seeking to enhance educational luck, a Feng Shui Laughing Buddha positioned on the study desk will allow you to attain your academic aspirations.

7) It is for many reasons that the Laughing Buddha makes the perfect present for almost any auspicious occasions; for people you know who are suffering through misfortunes and bad luck, the Laughing Buddha would make an perfect good luck gift.

*Note* The Laughing Buddha is highly revered in both Buddhism and Feng Shui, and so he should be treated with respect; never place him in the kitchen, in the bathroom or on the floor.

Technorati Tags: Buddha, Feng Shui, inspiration, Laughing Buddha, self help, Spirituality

Starting Without Fear by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

A while ago, at the Royal Ontario Museum I went to the public restroom. Just before I came out of the stall I heard a high clear voice say, “Who’s going to get me soap?”
I walked out and saw a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, the arms of her white sweatshirt rolled up as she stood at the sink. She couldn’t reach the soap dispenser. I wasn’t sure to whom she had addressed the question. The room was empty except for the two of us.

“I can help with that,” I said and proceeded to offer her soap from my hands.

“What’s your name?” she asked as she scooped up some of the foam.

Seeing she couldn’t reach the faucet I pressed it down for her and replied, “Oriah.”

“I’m Dakota,” she offered promptly.

“Hi, Dakota.” She nodded and proceeded to rub her hands under the flowing water.

“And how many years old are you?” she asked in a matter of fact voice.

“Fifty-five,” I replied. She frowned a little and then held up four fingers. “Ah,” I said, “and you are four years old.” She nodded and moved over to the hand dryer putting her hands under the warm air. My own hands now washed and dried, I headed for the door.

“Good-bye Dakota. Nice to meet you.” She smiled and waved good-bye.

Just outside the doorway, a young man stood waiting. “I bet you’re waiting for Dakota.” He smiled and nodded, and I assured him she would be right out.

The incident could not have lasted more than three or four minutes but I keep going over it in my mind and smiling, wondering why it touched me so. Physically Dakota reminded me of myself at that age- I was also slight, blonde and blue-eyed. But Dakota was so at home in her own skin, it took my breath away. She was not trying to be precocious, or ingratiating or demanding. She needed soap and she couldn’t get any so she wondered out loud who was going to help her, and seemed to take my appearance as a reasonable answer to her question. She was confident but aware of her own limitations. She was curious but not invasive, willing to give whatever information she asked of the other. She was. . . . whole and at home with herself and the world in way I could not remember being as a child.

Thinking about Dakota I remember being the same age and visiting Buffalo NY to shop at Grant’s Department Store with my family. It was 1958, and I was carrying a small pink purse. As my grandmother and I waited for my grandfather at the entrance of the store, an elderly black gentleman walked up and squatted down in front of me smiling. I heard Nana gasp and felt her suddenly grab me and pull me back against her as she stepped away. I could feel the fear coursing through her body hitting mine like an electric shock. The gentleman looked up at her. His smile faded and he slowly shook his head as he held out my purse.

“Your little girl dropped this,” he said. He looked so tired and so sad I felt like crying, but I didn’t know why. I wanted to say something, but he quickly got up and walked away. I felt confused and embarrassed for my grandmother who just stood there, her body rigid, her arm across my chest pressing me against her.

Dakota was not afraid. I have no doubt that if anyone tried to harm her she could fight and yell for assistance very effectively. And of course she was too young to be there alone, and her guardian was close by. But she did not start from a place of fear. She did not expect me to be anything but helpful. No one had yet taught her to be afraid of everyone she did not know. My grandmother had been taught to be afraid of strangers, and a racist culture has taught her to be afraid of people- particularly men- of colour. I have been privileged to live in a city of such multi-cultural diversity that many of the fears she passed from her body to mine have been expunged and healed. But I remember them and how they affected me, how they put up a barrier to the other.

Encountering Dakota made me feel hopeful. Maybe we can raise children who do not approach unknown people or places or ways of being with fear and hostility. And maybe, if we do not meet the stranger with fear, we can get to know each other a little, can find ways to live and work together.

