Meditation is simple and transformative, yet it highly misunderstood. Some people think it is about controlling our mind or stopping our thinking, while others see it as both weird and wacky or boring and meaningless.

Yet meditation really just means being totally present, totally aware with whatever is happening. It is being with ourselves completely as we are. If the mind is thinking then we are aware of the thinking; if the body is moving then we are aware of the movement. Hence we have sitting meditation, sound meditation, walking meditation, even running meditation. It is not purposefully doing anything other than just being here and now.

And just this is transformative. It creates an inner spaciousness in which we can gently stop the endless ‘me-centered’ dramas, our mind that is like a drunken monkey leaping from one scenario to another.

“Meditation can mean really being focused on something, or it can mean letting go of all focus and simply being still,” says Gangaji in our book, Be The Change, How Meditation Can Transform You and the World. “It is not a matter of saying, ‘I am going to meditate,’ it is more like ‘I am just going to be here for a moment without doing anything, without following any thought.’ And, in that, there is peace, a surrendering the mind’s activity to this vast silence and spacious awareness. It is not anti-mind activity; it is simply that usually the mind is spinning round and round, so it is a stopping of that spin.”

Meditation is both an experience of oneness and the practice that enables us to be aware of this. When we make friends with ourselves we discover a freedom from habitual tendencies, from repetitive behavior, and we experience a great joy, peace, and unconditional happiness. It is, therefore, the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

But the world is like a magnet pulling us outward into all manner of distractions, so we often need help, methods or techniques, to remind us to just be still. We need to be guided inward. Here are six steps that can lead us in that inner direction:

Six Steps to Freedom

1. Create a daily practice even if it is just for 5 minutes. Meditation has an accumulative effect so by doing it for a few minutes every day is actually more helpful than an hour once a week.

2. Meditate for the sake of it without expectations, as it can cause stress and even a sense of failure if you look for results. No appointments, no disappointments!

3. Make friends with your breath. Focusing on the natural flow of your breathing will give your mind something to do and encourages your attention to go inward. In this way you also make friends with your meditation practice.

4. Make friends with your chattering monkey mind. When you are still your mind can seem very busy and distracting. Name this your monkey mind and don’t take it too seriously.

5. Commit to your peace. There is nothing more important than your peace, it is the core of your being, so make a commitment to being still and quiet regularly.

6. Do It

Meditation techniques are many and varied, but all that matters in being fully present. Try this:

Sit comfortably with your back straight.

Take a deep breath and let it go.

Be aware of each breath and silently count at the end of each out breath, up to five: Inhale, exhale, count one… inhale, exhale, count two… and so on for five breaths. Then start at one again. Just five breaths and back to one, following each breath in and silently counting. So simple.

Do this as many times as you want, breathing normally.

****

See our award-winning book: BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You and the World, forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman, with contributors Jack Kornfield, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Byron Katie and many others.

Deb is the author of the award-winning YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, Decoding the Emotional, Psychological, and Spiritual Messages That Underlie Illness.

Our 3 meditation CD’s: Metta—Loving kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi–Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra–Inner Conscious Relaxation, are available at: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

Read more from Ed and Deb Shapiro:

What The Buddha Might Say To President Obama by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Gitmo or Gandhi by Ed and Deb Shapiro

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VividLife’s Ed and Deb Shapiro welcome Actor Linus Roache star of Law & Order to discuss life behind the scenes: meditation, spirituality and more…

He was born in Manchester, the son of Coronation Street actor William Roache and actress Anna Cropper. In 1975, Roache appeared in Coronation Street playing his father’s character Ken Barlow’s son Peter. Roache is also a past member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Roache joined the American TV series Law & Order in 2008 as new Executive Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter (as Sam Waterston’s character, Jack McCoy was promoted to District Attorney). Join Linus Roaches Facebook Fanpage here!!! , please also visit www.evolutionaryenlightenment.com

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Two men and a woman videoed themselves enthusiastically laughing as they beat up an old man. Nineteen year-old Tyler Clementi committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate and a friend secretly video taped him having gay sex and put it out on the internet. Children giggle when another child falls down; when the opposition team wins we call them nasty names; when someone is bloodily beat up in a boxing match we shout hooray. America’s Funniest Home Videos is full of images of people falling, crashing, making mistakes, and the resounding laughter that accompanies them.

Why do we find this so amusing? We may not always agree with others, but why do we need to make fun of their suffering? Why do we think it’s funny to put down, hurt, or even abuse another person?

In the political arena constant put-downs are normal, especially this year with all the Rep versus Dem barbs. Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly called Sandra Fluke a slut for defending women’s rights and said he wants President Obama to fail: “If Obama fails, America is saved.”

