Karmic Seeds Body Mind & Spirit

David Hawkins Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender First , picture a big chain around your ankles that prevents you from moving toward the life you desire.  Second , think of the similarity between a peanut butter sandwich, a satellite signal, and a thought. They are all forms of energy. They only differ by the wavelengths at which they vibrate. Negative thoughts and emotions are aligned with low, slow-moving energies. Positive thoughts and emotions are aligned with high, fast-moving energies. Third , put it all together by using the energy of thoughts and emotions to eliminate attachments. . Stress is our reaction to a stimulus, and our reaction depends on our belief system . This means that instead of trying to “treat” stress by focusing on its aftereffects (e.g. muscle relaxation) we need to remove the source of the underlying tension, which is repressed and suppressed negative feelings. Healing from an unpleasant event or loss will be a lot easier if we focus o...

By Sarah Harvey  http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/01/she-is-not-poem/ She is not here to make you smile. She does not exist for the sole purpose of making your life easier or making your pain feel less painful. She does not wake each day to make you gasp or groan with pleasure. And she sure as hell is not destined to hold your broken pieces politely together. She is here to inhale her pain and exhale Fire. She is not a pretty plaything Or a sweet little pet She is a living, breathing, booming woman With curiosity flowing through her veins like hot pink lightning, With thorns on her skin And colliding particles of electric, mystical mystery in her eyes. She might look cute, she might look delicate and sweet But she’s got a fierce beast inside her— Her wild heart. But that’s no secret. Because she knows what she’s not—- And she is not here to people please until she dies. She is not here to say pre...

The support that is most helpful when we are in an emotionally charged state comes from other people empathizing with our situation and showing they care. This validation of our experience can then give us the courage we need to face the issue for ourselves. Imagine that you are walking alone in the dark. Perhaps it is on a dark street, in a dark room or hallway, or out on a trail at night, and you likely feel some discomfort or fear.  Then, imagine that a friend is there with you, and notice what happens. Just having a companion with you in the dark can give you strength and courage, and magically, the fear disappears. Nothing has changed; you are still in a dark and unknown place. Yet having another person beside you can give you enough courage to continue forward. When you are in an emotionally charged state, it can feel like being in the dark alone. Often the most caring response you can receive from another person is simply their presence beside you in ...

Even a single day Of a life lived virtuously and meditatively,  Is worth more than a hundred years Lived carelessly and without discipline. A single day’s life Of one who makes great effort, Is better than a life of a hundred years Lived in idleness and sluggishness.  Like a River A single day’s life Of one who sees the Truth, Is worth more than a life of a hundred years Where the Truth is never seen.  Dhammapada 110, 112 &115  What this means is that if we are wholehearted about what we are doing, if we act and speak from a place of kindness and if we pay complete attention to the present, then to our surprise our life has indeed been fulfilled — the number of years we might have been alive is of secondary concern. 

  Ajahn Amaro • December 2008 Contentment, or santuṭṭhi, is often talked about in the context of material possessions. It’s the quality of being content with whatever is offered—the food that’s presented to us each day, whatever shelter is available to us for one night, and whatever robes and medicine are accessible to us. That’s an important aspect of contentment and a very grounding one—to have few material needs and few material possessions. This is our training. It’s also important to consider how santuṭṭhi permeates all aspects of the path. It’s not solely a matter of renunciation or not being moved by desire, agitation, or fear in terms of material things or how we relate to other people. Contentment is also the basis for concentration, samādhi—that quality of being content with this moment, this breath, this footstep, this feeling in the knee, this sound in the room, this quality of mood. To be content with just this moment is of enormous importance in terms o...

Luang Por Pasanno Learning how to meditate—how to develop the mind—is learning how to direct attention in a skillful way. Whatever we direct our attention toward becomes our reality. If we like, we can direct attention to all the chaos in the world or to the chaos of our own personal dramas. But we don’t have to do that. We can instead direct our minds to contemplate our experiences as merely form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. We can direct our attention in other skillful ways as well—toward objects that soothe the mind and conduce to peace and clarity. It’s simple: We can incline the mind toward what is wholesome or what is troublesome. The choice we make is up to each one of us. 

In the Buddha’s search for freedom he too turned his mindfulness to overcome his fears "How would it be if in the dark of the month, with no moon, I were to enter the most strange and frightening places, near tombs and in the thick of the forest, that I might come to understand fear and terror. And doing so, a wild animal would approach or the wind rustle the leaves and I would think, Perhaps the fear and terror now comes.And being resolved to dispel the hold of that fear and terror, I remained in whatever posture it arose, sitting or standing, walking or lying down. I did not change until I had faced that fear and terror in that very posture, until I was free of its hold upon me…And having this thought, I did so. By facing the fear and terror I became free." Absolutely beautiful

Adam Meakins   There is a strong culture within physiotherapy to blame a specific structure, be it a muscle, ligament, nerve, fascia etc etc when things are sore and painful for our patients. The Upper Trapezius muscle is one such structure that gets an awful lot of blame, but unfairly and incorrectly in my opinion. I regularly hear physio’s telling patients that this muscle is too tight or ‘over active’ and so the cause of their neck or shoulder pain. I hear them explaining how they  can feel or see that this muscle is knotted and tense, and explain how it needs to be released, loosened and stretched. I also see and hear many therapists choosing exercises to help reduce upper traps activity, by focusing on the Lower Traps to restore the balance between them. Well I argue the exact opposite approach is needed. Most, if not all the painful upper traps I see are weak and long, not tight and short, and yes they can ‘feel’ tight and tense, but they ‘feel’ this way beca...

BY  MARLA APT If you have carpel tunnel, tendonitis, or other forms of RSI, these poses will stabilize your shoulders and upper back and relieve pain in your wrists. Our hands are one of our primary organs of action—we use them for basic survival, recreation, communication, even creative expression. An injury in the hand or wrist can be debilitating and the healing process elusive. Because many of our interactions with modern conveniences involve repetitive movements—such as typing, texting, or mousing—one of the most prevalent types of wrist ailment today is a repetitive strain/stress injury, or RSI. Many common wrist conditions, such as carpel tunnel syndrome and tendinitis of the wrist, fall under this category. RSIs stem from excessive and continuous stress on the musculoskeletal system, often brought on by poor postural habits, as well as workplace ergonomics. When the shoulders and upper back don’t provide a supportive structural base for arm movements, the burden of ...

bY  BRITT B. STEELE You practice your yoga and drink your greens. You’ve memorized your mantra and you know the true meaning of “namaste." You’ve even made ghee once or twice. Yet each day you still find yourself seeking—looking for answers, but not just any answers. You want those answers that will nourish you, sustain you, and bring you peace during tough times. There comes a moment on the yogic path when the thirst for depth becomes insatiable and the poses we take on the mat are no longer enough. Instead, the desire to carry the “yoga high” off the mat and into all of life’s varied experiences becomes the primary motive for practice. How do we access and sustain that “yoga high” off the mat? There are no shortcuts to embodying all that yoga can offer. However, there is a simple, clear path that does not require the mastery of Sanskrit or of any particular pose. A desire to move one's yoga practice beyond asana, the third of the eight limbs of yoga, may signal...