http://sonique.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/266009

Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself. Other creatures may love and laugh, talk and think, but is seems to be that the special peculiarity of human beings is that they reflect; they think about thinking and know that they know. This, like other feedback systems, may lead to vicious circles and confusions if improperly managed, but self-awareness makes human experience resonant. It imparts that simultaneous ?echo? to all that we think and feel as the box of the violin reverberates with the sound of the strings. It gives depth and volume to what would otherwise be shallow and flat.


Self-knowledge leads to wonder, and wonder to curiosity and investigation, so that nothing interests people more than people, even if only one?s own person. Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know. For the human organism is, apparently, the most complex of all organisms, and while one has the advantage of knowing one?s own organism so intimately from the inside ? there is also the disadvantage of being so close to it that one can never quite get at it. Nothing so eludes conscious inspection as consciousness itself. This is why the root of consciousness has been called, paradoxically, the unconscious.


The people who we are tempted to call clods and boors are just those who seem to find nothing fascinating in being human; their humanity is incomplete, for it has never astonished them. There is also something incomplete about those who find nothing fascinating in being. You may say that this is a philosopher?s professional prejudice ? that people are defective who lack a sense of the metaphysical. But anyone who thinks at all must be a philosopher ? a good one or a bad one ? because it is impossible to think without premises, without basic (and in this sense, metaphysical) assumptions about what is sensible, what is the good life, what is beauty, and what is pleasure. To hold such assumptions, consciously or unconsciously, is to philosophize.


--Alan Watts, from "The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing
]]> Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:22:00 EDT http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/266009 http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/266007

An intelligent mind realizes its own limitation, and it’s a beautiful thing when it does.

When you stop holding on to all of the knowledge, then you start to enter a different state of being. You start to move into a different dimension. You move into a dimension where experience inside gets very quiet. The mind may still be there chatting in the background, or it might not, but consciousness is no longer bothering itself with the mind. You don’t need to stop it. Your awareness just goes right past that wall of knowledge and moves into a very quiet state.

In this quietness, you realize that you don’t know anything simply because you aren’t looking back to the mind for its acquired knowledge. This quietness is a mystery to the mind. It is something unknown. As you go into depth, you literally go into a deeper experience of what seems to be a great mystery. Now the mind might come in and want to know what’s going on and start to define everything, but that’s not going to bring any more depth. The mystery just keeps opening to itself if you let it -- if you let go of control.

As acquired knowledge is left behind, what is found is that you have left your familiar sense of self behind. That self only existed in the accumulation of knowledge and experience. Something very interesting happens when you leave it all behind, because you are literally leaving your memory behind. You leave behind who you thought you were, whoever you thought your parents were, and everything else you thought and believed. Yesterday is gone. Then a very interesting thing starts to be noticed; you can leave all of that behind and still you *are* -- you are right here and right now. So what you are becomes even more mysterious.

When you realize that you can leave every self-definition behind and still you *are*, then you begin to see that these thoughts must not be what you are. In other words, who are you when you are not thinking yourself into existence? [...]

In that moment of recognition, you have already begun to move beyond the wall of accumulated knowledge. Then, if you don’t redefine this moment or rebox it in some concept, rethinking yourself into existence, your true state of being starts to present itself.

--Adyashanti, From "Emptiness Dancing"

]]> Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:20:00 EDT http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/266007 http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/266005

There is something magical that happens to the human spirit, a sense of calm that comes over you, when you cease needing all the attention directed towards yourself and instead allow others to have the glory.

Our need for excessive attention is that ego-centered part of us that says, "Look at me, I'm special. My story is more interesting than yours." [...] The ego is that part of us that wants to be seen, heard, respected, considered special, often at the expense of someone else. It's the part of us that interrupts someone else's story, or impatiently waits his turn to speak so that he can bring the conversation and the attention back to himself. To varying degrees, most of us engage in this habit, much to our own detriment. When you immediately dive in and bring the conversation back toward you, you can subtly minimize the joy that person has in sharing, and in doing so, create distance between yourself and others. Everyone loses. [...]

Although it's a difficult habit to break, it's not only enjoyable but actually peaceful to have the quiet confidence to be able to surrender your need for attention and instead share in the joy of someone else's glory. Rather than jumping right in and saying, " Once I did the same thing," or "Guess what I did today," bite your tongue and notice what happens. Just say, "That's wonderful," or "Please tell me more," and leave it at that. The person you are speaking to will have so much more fun and, because you are so much more "present", because you are listening so carefully, he or she won't feel in competition with you. The result will be that the person will feel more relaxed around you, making him or her more confident as well as more interesting. You too will feel more relaxed because you won't be on the edge of your seat, waiting your turn.