Oriah (c) 2009

Oriah is the author of the international best-selling books: The Invitation, and The Dance, and The Call (published by HarperONE, translated into eighteen languages.) Her much loved poem “The Invitation” has been shared around the world. Trained in a shamanic tradition, her medicine name Mountain Dreamer means one who likes to find and push the edge. Using story, poetry and shamanic ceremony Oriah’s deeply personal writing and her work as a group facilitator and mentor explore how to follow the thread of our heart’s longing into a life where we can choose joy without denying the challenges of a human life. www.oriah.org www.oriahsinvitation.blogspot.com https://www.facebook.com/Oriah.Mountain.Dreamer?sk=wall 

Read more by Oriah Mountain Dreamer:

Resisting What We Want by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

What Is Compassion by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Technorati Tags: Childlike, fear, inspiration, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, reflection, self help, Spirituality, vivid life

READ: Avoid the Rush by Rick Hansen

What’s the hurry?
The Practice:
Avoid the rush.
Why?

As I was meditating this morning, our cat hopped up in my lap. It felt sweet to sit there with him. And yet – even though I was feeling fine and had plenty of time, there was this internal pressure to start zipping along with emails and calls and all the other clamoring minutiae of the day.

You see the irony. We rush about as a means to an end: as a method for getting results in the form of good experiences, such as relaxation and happiness. Hanging out with our cat, I was afloat in good experiences. But the autopilot inside the coconut still kept trying to suck me back into methods for getting relaxation and happiness – as if I weren’t already feeling that way! And of course, by jumping up and diving into doingness, I’d break the mood and lose the relaxation and happiness . . . that is the point of doingness.

Sometimes we do need to rush. Maybe you’ve got to get your kid to school on time, or your boss really has to have that report by end of day. OK.

But much of the time, we rev up and race about because of unnecessary internal pressures (like unrealistic standards for ourselves) or because external forces are trying to hurry us along for their own purposes (not because of our own needs).

How do you feel when you’re rushing? Perhaps there’s a bit of positive excitement, but if you’re like me, there’s mostly if not entirely a sense of tension, discomfort, and anxiety. This kind of stress isn’t pleasant for the mind, and over time it’s really bad for the body. Plus there’s a loss of autonomy: the rush is pushing you one way or another rather than you yourself deciding where you want to go and at what pace.

Instead, how about stepping aside from the rush as much as you can? And into your own well-being, health, and autonomy?

How?

For starters, be mindful of rushing – your own and others. See how other people assume deadlines that aren’t actually real, or get time pressured and intense about things that aren’t that important. (And yep, you get to decide for yourself what you think is real or important.) Notice the internal shoulds or musts or simply habits that speed you up.

Then, when the demands of others bear down upon you, buy yourself time – what the psychologist and Buddhist teacher Tara Brach calls “the sacred pause” – in order to create a space in which you are free to choose how you will respond. Are you letting the rushing of others become your own? Slow down the conversation, ask questions, and find out what’s really true. Consider the sign I once saw in a car repair shop: “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.”

On your own side of the street, try not to create “emergencies” for yourself. You can get a lot done at your own pace without rushing; plan ahead and don’t procrastinate until you’re forced into hurrying. More fundamentally, be realistic about your own resources. It’s a kind of modesty, a healthy humility, to finally admit to yourself and maybe others that you can’t carry five quarts in a one gallon bucket. There are 168 hours in a week, not 169. It’s also a kind of healthy renunciation, relinquishment, to set down the ego, drivenness, appetite, or ambition that overcommits and sets you up for rushing. And it’s a matter of seeing clearly what is, a matter of being in reality rather than being confused or in a sense deluded.

Nkosi Johnson was the South African boy born with HIV who became a national advocate for children with AIDS before dying at about age 12, and not one of us can do more than what he said here: Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are.

Also watch how the mind routinely gets caught up in becoming: in making plans that draw us into desires that draw us into rushing. The trick is to see this happening before it captures you.

Most deeply, try to rest in and enjoy the richness of this moment. Even an ordinary moment – with its sounds, sights, tastes, smells, sensations, feelings, and thoughts – is amazingly interesting and rewarding. Afloat in the present, there’s no need to rush along to anything else.

Even when you don’t have a cat in your lap.