When we find fault in someone we feel good, we belittle another as a way of making ourselves look better, finding fault or putting them down makes us feel superior. This tends to happen more when we are down ourselves, as misery loves company: feel bad and we invariably make others the problem.

You would hope that as healthy human beings we would be concerned about another’s good fortune and happy to respect their preferences and choices. When we have a genuine regard for ourselves we naturally extend that by wishing others success. Mudita is a Sanskrit term meaning “sympathetic joy,” or taking joy in other people’s happiness and well-being.

Now, in essence, this sounds very easy and obvious—feeling joyful for another’s joy—but someone else’s good fortune may be at the expense of our own (they got the job but we didn’t) so can we still be happy for them? It may highlight our own lack of good fortune, or challenge our self-worth and value. In other words, taking joy in someone you may have a negative feeling toward certainly does not happen overnight.

Mudita confronts us with those places that are wrapped up in our ego, such as jealousy, envy, judgment and greed. Jealousy isn’t going to get us anywhere other than into further pain and suffering, but how often do we wish someone does not succeed because their success highlights our own sense of failure? We judge others in comparison to our own beliefs and preferences but we can respect their choices, even if they are different to our own. Greed and self-centeredness take us out of the present and stop us from appreciating what we have right now.

Mudita asks that we let go of envy and comparison by seeing the other as ourselves, that there is no difference: we all experience the human condition, we breathe the same air, and we all want to be happy. Releasing judgment means stepping outside of our limited view and letting go of fixed and predictable patterns of thinking and behaving.

As mudita takes root, so we genuinely wish others be well. We actually want them to be happy! It makes us feel good. We want them to be free from suffering and to succeed at whatever they do. We recognize that our happiness and their happiness are no different and so we experience a deep joy in their well-being.

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com 

Read more by Ed and Deb Shapiro:

What The Buddha Might Say To Mitt Romney by Ed and Deb Shapiro

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. Buddha
One of the truly great things in life is to discover our genuine and authentic self, to dance to the beat of our own drum. And so, conversely, one of the greatest challenges is to know what we think, feel, and believe, for ourselves. It is far easier to agree with others, or be influenced by them to believe as they do, than it is to be firm in our own convictions.

Compassion The Dalai Lama Way by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Shortly after we were married we went to India and spent our honeymoon in ashrams and monasteries, and then in McCleod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama lives in exile in northern India along with other Tibetan refugees who have escaped Chinese rule in Tibet. Once there we went to the Office of Securities to request a meeting with the Dalai Lama.

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There is a point that appears in a lifetime, regardless of chronological age, when healthy, true doubt appears. We doubt what we have been taught, and we doubt what others insist we must believe. This is the point at which true spiritual inquiry can begin.

Too often there is little support for the deep examination that this spiritually-healthy doubt demands. In my Episcopal confirmation classes — taken with other rowdy 12 year olds — the questions that we could ask with approval had little interest for us. The ones we were interested in, “What exactly is the devil? Where is hell?” were considered disruptive and impertinent. Although the point of the classes was to bring us into the church in a more mature phase, for most of us it was the beginning of the end of our churchgoing days. Something essential in us was denied. I have heard countless variations of this story from others who felt their right to sincerely question had no place in their religious upbringing.

We have sometimes found that we have to rebel against all we have known, since those who “know” are unwilling to allow inquiry to be an essential part of spiritual development. In our rebellions, we absorb new anti-beliefs, and when we dare to doubt them too, we again are branded as heretics. How many converted Buddhists scoff at the naive Christians who believe literal interpretations of the Bible while easily taking on the belief of reincarnation? How many fundamentalist Christians brand New Age visualization as the work of the devil and revile Hindus with their nirvana and multiple faces of God, while having personal conversations with their deity and continuing their own magical thinking about their version of God. Even proponents of inquiry often state what inquiry should reveal. In the “religion” of self inquiry, the concept of non duality takes the place of direct discovery.

Authentic spiritual inquiry reveals the joy of fresh insights and revelation, just as artistic or scientific inquiry does, but if we cling to the latest insight as a thing we know, that thing grows stale.

To be of real spiritual value, inquiry must be alive and fresh. Regardless of what we remember or have discovered from the past, each time we truly inquire, we return to not knowing what the outcome will or should be. No doctrine is needed for discovery. No concepts of multiplicity, duality, or non-duality are needed. In fact, we must put aside all of our doctrines and concepts for our inquiry. All that is needed is the willingness to be unattached to the outcome, conscious, and truthful.

Deep inquiry is not for the fainthearted or weak-minded. It is for those who are ready and willing, regardless of fears and discomforts. It is the challenge and invitation to mature. It is the invitation to give up past reliance on others’ discoveries while allowing those discoveries to encourage and even push us into our own inquiry.

