Monday, July 31, 2017

conscious interaction...

Eckhart Tolle: 
"One conscious breath is a meditation."

"Conscious breathing indicates a willingness to consciously interact,
or commune with, what is in and around us." ~Sarah

Meditation Cushion. Zafu. Floor Pillow. Natural Linen/Rayon Blend Slub Fabric. 15x5 Buckwheat Hull filled. 5" Sidewall Zipper. Handmade, USA
$44.95


Saturday, July 29, 2017

desire is the cause of unhappiness...

"We long for what we don’t have because we believe that having it will finally bring us peace and happiness. We don’t realize that the lack of peace and happiness we are feeling is actually a result of desiring what we don’t have. The desire is the cause of our unhappiness, not the fact that the desire is unfulfilled."
~ Gina Lake (20th-21st century American Advaita mystic)
photo source: pixabay.com
This post brought to you by etsyseller ZafuChi,
maker and seller of zafu meditation cushions, handmade in the U.S.A.

Friday, July 28, 2017

live streaming life...

"What is birth and death but the beginning and the ending of a stream of events in consciousness? Because of the idea of separation and limitation they are painful. 
Momentary relief from pain we call pleasure -- and we build castles in the air hoping for endless pleasure which we call happiness. 
It is all misunderstanding and misuse. 
Wake up, go beyond, live really."
- Nisargadatta
photo source: pixabay.com
This post brought to you by etsyseller ZafuChi,
maker and seller of zafu meditation cushions, handmade in the U.S.A.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

wait patiently, until the song that is your life falls into your cupped hands...

"Do not try to save the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create a clearing
in the dense forest of your life
and wait there patiently,
until the song that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know how
to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue."
~ Martha Postlewaite
photo source: pixabay.com
 This post brought to you by etsyseller ZafuChi
maker of eco-friendly zafus and bolsters.
European linen zafu in pin-tuck design
 

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

announcing July 2017 zafu cover blowout sale...

It's time to move some perfectly good stock to make room for a fall inventory. Everybody (I'm almost 100% sure) loves a sale or a deal. Well, here's my deal! Click here July unfilled zafu cover Blowout Sale to enter my etsy store section where there is a selection of 19 different unfilled zafu covers - priced at the unbelievable Blowout Sale price of $10. each! The first one has free shipping, and if you buy two they both ship at a flat rate shipping of $3.75. USPS 1st Class, or choose Priority Mail at checkout.  Available in bright colors, solids, stripes, and florals. Please share this announcement with any friends or acquaintances who might be interested. Thank you!


photo source: pixabay.com
 

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Practicing mindfulness together...

"We all have a fundamental need to belong, to feel safe, alive, and welcome. We can transform our own family or household into such a place where this is possible. Together we can practice breathing and smiling, sitting together, drinking tea together in mindfulness. If we have a bell, the bell is also part of the community, because the bell helps us practice, calling us back to ourselves to the present moment. If we have a meditation cushion, the cushion is also part of the community.

There are many things that help us practice mindfulness—even the air for breathing. If we live near a park or a riverbank, we can enjoy walking meditation there, and the park or river becomes part of our community. We need to establish a community at home. From time to time we can invite a friend to join us. We need to expand our definition of family to include not only our friends and community, but also the sun, the sky, the trees, the birds, and the hills around us. Practicing mindfulness is much easier when we do it together."
- Thich Nhat Hanh
photo source:  pixabay
 

we're always at the right place at the right time...

"No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place." 
~Zen~

"Surrender to existence and allow it to take you wherever it takes you; 
it has never taken anybody into any wrong space."
~Osho~
(btw, the little me doesn't believe this is 100% true. ;) Sarah )
(Photos source: pixabay)
This post brought to you by etsyeller Zafuchi
maker of zafu meditation cushions and bolster pillows; handmade USA

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

the journey to where we first started...



“Life is a dual journey: 
one journey is in time and space the other is within oneself and truth. 
 The first ends in death - the second in deathlessness. 
 The second is the real journey because it takes you somewhere. 
Those who take the first journey as it, waste their lives. 
The real life begins the day you start the other journey.”
— O S H O, 'A Cup of Tea'
 
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.” 
Spiderwort plant in bloom
 

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Gurdjieff on "becoming just Love"...