* * *

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (in 20 languages) and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time (in 8 languages). Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s taught at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and in meditation centers worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, FoxBusiness, Consumer Reports Health, U.S. News and World Report, and O Magazine and he has several audio programs with Sounds True. His weekly e-newsletter – Just One Thing – has over 35,000 subscribers, and suggests a simple practice each week that will bring you more joy, more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind and heart. If you wish, you can subscribe to Just One Thing here.

Read more from Rick Hansen:

MAKE THE OFFERING by Rick Hanson, M.D.

DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP by Rick Hanson, Ph. D.

READ: Just Because You’re You by Mike Robbins

About a year or so ago I started playing a game with my two girls, Samantha (our six year old) and Rosie (our three and a half year old). The game goes like this; I ask each one of them, “How much does daddy love you?” They respond by putting one or both of their arms up into the air as high as they can and say, “This much.” Then I say, “That’s right! And how come I love you so much?” To which they say, “Just because I’m me!”

It’s a fun, sweet, and powerful game that I love playing with each of them and something I hope to continue to do for many years. I play this game as much for them as I do for myself. For the girls, I want them to know that my love and appreciation for them is not based on what they do, how they look, how well they listen, or any other conditions or expectations.

For me, I do it for two main reasons. First of all, as a father I find it challenging at times to keep my heart open and to stay connected to my love for my girls when they do or say things that upset, disappoint, or anger me. This game serves as a reminder to me that my intention is to love them unconditionally (i.e. to love them even when I don’t like them or approve of what they do). On another level, by playing this game with my girls, I feel like I’m healing something deep within me that I’ve carried around for most of my life – the belief that my value as a human being is based on certain conditional, material, or external factors (accomplishments, appearance, approval of others, status, money, outward “success,” etc.)

How about you? How much of your own worth do you place in the hands of other people’s opinions, material success, or other outside factors or influences? If you’re anything like me and many of the people I know and work with, probably quite a bit (or at least more than is probably healthy or ideal).

This belief that many of us carry that we have to do specific things, produce certain results, look a particular way (and so on), in order to be acceptable, valuable, and lovable, causes a great deal of stress, pressure, and suffering in our lives.

From a very early age most of us have been doing whatever we can (in various ways based on our personality, background, and orientation) to gain approval and love from those around us. It starts with our parents, siblings, and family members when we’re very young. As children and adolescents, it extends out to our teachers, coaches, and especially our friends. As we move into adulthood it continues to expand to include our colleagues, clients; anyone we deem “important” to our success in life.

While there’s nothing inherently “wrong” with our desire to have the respect, admiration, and appreciation of those around us or to accomplish our most important goals, we often give away our power, consciously or unconsciously, to the people, circumstances, and results (or lack thereof) in our lives.

What if we stopped doing this so much? Our true value has nothing to do with any of these external factors. At the deepest level, we’re valuable as human beings just because we’re us – not because of what we do, how we look, what people think of us, or what we produce or accomplish. What would your life look like if you got this, embodied it, and lived from this perspective?

How can you start loving, accepting, and appreciating yourself (i.e. getting your inherent value) just because you’re you? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more.

Mike Robbins is a sought-after motivational keynote speaker, coach, and the bestselling author of Focus on the Good Stuff (Wiley) and Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken (Wiley). More info – www.Mike-Robbins.com

 

 

Read more by Mike Robbins:

Are You Addicted to Struggle? by Mike Robbins

The Benefits of Tears by Mike Robbins

READ: Waking Up to the Wonder of Life by Tim Freke

It’s been a very busy time for me recently, because I’ve got a new book coming out called The Mystery Experience. This book was a real labour of love and I can’t tell you how pleased I am with it. In this blog I’d like to share with you the big idea that inspired me to write it, because it’s essentially very simple but it changes everything! Then if you’re intrigued you can download a taster ebook/kindle verison for free on my new website.

I’ve been exploring spirituality since a spontaneous awakening when I was a twelve-year-old boy. This lead me to study and eventually write books about all of the major spiritual traditions of the world. In my latest book I’ve drawn on this perennial wisdom to create a revolutionary new way to awaken, which combines lucid philosophy with simple practises to make the ‘deep awake’ state easily accessible.