Inquiry is not a coping mechanism. It is not present in human consciousness to provide certainty or comfort, except the sublime certainty that one has the capacity to discover truth for oneself. It is a stretching mechanism. It calls on the mind to stretch beyond its known frontiers, and in this way inquiry is support for maturing and evolving the soul. It frees us from the need to define ourselves to experience being ourselves. It is both humbling and a source of profound joy, but it does not provide a neat package of new definitions and stories.

The challenge in inquiry is to be willing to directly discover what exists with no reference points. Inquiry is no small challenge, for it requires facing the death of the inner and outer worlds as they have been constructed with no knowledge of what will take their place. We have the experience of releasing our constructed world when we fall into sleep, and we cherish and need this experience for our well-being on all levels. The challenge of inquiry appears in releasing the constructed world while remaining conscious.
This blog is adapted from Hidden Treasure: Uncovering the Truth in Your Life Story, which was published by Penguin Tarcher in 2011. In this life-changing book, Gangaji uses the telling of her own life story to help readers uncover the truth in their own. Publisher’s Weekly said, “This gently flowing but often disarming volume invites readers to examine the narratives that shape them, and is a call to pass beyond personal stories to find a deeper, more universal self.” Gangaji will be offering a silent retreat in May at Fallen Leaf Lake in South Lake Tahoe, CA. Visit www.gangaji.org for more information about Gangaji and her upcoming events, including the monthly Webcast / Conference Series, With Gangaji, which is currently undergoing an in-depth study of Hidden Treasure.

Gangaji shares a simple message – “This is an invitation to shift your allegiance from the activities of your mind to the eternal presence of your being.” Born in Texas in 1942, Gangaji grew up in Mississippi. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1964, she married and had a daughter. In 1972, she moved to San Francisco where she began exploring deeper levels of her being. She took Bodhisattva vows, practiced Zen and Vipassana meditation, helped run a Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center, and had a career as an acupuncturist in the San Francisco Bay area. Despite her successes, Gangaji continued to experience a deep and persistent longing for fulfillment. She pursued many paths to change her life including relationship, motherhood, political activism, career, and spiritual practice, but even the greatest of her successes ultimately came up short. In the wake of her disillusionment, she made a final prayer for true help. In 1990, the answer to her prayer came unexpectedly, taking her to India and to the meeting that would change everything. There on the banks of the river Ganga, she met Sri H.W.L. Poonja, also known as Papaji, who opened the floodgates of self-recognition. In this meeting, Gangaji’s personal story of suffering ended and the promise of a true life began to flower and unfold. Today, Gangaji travels the world speaking to seekers from all walks of life. A teacher and author, she shares her direct experience of the essential message she received from Papaji and offers it to all who want to discover a true and lasting fulfillment. Through her life and words, she powerfully articulates how it is really possible to discover the truth of who you are and to be true to that discovery. Gangaji’s website www.gangaji.org

Read more from VividLife.me bloggers:

Letting go of old structures by Tony Samara

“In the world today people are saying to themselves, that we have had enough of the old paradigms and the old systems and we want to change.  We don’t know what we want to change, we don’t know how to change but we want to change and that clarity creates a power that has a very real and powerful effect in the world.  It changes what most people thought a few years ago was quite impossible to change and that is not even through conscious spiritual work, that is just through the intention being so strong that it changes and pushes away the old paradigms so that there is the possibility and the space that allows the birth of something new.

What Do You Really Want? by Gangaji

Gangaji asks the most important questions of your life – What do you really want? What is your life about? What is it being used for? How is your time spent? Where is your attention? Is your life meaningful? Are you happy? What is the longing of your heart and soul? Is it a longing for truth and freedom?

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Shortly after we were married we went to India and spent our honeymoon in ashrams and monasteries, and then in McCleod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama lives in exile in northern India along with other Tibetan refugees who have escaped Chinese rule in Tibet. Once there we went to the Office of Securities to request a meeting with the Dalai Lama.

The following day we were scheduled for an interview. While we were waiting Ed was standing on the veranda of the Dalai Lama’s palace, which is really a very large bungalow. “I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the vast Himalayan mountain range stretching in front of me. Then I saw a monk at the further end of the veranda trying to get my attention and beckoning me to come. I called for Deb, thinking we were being taken in to see the Dalai Lama, but as we approached the monk we realized that the beckoning monk was the Dalai Lama!”

In traditional Buddhist custom, we immediately began to prostrate but he took our hands and lifted us up, saying, “No, we are all equal here.”

For Deb this was a powerful reminder of our real oneness. For Ed he felt he was with the most compassionate being he had ever met. “The Dalai Lama made me feel as if I was the most important person in the world, as if nothing mattered more than the three of us being together. He radiated kindness and true presence.”