"Gurdjieff used the I AM method. Work deeply on I AM whatever you are doing. Drinking water, eating, remember "I AM." Do not forget it! When you walk remember I AM. Let the walking be there, but be fixed on "I AM I AM I AM." Let this be constant in your awareness. Then it will begin to penetrate your sleep also.
Gurdjieff worked on his method continuously. His chief disciple P.D. Ouspensky relates that when Gurdjieff was working with him on this method and he was practicing for 3 months continuously this remembering of "I AM I AM I AM", everything stopped. Thoughts, dreaming, everything stopped. Only one note like music remained "I AM." But it was not an effort. This was a spontaneous activity going on. "I AM." Then Gurdjieff called Ouspensky out of the house. For 3 months he had been kept inside and was not allowed to go out.
Then Gurdjieff said 'Come with me!'They were living in a Russian town of Tiflis. They went out into the street. Ouspensky writes in his diary, "For the first time I could understand what Jesus meant when he said that man is asleep. The whole city looked to me as if asleep. People were moving in their sleep, shopkeepers were selling in their sleep, customers buying in their sleep. The whole city was asleep! I looked over at Gurdjieff. Only he was awake. The whole city around us was asleep. They were angry, fighting, they were loving, buying, selling, doing, everything."
Ouspensky said "I could see their faces, their eyes, they were asleep. The inner center was missing, it was not there.' Ouspensky said to Gurdjieff "I do not want to go there anymore. What happened to the city? Everyone seems asleep, drugged."
Gurdjieff said "Nothing has happened to the city. Something has happened to you. You have been undrugged. The city remains the same. It is the same place you moved into 3 months ago. But you couldn't see that other people are asleep because you were also asleep. Now you can see because a certain quality of awareness has come to you. With three months of practicing "I AM" continuously, you have become aware in a very short matter of time. You have become aware! A part of your consciousness has gone beyond dreaming. That is why you can see that everyone is asleep, dead, moving, drugged, as if hypnotized."
Ouspensky says "I could not bear this phenomenon - everyone asleep! Whatsoever they are doing, they are not responsible for it. They are not! How can they be responsible?" He came back and asked Gurdjieff "What is this? Am I deceived somehow? Have you done something to me that the whole city seems asleep? I cannot believe my own eyes!"
But this will happen to anyone. If you can remember yourself, then you will know that no one is remembering himself, and in this way each one goes on moving. The whole world is asleep. But start while you are awake. Any moment that you start "I AM."
I do not mean that you have to repeat the words "I AM" but have the feeling. Take a bath and feel "I AM." Let the touch of the cold shower be there, and let yourself be there behind, feeling it and remembering "I AM."Remember I am not saying that verbally you have to repeat "I AM." You can repeat it but that repetition will not give you awareness. Repetition may even create more sleep. So this "I AM", the remembering of "I AM", is not a verbal mantra. Feel it! Be sensitive to your being. When you touch someone else's hand do not only touch it, but feel it, feel your touch also. While you eat, feel yourself eating as well. This feeling will penetrate deeper and deeper into your mind.
One day suddenly you are awake at your own center, functioning for the first time. And then the whole world becomes a dream. And then you know that your dreaming is a dreaming. And when you know that your dreaming is a dreaming, dreaming stops. It can continue only if it is felt to be real. It is stopped if it is felt as unreal.
And once dreaming stops, you are a different man. The old man is dead; the sleepy man is dead. That human being which you were, you are no more. For the first time, you become aware. For the first time, in the whole world that is asleep, you are awake. You become a Buddha, an Awakened One.
After this awakening, there is no misery. After this awakening, there is no death. Through this awakening, there is no more fear. You become, for the first time, free of everything. To be free of sleep, to be free of dreaming, is to be free of everything. Hate, greed, anger all disappear. You attain freedom. You become just love."
- George Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky (as related in the Book of Secrets by Osho)
morning sun - light and shadows through the window
This post brought to you by etsyseller and zafu maker, ZafuChi.

Saturday, July 8, 2017

kiss the earth with your feet

"Wherever we walk, 
whether it's the railway station or the supermarket, 
we are walking on the earth and so we are in a holy sanctuary.
 If we remember to walk like that, 
we can be nourished and find solidity with each step."
 ~Thich Nhat Hanh


This blog post brought to you by ZafuChi
an independent maker, and etsy seller, 
of handmade zafu meditation cushions and bolster pillows.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

letting go...returning to nameless formless Love...

My love, carry on.
Yours is a great calling.
You are discharging
your river
of names and forms into
the nameless Ocean
of no return.
In doing so, others can
witness and taste, through you,
That which they have heard
only as rumor.
~ Mooji
(from ‘Writing on Water’) 

Siesta Key Beach
 

Sunday, July 2, 2017

that sneaky, tricky ego mind...

"Loving what is, would seem to be the simplest thing possible. It involves no effort, no struggle, no longing, and no disappointment. But loving what is goes against our programming, so it is difficult. It requires vigilance to counteract the egoic mind’s automatic rejection and resistance to whatever is happening. To experience the peace and happiness that exist in this moment, it is necessary to stop listening to the egoic mind, which undermines this peace and happiness with complaints and judgments. These are the tactics it uses to take us out of the present and into its world of desires, hopes, and dreams. It woos us with fantasies of a more perfect world, a more perfect mate, a more perfect experience, and a more perfect you, all of which are unreal and will never be real."
~ Gina Lake (20th-21st century American Advaita mystic)
photo source: canva.com