#526 Monitoring My State of Being - Moment-by-Moment

     Awareness of what's going on around us & what's going on inside of us are important components, but nowhere near all of mindfulness. Another vital level of awareness is monitoring our state of being or, in computer jargon, our operating system.
     We've all experienced this unique combination kind / loving, open-hearted, peaceful, silent, still, timeless, hypoegoic / egoless: being with a person or animal we love, performing highly meaningful activity, being in a special place, listening to special music etc.
     We've all also experienced being "stressed-out": fear / anger / anxiety / depression, armored, noise, feeling rattled / shaken, time-poverty, egocentric. If we examine our lives very carefully, the vast majority of our time is spent - to some degree - in this mode.
     Whether we're in the rare open-hearted mode - or - the almost continuous armored mode, we tend to blame external factors entirely. Aside from trying to make the external environment more comfortable & pleasing, we assume we have no control over our quality of life.

     Mindfulness training allows us see clearly & experience directly how WE are ENTIRELY RESPONSIBLE for our own state of being - in which operating system WE CHOOSE to live ie we choose our quality of life independent of external factors.
     You CAN open your mind-heart up to an infinitely greater quality of life.

Puppy Love from: smchealth.org       &       Stressed-Out from: knowmybody.com

#66 Openings

     “The more we open ourselves, the more our energy and effort in practice flow. We become a channel or conduit for energy. This energy is the power of expansion and opening, not an energy of struggle. It is a power of the heart. If we are willing to bring a wholehearted effort to every aspect of our practice, the very effort itself brings more energy as we touch this great capacity within us.”           J Goldstein & J Kornfield

      “I just went through a series of heart attacks, and the greatest gift that’s come out of that for me is a deeper appreciation of vulnerability, which is usually seen as weakness. But I’m experiencing it as a kind of porousness, of feeling less defended, less armored. If we can impart to younger people the gift of that vulnerability, it may help them to embrace aging.”                                       Frank Ostaseski

Photo: RuthC   www.dpreview.com