We both saw the meaning of real compassion in him, someone who was so ordinary, so simple, and his feelings for others so genuine. We spent about 45 minutes talking with him. Looking into his eyes, we could saw all of the suffering of the world as well as oceans of compassion. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is known as Chenrezig, which means the Embodiment of Compassion, but as he says himself, “My religion is kindness.”

Compassion is probably the most important quality any of us could live by as it allows us to live with sanity and love. It is the wish that all beings be free from suffering. And that includes ourselves.

Every time we see suffering, every time we feel suffering in either ourselves or another, every time we make a mistake or say something stupid and are just about to put ourselves down, every time we encounter the confusion and difficulty of being human, every time we see someone else struggling, upset or irritated, we can transform it into acceptance, loving kindness and compassion, for that is also who we are. Just a few breaths of compassion will bring armfuls of understanding and caring into any situation. We can be compassionate because it is the foundation of who we are. It’s like a band-aide made in the heart.

Any of us are capable of losing our cool, losing connectedness to our hearts, losing perspective, getting caught up in hot emotions and causing harm. That is why compassion for ourselves is as important as compassion for others. Self-compassion enables us to transform fear, anger or resentment into forgiveness, acceptance and friendliness. By knowing our own pain and conflict, so we can more easily offer compassion to others.

Compassion is the willingness to witness and be present with whatever we see around us, not to turn away or pretend it’s not there: the hungry, the victims of abuse, the injustice, the senseless fighting, the homeless, the fear of the enemy. It is easy to feel hopeless, to want to walk away from it all, but compassion means we can’t be indifferent and uncaring. In recognizing our essential interconnectedness we can’t separate ourselves from anyone else. We are all here together and the least we can do is offer a helping hand.

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

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If You’re Not Here Then Where Are You? by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.  John Lennon

Who said life would be like walking the yellow brick road, or that the human condition would be easy? And why is it so important to be here? What’s the big deal? It appears that the reason we’re not happy is because we long for things to be other than they are. We’re not satisfied being here. Not satisfied being with what is. We want things to be different, because we believe that if they were we would be happier. Therefore, we’re not truly present with our reality.

Why is Love so Painful? by Pragito Dove

Love is painful because it creates the way for joy, for ecstasy, for bliss. Love is painful because it transforms you. Love is growth.

Love itself does not hurt. It is growth that hurts, the ego that stings.

Each transformation is painful because the old situation is being left behind for the new. Hence, fear arises.

The real problem is the mind. Fear lives in the mind and the mind wants you to hang on to a situation that is known and comfortable for you. The ego-mind resists change because it is afraid of losing control and feels insecure about the unpredictability of the unknown. Love means the death of the ego because love cannot be controlled, it can only be received, accepted. Love is fragile. One day it is there, the next day it may be gone, like the wind. We cannot grasp the wind in our fist. We can only enjoy and appreciate it while it is there.

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Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.  John Lennon

Who said life would be like walking the yellow brick road, or that the human condition would be easy? And why is it so important to be here? What’s the big deal? It appears that the reason we’re not happy is because we long for things to be other than they are. We’re not satisfied being here. Not satisfied being with what is. We want things to be different, because we believe that if they were we would be happier. Therefore, we’re not truly present with our reality.

Certainly many of us face challenging situations, but resistance only makes this harder. It can turn pain into suffering. Taking each moment at a time enables us to be with whatever is happening. When we were in England, Ed was chatting with a nun named Avis. He said to her, “Some day we will all die and meet up in heaven.” And she replied, “Yeah, and we’ll look at each other and say, ‘What was that all about!’”

Normally, we spend our time either living in what-could-have-been or what-might-have-been or if-only, or in the expectation of what-could-be or what-might-be. But constantly living in either the past or the future is like being in a dream, as it limits our capacity to be in the present, with what is happening now. No matter how much we try, plan, plot, arrange, have things to do, we still have no idea what will happen next.

We used to live next to a river and walked beside it each day. But as much as it looked like the same river, even the same water, it was constantly different. Just as we may look the same, the cells in our body are forever being formed, growing and dying; we are continually changing as we renew ourselves in every minute.

We can stay open to these moments of change by simply being aware of them. Right now, just stop and take a deep breath. As you breath out, just notice how your body feels, the chair you are sitting on, and the room you are in. That’s all. It only takes an instant to be present.

Contrary to common belief, it can be immensely liberating to have nothing going on, to discover that the whole universe is contained in this moment. To realize that nothing more is required of us than to just be aware and present. What a relief! Finally, we can experience this reality just as it is, without expectation, prejudice, longing, or without the desire for something to be different. This invites a deep sense of completion, that there really is nowhere else we need to be or go. It’s impossible to think of somewhere else as being better for the grass is vividly green exactly where we are.

Someone once asked Ed if he had ever experienced another dimension. He replied, “Have you experienced this one?” There is no greater joy in this whole world than our own true self.