Obviously, there are many times when it's absolutely appropriate to exchange experience back and forth, and to share in the glory and attention rather than giving it all away. I'm referring here to the compulsive need to grab it from others. Ironically, when you surrender your need to hog the glory, the attention you used to need from other people is replaced by a quiet inner confidence that is derived from letting others have it.

--Richard Carlson, From "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff..."

]]> Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:19:00 EDT http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/266005 http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/266003

The example of the newly blinded man is so concrete, I wish I could use it as a type for all life-training. When he first loses his sight he thinks there is nothing left for him but heartache and despair. He feels shut out from all that is human. Life to him is like the ashes on a cold hearth. The fire of ambition is quenched. The light of hope is gone out. The objects in which he once took delight seem to thrust out sharp objects at him as he gropes his way about. [...] Then comes some wise teacher and friend and assures him that he can work with his hands and to a considerable degree train his hearing to take the place of sight. Often the stricken man does not believe it, and in his despair interprets it as mockery. Like a drowning person he strikes blindly at anyone who tries to save him. Nevertheless the sufferer must be urged onward in spite of himself, and when he once realizes that he can put himself in connection with the world, [...] a being he did not dream of before unfolds itself within him. If he is wise, he discovers at last that happiness has very little to do with outward circumstances, and he treads his dark way with a firmer will than he ever felt in the light.

Likewise those who have been mentally blinded "in the gradual furnace of the world" can, and must, be pressed to look for new capabilities within themselves and work out new ways to happiness. They may even resent faith that expects nobler things from them [...] How little we know ourselves! We need limitations and temptations to open our inner selves, dispel our ignorance, tear off disguises, throw down old idols, and destroy false standards. Only by such rude awakenings can we be led to dwell in a place where we are less cramped, less hindered by the ever-insistent External. Only then do we discover a new capacity and appreciation of goodness and beauty and truth.

-- Helen Keller

]]> Wed, 10 Oct 2007 11:17:00 EDT http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/266003 http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/250735

On awakening, bless this day, for it is already full of unseen good which your blessings will call forth, for to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is embedded in the very texture of the universe and awaiting each and all. [...]

The minute anyone expresses the least aggression or unkindness to you, respond with a blessing: Bless them totally, sincerely, joyfully – for such blessings are a shield that protects them from the ignorance of their misdeed and deflects the arrow that was aimed at you.

To bless means to wish, unconditionally and from the deepest chamber of your heart, unrestricted good for others and events; it means to hallow, to hold in reverence [...] To bless is to invoke divine care upon, to speak or think gratefully for, to confer happiness upon, although we ourselves are never the bestower, but simply the joyful witnesses of life's abundance.

To bless all without distinction is the ultimate form of giving, because those you bless will never know from whence came the sudden ray that burst through the clouds of their skies, and you will rarely be a witness to the sunlight in their lives.

When something goes completely askew in your day, when some unexpected event upsets your plans and you also, burst into blessing. For life is teaching you a lesson, and the very event you believe to be unwanted, you yourself called forth, so as to learn the lesson you might balk against were you not to bless it. [...]

It is impossible to bless and judge at the same time.

--Pierre Pradervand, From "The Gentle Art of Blessing"

]]> Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:20:00 EDT http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/250735 http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/250733

Ultimately, the only way to be fulfilled is to constantly grow and to contribute in a meaningful way to other people, to the world. And in order to grow, all of us have to be willing to let go of our fear and let go of who we are, and we've got to set standards and we've got to challenge ourselves. What makes people leaders in life is their willingness to say, 'Raise your standard. Demand more from yourself.' That's what all leaders of any sort do: They call people to a higher standard. I think that causes people to grow. [...]

Growth does not come from having an intellectual discussion with yourself. Growth only comes when you transform. And you must take that growth and convert that to something meaningful so that the world becomes better, so that the heaven on earth that we were talking about earlier actually becomes a possible reality -- and I think it ultimately will. It already is for many people. It's just a matter of making your peer group become humanity instead of your peer group being a small number of people that you have influence over or impact on in your lifetime. [...]