Since Ive been sharing my new approach to spirituality with people, I’ve been astonished by what has happened. Nearly everyone who comes to one of my ‘mystery experience’ retreats experiences a profound awakening over the course of just three days. This has convinced me that the ‘deep awake’ state is available to all of us if we approach life with the right understanding and practical tools.

It’s hard to describe the awakened state with words, but I’m going to give it a go. When I immerse myself in the deep awake state there’s an awe-inspiring sense of oneness with the universe. It feels as if I’m dissolving in an ocean of love. The search for meaning is resolved into a wordless understanding, which is so deep it must be felt not thought. There’s the silent certainty that all is well; and such a feeling of relief… like coming home.

When I am deep awake the familiar world is transformed into wonderland. My sensual body comes alive. I am amazed by all I see and hear and touch. The mundane becomes magical. It feels as if I am seeing things for the first time. And I am overcome with gratitude for my life.

I want to suggest that this awakened state is available to everyone all of the time. It’s available to you right now. The doorway into the ‘deep awake’ world is wide open, we only need to enter in. And the way to enter is easy. We simply need to remember to wonder. We need to rouse ourselves from the numbness we call ‘normal’ and become conscious of the breathtaking mystery of existence.

If we wonder deeply enough we spontaneously start to awaken. It’s as simple as that. In my new book I take the reader on an extraordinary journey that starts with simple wonder … and leads to the discovery of the ‘deep self’ and the bliss of ‘deep love’. But you don’t need to wait to read the book. You can experiment with wondering deeply right now. You can you enter the mystery of this moment as you are reading this blog:

o Pay attention to how profoundly mysterious it is to be alive.

o Recognize the obvious truth that you truly have no idea what life is.

o Be conscious of this moment with that deep part of you that appreciates music and art … that feels the beat and dances to its rhythm … that finds truth in poetry as well as theory.

o Dive deeply into wonder and the world will start to sparkle.

o There will be an experience of intense gratitude that arises when you see how glorious life really is.

o There will be an experience of immense humility that arises when you see how impossible it is to comprehend such a mystery.

If you wake up to wonder you’ll come to life. Try it out … as an experiment … and let me know what happens. This is the beginning of the journey of awakening. If you want to go further, then check out my new website www.themysteryexperience.com. If you look deeper … you’ll find what you’re longing for.

Deep love

T!M

SEE TIM FREKE LIVE! CLICK FOR MORE INFORMATION

TIM FREKE is a pioneering philosopher and the author of many groundbreaking books, which have been translated into 15 languages. These include How Long Is Now? (LINK: http://www.timothyfreke.com/now.php) Lucid Living (LINK: http://www.timothyfreke.com/lucid.php) and The Jesus Mysteries (LINK: http://www.timothyfreke.com/mysteries.php), which was a ‘Book of the Year’ in the Daily Telegraph and a top 10 bestseller in the UK and USA. His cutting-edge work on Gnosticism and pioneering spiritual philosophy have established his reputation as a scholar and free-thinker. He is often featured in documentaries and interviewed by the global media, such as the BBC and the History Channel. Tim runs ‘mystery experience retreats’ internationally, in which he guides others directly to a spiritually awakened state. He also performs as a ‘stand-up philosopher’ – a concept he developed from the ancient idea of a philosopher as a traveling ‘spiritual entertainer’ who transforms people’s consciousness. Tim lives with his wife and two children in Glastonbury, England. For free videos and talks visit www.timothyfreke.com

Read more by Tim Freke:

THE POWER OF CONNECTING ‘I’ TO ‘I’ by Tim Freke

I am intrigued by the fact that what I experience depends on my state of consciousness.  Something I play with often is seeing what happens when I connect ‘I’ to ‘I’ with other people in my daily life. This means looking below the superficial appearances of things, so that I’m conscious of my ‘deep self’ within … and then connecting with the deep self in others.

MAKING MISTAKES by Tim Freke

I’m feeling embarrassed because I’ve made a series of silly mistakes.  I run retreats internationally in which people come together to experience a spiritual awakening to oneness and ‘big love’, so I regularly send out emails to tell people about new events. In my last email I managed to get the details wrong, so I sent out an apology and the correction.  Then I realized I’d got other details wrong as well, so I had to send out another email to apologize.

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