Practice: Being and Breathing Meditation

When we meditate by simply watching the flow of the breath it naturally brings us into the present. The breath is just breathing, and yet it is never the same, each breath is completely different to the last one.

Sit comfortably with your back straight, hands in your lap, eyes closed. Spend a few minutes settling your body.

            Now bring your focus to your breathing, just watch the natural movement as you breathe in and out. Silently repeat, “Breathing in, Breathing out.”

            Stay with watching your breath. If your mind starts to drift just see your thoughts as birds in the sky and watch them fly away. Then come back to the breath.

            Anytime you get distracted, bored, or stressed, just come back to the breath, to this moment now. Silently repeat, “I am here, I am now, I am present. I am here, I am now, I am present.”

            You can do this for a few minutes or as long as you like. When you are ready, take a deep breath and let it go, open your eyes, and move gently.

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com 

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If we act with kindness and without focusing on ourselves, happiness will arise naturally, like a flower opening in the sun.

Some people think that yoga means stretching, bending and twisting like a pretzel, or sitting crossed legged with our eyes closed and chanting Om. But if that is all we did we would be no use to anyone. We spent our honeymoon in India and lived at the Bihar School of Yoga, where the foundation of our training was karma yoga. This was brilliant, as it gave us the opportunity to deepen our understanding of what it really is.

Many great yoga masters have said that the greatest path of yoga is karma yoga, as it is the one that asks us to be the least me-centered. The teaching is very explicit regarding karma yoga, which is described as the path of action and selfless service, to renounce our own selfish pursuits and not to reap the fruits of our actions. Brad Pitt’s selfless work building houses in New Orleans, or yoga teacher and activist Seane Corn’s work with Youth AIDS are expressions of karma yoga. ”I realized that whether my yoga practice was fifteen minutes or four hours was irrelevant because it was not about how yoga can change me,” says Seane in our book, Be The Change, “but how I, through this practice, can begin to change the world. What I really felt was how dare I not step into the world and hold that space?”

Start by practicing selfless service for a day, giving in whatever way you can by offering kindness. How does it feel? Just one day of this can be transforming, so try doing it once a week. It doesn’t mean you have to deny or ignore your own needs—you are just as important as everyone else. But just for this time let it not be about you.

Tai chi teacher Arthur Rosenfield was in the drive-thru line at Starbucks. The man in line behind him was getting impatient and angry, leaning on his horn and shouting insults at both Arthur and the Starbucks workers. Keeping his cool, Arthur paid for the man’s coffee and drove away. When he got home later that day, he discovered that he had created a chain of giving that had not only continued all day but had been highlighted on NBC News. Within twenty-four hours it had spread around the world on the Internet.

“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve,” said Martin Luther King. “You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

Karma yoga is creating goodness in the world. Do you treat your world with kindness or with aggression? Giving without any thought of getting is the most powerful act of generosity as it is unconditional, unattached, free to land wherever it will. But generosity can also raise fears about not having enough. Watch where resentment creeps in and remember that selfless action is just that: selfless.

On our morning walk through the alleys near our house we came across a back yard filled with used bicycles. Finally we met the owner. He had a bicycle shop in town and was collecting all these used bikes, repairing them, and then donating them to an Indian reservation in Montana. His goal was that everyone at the reservation, young and old, should have a bicycle of their own.

We see it in author Marc Barasch, founder of Green World Campaign. He decided that, “instead of cutting down trees to put words on a page, I wanted to plant some actual trees in the ground.” This year the nonprofit will plant millions of trees throughout the developing world, revitalizing barren land, helping sustain poor villages, and combating climate change. The slogan is, It’s amazing what one seed can grow.

And there is Aileen, a friend from England. In the last ten years she has created a farm in rural India. She sent us a photo showing her planting ‘flame of the forest’ tree seeds into starter pots. When these seeds become saplings they will be distributed to local school children so that each child will have their own tree to grow and tend.

Serving enables us to step beyond our own desires and to release any sense of separation. It takes us out of selfishness and neediness, and in the process we see our own self-centeredness in greater perspective. We discover that in giving we do not have any less. Rather, we gain so much. Let everything we do be of benefit to others.

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

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Why Yoga Is So Misunderstood ~ How It Has Gone From the Sane to the Bizarre by Ed and Deb Shapiro

Yoga has come a long way from its roots in the east. As it has become more popular in the west teachers have added their own twist – both literally & figuratively. In the process of becoming so widespread, however, it often gets misunderstood by both teachers and practitioners…

Yoga ~ A Menopause Alternative to HRT by Mache Seibel M.D.

