Transcendence and Healing

I had somehow got lost. I explored the lands of yoga, hoping to find my way. The travel was steeper than I had imagined, but I had to keep my head up to the horizon and keep on moving against the ascending climb. As my awareness grew more expansive entering new territory, seeing new sights and discovering many things that all lied within the landscapes of myself, I began to look back with despaired regret.

Although, I encountered so many beautiful things — similar to on my travel back to my ancestory land of Cambodia, when I had the honour to step through the wondrous and exquisitely divine temples of Angkor Wat. I also encountered the ugly. During that same visit, I cried nearly everyday. The sight of a young boy — the same age as my 5 year old daughter at the time — lying in the middle of a gas station, in filthy clothes, with nothing… not even his mother. My blood began to boil. How could anyone let this happen? As I travelled more and more, I saw that it was everywhere. People were so poor. How could others be so selfish? Not to let them have a meal, clothing, a roof to sleep?! The very basic of our needs!! I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs!!! The pain became so much…

But then, I took a still moment and looked deep within my own self. What have I done to be so selfish? What actions have I done to harm others? What am I doing to contribute to all this suffering? As much as I didn’t want to, I saw these things within myself.

To change the world, one has to only see that the change begins within their own selves.

I came to the realization that I had to somehow move past my mistakes, for dwelling on them would only cause more suffering to continue. I needed to learn from them to transcend them into something greater. From the book “Healing Relationships” by Lama Choedak Rinpoche, this is the prayer for change — my map along this journey, that helps me find my way.

Deep Love,

What Is The Mind?

Shut the gates to the external world and walk, step into the internal chambers of your mind. The mind. What is the mind? Take the time to explore the mind. Wander about its being. Search deep within it’s very walls and you will find only two things: the past and the future.

The mind is simply a storage house of your whole past. Each and every moment of your past is placed on the shelves of the mind. It simply carries; keeps; holds onto all the memories of your past.

If all the mind is, is a storage house of your whole past, then what you could do with the mind is explore it’s chambers. And like taking a book off a library shelf to read, you can take a memory of the past off the shelf of mind and look through it. Selecting the most desirable and pleasing of memories and skimming past the un-desirable and painful of memories. Put it back and go back again and again. Again and again into these memories.

But, the action of pulling the same memories off the shelf to be looked at again and again can get boresome. For nothing can be done about the past, it is already done. So another activity, something more challenging, is sought out. The mind thinks, “The past is already done, nothing can be done about it, but something can be done about the future!” You leave the most beautiful of memories and take down the ugly, un-wanted memories and tear the pages apart and re-write them. This is called daydreaming. All the future is, is your past re-arranged and better written.

This is the mind. The mind swings you back and forth between the past and future, like a pendulum.

And all the while you’re going back and forth doing this, you are missing. You are missing the present. All the ancient ones — the mystics, the gurus, the yogis, all knew the sacredness that lies in the present. The present. The only existence there is. The only truth. All that there is, you will go on missing if you don’t become more aware.

With awareness, you can choose to take hold of the weight of the pendulum into your own hands and choose to walk into and look at the past at will, take some teachings from it’s stories and return into the present to implement the wisdom of it’s existence, so not to repeat the same mistakes in the future.

Meditation simply means a moment when you step out of the mind and into the present. Into here. Into now. The only existence, the only truth. All that is, is only here, right now, in this moment. No where else. The answers have been and always will be sitting right here in the centre of the palms of your very hands. All you have to do is open up and look. It is here for your taking.

As you go about your day, take a moment to step out of the mind and come into all that is. Don’t think about that flower. Look at this flower and absorb the vibrant colours in with the eyes and smell the sweet fragrant it let’s off. Don’t think about the food you are about to eat. Taste the succulent flavours and feel the texture of the food you are eating. Don’t think about the words I am about to say. Listen to the words I am saying. Because if you don’t, you miss. And tomorrow will never come, for today was tomorrow just yesterday. And yesterday was tomorrow the day before. All the past was part of the future at one point, and where were you?

Don’t let another day pass by, for tomorrow is here today…

Deep Love,

I Am Valued.

“The best things in life are unseen. That’s why we close our eyes when we kiss, laugh and dream.” – Anonymous

Dream — one way to define this is as an involuntary vision occurring to a person when awake. That’s exactly what happened. A vision…and for the first time, in a long time, I once again felt awake.

I don’t know exactly when it was that I fell asleep, but I did. I closed my internal eyes to the harshness of the world, shut down and began to live life unconsciously. Being told one too many times that what I wanted was not good enough. Heart-wrenching rejection, resulting in the belief that I am unworthy overcame my life and I no longer felt I had the right to even feel.

After coming out of — as always — one of Tanis’ beautifully powerful yoga nidra practices and settling into sitting meditation, she gently guided us to bring to mind our sankalpa — a seed of transformation that is planted into the subconscious mind in the form of a short, simple and precise sentence. The one I am working with — that was given to me by Tanis — is, “I am valued.” I stated my sankalpa three times as she asked us to bring to mind what we want for ourselves, for our lives.

What do I want in my life? I was always told that what I wanted wasn’t good enough. How am I supposed to know what I want? I knew…but I had forgotten how to feel it within my heart. I wanted to feel it. What I truly wanted had gotten lost in the chaos of sensory stimulation overloaded in the pedestal of material gains. My automatic reaction had succumb to believe I had to think bigger. Fortune? Fame? What do I want? The material images slowly stripped themselves down and spontaneously…

A vision came to the dark space behind my eyes. A dream — so vivid. There I stood on top of the sphere of earth in an open golden-green field. Against my skin, I could feel a brush of fresh wind sweeping by and the warmth from the bright sun’s reaching rays. I stood there in the midst of people, animals and plant life forms in pure contentment with the sense of community. An array of limiting beliefs released themselves from the space of sky and dissipated like water evaporates into steam, revealing all the light from the sun’s body. And it was then that I knew who I truly was. I was awakened. Returned to my true essence.

It is when we can conjure up the courage to transform the storage house of our old belief systems that is no longer serving us and surrender ourselves to die, that we can then be reborn into who we are meant to be – stripped from the coverings of limiting beliefs.

That is yoga nidra. For as many times the world whirlwinds me once again, yoga nidra will gently guide me back to remember who I really am.

Deep Love,