I think that anything we can do to more thoroughly understand how we function as human beings, what really drives us, and how we can utilize that understanding to be better human beings and better spiritual beings, is definitely a part of our evolution. And I think it has to happen rapidly because our technology is multiplying in its capacity and its strength and its diversity more rapidly than our technology for the management of human emotion, which is what drives all human action. And I think that's the part that has to be focused on. We need to develop the emotional and spiritual muscles to deal with whatever challenges show up.

--Tony Robbins, from an interview, "Excellence is not enough"

]]> Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:14:00 EDT http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/250733 http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/250731

What we need is to be interested and to watch, but not interfere or be caught up in what we are thinking. Don't think of the past, don't anticipate the future, don't get fascinated by the present. See it as it is. Just be there with it. A thought is just a thought. An emotion is just an emotion. It is like a bubble. It will burst and another one will come up.

When we first begin to put this into practice the mind begins to split. We develop what is called the observer, the witness, the knower. This is an aspect of the mind. It is still just mind, conceptual mind, but it is a mind which is standing back and looking at what is going on, as if at a distance. In itself, this is not ultimate reality, because it is still a dualistic mind. But it is a vast improvement on the way we normally think, because it gives us the space to see a thought as a thought and an emotion as an emotion. Then we can decide whether this is a useful thought or emotion or not. We know it for what is, rather than being absorbed in it. We no longer identify with it.

If we develop this inner awareness, which is like an inner space, we can ride the waves of life. People imagine that to be a meditator you have to always live in very tranquil situations and that you are likely to be inundated if a turbulent situation arises. This is true for beginners, just as it is for someone who is learning how to surf. At the beginning, they have to stick to the small waves otherwise they will be bowled over. But an expert surfer looks for the big waves. The greater the waves, the more fun, once you have your balance. The secret is to be balanced, to be poised. To be a good surfer you need to be neither too tense nor too relaxed, just balanced. This is what we need in our practice, too.

When we develop this inner space, everything takes on a dream-like quality. Not dream-like in the sense of being sleepy, but in that it is no longer so solid, so real, so urgent. It has a quality almost like an illusion. You don't take it quite so seriously, because you are not so totally involved in it. Now when we have that sense of stepping back and seeing life with a degree of clarity, we are able to respond to situations which arise with freshness and spontaneity, instead of our usual automatic response, which is like pressing a button on a machine. We begin to respond naturally and in an appropriate manner.

--Ani Tenzin Palmo, From "Reflections on a Mountain Lake"

]]> Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:11:00 EDT http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/250731 http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/250727 KEEP NO ACCOUNTS WITH LOVE,Mikhail Naimy
You are the tree of Life. Beware of fractioning yourselves. Never set fruit against fruit, a leaf against a leaf, or a bough against a bough, the stem against the roots, or the tree against the mother - the soil. But that is what you do when you love one part more than the rest, or worse yet, to the exclusion of the rest.

You are the Tree of Life. Your roots are everywhere. Your boughs and leaves are everywhere. Your fruits are in every mouth. Whatever the fruits on that tree may be ... whatever its boughs and leaves may be ... whatever the roots may be ... they are your fruits; they are your leaves and boughs; they are your roots.

If you want the tree to bear sweet and fragrant fruit, and if you want it to be strong and green, pay attention to the resin -- the life-blood of the tree. Love is the resin of Life. Love is the blood that must circulate unhindered in the veins. If you repress the blood, it becomes a plague. Hate is Love repressed or Love withheld. [...]

You do not know the Joy of Love if there is any hatred in your hearts. That which you hate is bound up inseparably with that which you love, like the head and tail of the same coin. If you are truly honest with yourself, then you must Love what you hate and what hates you before you can Love what you love and what loves you.

Love is not a virtue ... it's a neccessity of greater importance than bread and water, and more important than even light or air. Let no-one have pride in their loving. Inhale and exhale Love just as unconsciously as you breathe in and breathe out air. Love needs no-one to exalt it. Love will only exalt the heart that it finds worthy of itself. Don't seek out rewards for Love. Love is rewarded sufficiently with Love, just as hate is a sufficient punishment for hatred. Love accounts to no-one but itself. Love neither lends nor borrows; Love doesn't buy or sell.

But when Love gives, it gives all; when it takes, it takes all. Its very taking is giving. Its very giving is taking. Therefore is it the same to-day, to-morrow and forevermore.

--Mikhail Naimy, From "Book of Mirdad"

]]> Tue, 18 Sep 2007 06:06:00 EDT http://sonique.tigblog.org/post/250727