Twenty years ago during a particularly stressful period of work, I began taking a yoga class as a non-pharmacologic antidote. I was running a center for reproduction and women’s health, working 24/7 and needed a way to relax. I had the good fortune to enroll with a yogini named Hari Khar Khalsa, and I took classes from her for a period of time. One day after class I asked her if she would…

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Love is painful because it creates the way for joy, for ecstasy, for bliss. Love is painful because it transforms you. Love is growth.

Love itself does not hurt. It is growth that hurts, the ego that stings.

Each transformation is painful because the old situation is being left behind for the new. Hence, fear arises.

The real problem is the mind. Fear lives in the mind and the mind wants you to hang on to a situation that is known and comfortable for you. The ego-mind resists change because it is afraid of losing control and feels insecure about the unpredictability of the unknown. Love means the death of the ego because love cannot be controlled, it can only be received, accepted. Love is fragile. One day it is there, the next day it may be gone, like the wind. We cannot grasp the wind in our fist. We can only enjoy and appreciate it while it is there.

For the mind, love is a dangerous path. Mind will advise you to avoid love but this is even more dangerous, because love is the central core of our lives. A life without love is a life that is withered and dried up.

It is because of the pain of love that millions live a loveless life, like a rotten seed that has never opened to flower to it’s fullest potential.If you don’t go into love, as many people have decided, then you are stuck with yourself. Then your life is a stagnant pool. You need to keep the energy flowing, like a river which keeps on flowing to the ocean.

So what do we do? Choose love! Always choose love because even though there is pain, to suffer in love is not to suffer in vain; it takes you to higher levels of consciousness. There is a positive, creative outcome for you. If you choose the mind you will also suffer but it will be useless suffering with an unproductive outcome. Life will be dull and you become neurotic from lack of love. To be afraid of love, to be afraid of the growing pains of love, is to remain enclosed in a dark cell.

The transformation is from control of the mind to vulnerability of the heart. And the agony can be deep. But you cannot have ecstasy without going through agony. If the gold wants to be purified, it has to pass through fire.

Love is fire.

Find your courage and love, fully and completely. Trust and live in your heart. Love takes you from the head to the heart and nurtures, comforts and heals you even as you pass through the fire. Love is ever-present to support you.

With love, the soul arises within you; the ego drops and the soul arises. Love is food for the soul.

You can ask yourself:”Is this pain for my growth?” “Is my heart breaking open to give and receive even more love?” Every time your heart breaks open, yes it’s painful, but it means your heart is expanding and deepening. The pain is good and productive for you.

LEARN from each experience, WATCH the ego and CHOOSE LOVE. Go through the dark night, and you will reach a beautiful sunrise. It is only in the womb of the dark night that the sun evolves. It is only through the dark night that the morning comes.

Here is a meditation to encourage and support you.

Meditation: Sixty-Second Stop
Benefits:
This powerful yet simple technique encourages the love in your heart to grow, and it attracts more love to you.

Close your eyes and become aware of your heart.It might help to place your hand on your heart. Bring in a memory of a person, place or event that brings you joy. Feel the happiness filling your heart with that memory.
Do this technique whenever you feel disconnected from your heart or whenever you want to increase the love in your heart.

With love to you, my reader. I look forward to your comments.

There is more information on my books, CDs, and workshops on www.discovermeditation.com

Pragito Dove M.A., C.C.H. is the leading authority on Expressive Meditation in North America. Using the principles she now teaches, Pragito transformed her pain and fear into joy and inner peace. Founder of the Laughing Buddhas Network and an internationally recognized master trainer, speaker, and meditation expert, Pragito is the author of two best-selling books, Lunchtime Enlightenment (Penguin Group), and Laughter, Tears, Silence (published in six languages). She has a private practice in Northern California from where she teaches highly acclaimed programs such as the Laughter Meditation Teleclass Program Series to an international audience! Pragito’s website is: http://www.discovermeditation.com 

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6 Reasons Why Meditation Appears So Difficult by Ed and Deb Shapiro

We were teaching a meditation program in North Wales, in the UK, in a quiet backwater near the hills. It was a peaceful day, everyone was happily seated, and we had just rung the gong to begin the morning session when a motorbike started revving right outside the window. It was a loud and annoying noise that continued – stopping and starting –while the owner did repair work. It reminded us how, in England, church bells can ring all day and during meditation retreats we would often be confronted with the question: how do you stop the bell? Answer: become the bell!

Technorati Tags: Guidance, inspiration, joy, love, Meditation, Painful Love, pragito dove, reflection, vivid life

Keep cool; anger is not an argument — Daniel Webster

Soon after Nelson Mandela’s release from twenty-seven years in jail Bill Clinton asked him if he was angry the day he finally walked away free. “Surely,” Clinton said, “You must have felt some anger?” Mandela agreed that, yes, alongside the joy of being free, he had also felt great anger. “But,” he said, “I valued my freedom more, and I knew that if I expressed my anger I would still be a prisoner.”

Anger can be an effective expression of passion for justice and fairness, for basic rightness, for what is appropriate and humane. But anger can also be like a single match that can burn an entire forest, causing tremendous damage and hurt, wars, greed and self-deception. The fallout can be huge and, invariably, we have no control over the repercussions.

Few of us want to admit that we get bitchy, shout, or lose our temper—we much prefer to see ourselves as being wonderfully tolerant and serene. Yet we all get angry at some time or another and in its passion anger pushes away, condemns, and makes everything wrong except itself. Our heart goes out of reach and we lose touch with our feelings. There is no compromise, no chance for dialogue—I am right and you are wrong.

Trying to eradicate anger is like trying to box with our own shadow: it doesn’t work. Getting rid of it implies either expressing it, and possibly causing emotional carnage; denying and avoiding it, which is a way of lying to ourselves and can cause depression or bitterness; or repressing it, which just holds it inside until it erupts at a later time when it can cause even more harm.

“Ducks don’t do anger,” says Deepesh Faucheux in our book, Be The Change. “Ducks fight over a piece of bread and then they just swim away. But people keep processing everything that happens to them. That processing of the story—what so and so did to me, she wronged me, why doesn’t he respect me—keeps the energy identified as anger and resentment, instead of seeing it as simply energy.”

There are often layers of conflicting feelings hidden beneath anger, such as hurt, insecurity, sadness or fear. The power of rage is such that it can overshadow these other emotions, causing us to lose touch with ourselves and struggle to articulate what we are really feeling. Having lost our connectedness with each other, anger can really be a cry for attention or for contact; it may be expressing grief, loneliness, or a longing to love and be loved. We are saying, “I love you,” or “I need you,” while hurling abuse at each other.

“We get to see that underneath anger,” says Rabbi Zalman Schachter in Be The Change, “there is fear, pain, and sorrow, and we cannot deal with anger unless we also deal with what sustains the anger. We forget how we are hardwired. The reptilian system within us makes sure we are secure and safe. If we do not feel secure, then the dinosaur will rear its head and roar. So under anger is always the question of how safe does the reptilian feel.”

We need to go beneath the anger to see what hurt, longing or fear is trying to make itself heard. There may be feelings of rejection, grief or loneliness, so if we repress anger or pretend it isn’t there then all these other feelings get repressed and ignored as well. Only by recognizing what the real emotion is behind the expression can there be more honest communication.

By naming and recognizing the many faces of anger, we can stay present with it as it arises, keeping the heart open, breathing, watching emotions come up and pass through. We can watch as anger fills the mind and makes such a song and dance, and we can just keep breathing and watching as it goes on it’s merry way.

Meditation not only invites us to witness anger, but also to get to know and make friends with ourselves. It gives us a midpoint between expressing anger and repressing it, a place where we can be aware of our feelings and not be swept away by them. Meditation is not going to make all our challenges go away but it does enable us to rest in an inclusiveacceptance of who we are.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com 

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We were teaching a meditation program in North Wales, in the UK, in a quiet backwater near the hills. It was a peaceful day, everyone was happily seated, and we had just rung the gong to begin the morning session when a motorbike started revving right outside the window. It was a loud and annoying noise that continued – stopping and starting –while the owner did repair work. It reminded us how, in England, church bells can ring all day and during meditation retreats we would often be confronted with the question: how do you stop the bell? Answer: become the bell!

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To inquire into something is to open to it, to meet it, and to discover its meaning — or lack of meaning — from the inside of it. Inquiry is generally recognized to mean investigating, and that definition serves the purpose well. However, in the sense in which I use Inquiry, it is not information that is provided by this investigation, but direct experience. To directly experience anything we first have to leave behind all preconceptions of that thing.

Technorati Tags: anger, appreciation, awareness, Ed and Deb Shapiro, Happiness, inspiration, Meditation, mindfulness, personal development, self help, self-discovery, Spiritual Guidance, Spirituality, vivid life

We were teaching a meditation program in North Wales, in the UK, in a quiet backwater near the hills. It was a peaceful day, everyone was happily seated, and we had just rung the gong to begin the morning session when a motorbike started revving right outside the window. It was a loud and annoying noise that continued – stopping and starting –while the owner did repair work. It reminded us how, in England, church bells can ring all day and during meditation retreats we would often be confronted with the question: how do you stop the bell? Answer: become the bell!

An old monk in England once told us he was teaching next to a building site and a loud pneumatic drill started up. He said, “We had to become the drill.” For meditation is not about forcing the mind to be absolutely still. Rather, it’s a letting go of resistance to whatever arises.

There are many reasons why meditation can appear difficult or even challenging, listening to the noises outside or the incessant chatter in our head being one of them. We easily get bored if we do nothing for too long, even if it’s only ten minutes, and even more so if we are unclear as to why we are doing it. But what is it about something as simple as sitting still and watching our breath that evokes panic, fear, and even hostility?

After years of hearing a plethora of reasons why people find it hard to meditate, we have whittled it down to just a few:

1. I’m too busy, and I’m too stressed. Which can certainly be true if, for instance, you have a lot to do, like having young children and a full-time job. However, we are only talking about maybe ten minutes a day. Most of us spend more time than that reading the newspaper or surfing the web. It only appears like we don’t have the time because we usually fill every moment with activity and never press the pause button. There is no medical cure for stress but, as meditation is one of the best remedies, it’s worth creating the space for it.

The important point is that you make friends with meditation. It’ll be of no help at all if you feel you have to meditate, for instance, and then feel guilty if you miss the allotted time or only do ten minutes when you had promised to do thirty. It’s much better to practice for a just a short time and to enjoy what you are doing, than to sit there, teeth gritted, because you’ve been told that only 30 or even 40 minutes will have any affect. Meditation is a companion to have throughout life, like an old friend you turn to when in need of support, inspiration, and clarity. It is to be enjoyed!

2. My mind won’t stop thinking: I can’t relax, I just can’t! My thoughts are driving me crazy! Sound familiar? Trying to stop your mind from thinking is like trying to stop the wind – it’s impossible. The mind is described like a drunken monkey bitten by a scorpion because, just as a monkey leaps from branch to branch, so the mind leaps from one thing to another, constantly distracted and busy. When you come to sit still and try to quiet your mind, you find all this manic activity going on and it seems insanely noisy. It’s actually nothing new, just that now you are becoming aware of it whereas before you were immersed in it, unaware that such chatter was so constant.

This experience of the mind being so busy is very normal. Years of busy mind, of creating and maintaining dramas, of stresses and confusion and self-centeredness, and the mind has no idea how to be still. Rather, it craves distraction and  entertainment. It’s not as if you can suddenly turn the mind off, but the experience of stillness is accumulative: The more you sit, then slowly the mind becomes quieter. Every time you find your mind is drifting, daydreaming, remembering the past or planning ahead, just come back to now, come back to this moment. Nothing else.

3. There are too many distractions, it’s too noisy. Gone are the days when we could disappear into a cave and be left undisturbed until we emerged some time later fully enlightened. Instead, we all have to deal with the sounds and impositions of the world around us. But – and it’s a big but – we needn’t let it impose. Cars going by outside? Fine. Let them go by, just don’t go with them. The quiet you are looking for is inside, not outside.

4. I don’t see the point. This is where you have to take our word for it! Some people get how beneficial meditation is after just one session, but most of us take longer – you might notice a difference after a week of daily practice or maybe more. Which means you have to trust the process enough to hang in there and keep going, even before you get the benefits. After practicing and teaching for many years, we can happily assure you it is well worth it.

Remember, music needs to be played for hours to get the notes right, while in Japan it can take twelve years to learn how to arrange flowers. Being still happens in a moment, but it may take some time before that moment comes—hence the need for practice as well as patience.

5. I’m no good at this; I never get it right. Actually, it’s impossible to fail at meditation. There is no right or wrong, and there’s no special technique. Deb’s meditation teacher told her there are as many forms of meditation as there are people who practice it. So all you need do is find the way that works for you and keep at it. You can sit on the floor, sit in a chair, do moving meditation such as tai chi or walking, watch your breath, repeat a mantra, or develop loving kindness. There are many variations.

6. It’s all just weird New Age hype. It’s certainly easy to get lost in the array of New Age promises of eternal happiness, but meditation itself is as old as the hills. More than 2,500 years ago the Buddha was a dedicated meditator who tried and tested numerous different ways of enabling the mind to be quiet. And that’s just one example. Each religion has its own variation on the theme, and all stretch back over the centuries. So nothing new here, and nothing weird or whacky.

Enjoy!

Ed and Deb Shapiro are the authors of BE THE CHANGE, How Meditation Can Transform You And The World, with forewords by the Dalai Lama and Robert Thurman and Winner of the 2010 Nautilus Gold Book Award. Deb is the author of the bestselling book, YOUR BODY SPEAKS YOUR MIND, winner of the 2007 Visionary Book Award. They are featured bloggers on Oprah.com/spirit, HuffingtonPost.com/Living, and Care2.com. They have 3 meditation CD’s: Metta — Loving Kindness and Forgiveness; Samadhi – Breath Awareness and Insight; and Yoga Nidra – Inner Conscious Relaxation. See: www.EdandDebShapiro.com

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Technorati Tags: appreciation, gratitude, Happiness, inspiration, Meditation, personal development, Personal Growth, self-discovery, Spirituality