I AM

[I AM]

Why I meditate:

[bethbrotz]

When you actually enter the path of a meditation practice and go down the road a little way, you wake up one day and realize, to your surprise, that you’re actually committed to this. When that happens, a whole other life comes into view.

You find that you have formed your life, literally, around the practice, and you actually begin to forget about the life you thought you wanted, the life you thought you were making, the life you were hoping for, or the life you thought you should’ve been having. Instead, the practice becomes your life and life becomes your practice. Practice is no longer something you do to enhance your life or help it along, it is just your life.  One day, you kind of realize this.

So you end up losing the life you thought you wanted, or the life you thought you had. But this is actually very liberating - this is really great - it’s wonderful to disappear into your practice. It’s wonderful not to have to worry anymore about being somebody, or something, which is such a struggle. And you no longer have to work overtime to avoid life’s difficulties. People work their entire lives to avoid life’s difficulties, and they are never successful at that. They never will be. So you can give up that effort altogether. You don’t have to defend or protect yourself anymore.  This is great; I can’t tell you how great this is. It’s not dramatic. It’s not colorful. It’s not a big deal. It’s very subtle; maybe nobody even notices.

  ~  Zoketsu Norman Fischer, American Soto Zen roshi, poet and Buddhist author

[I AM]

[I AM]

[micdotcom]

It’s only January 5th and NASA is already blowing our minds in 2016. That right there is a photo of two galaxies colliding, as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. 

Galactic mergers actually aren’t that rare. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is on a collision course the Andromeda galaxy. Watch the video illustration that condenses said 4-billion-year merger into just 4 minutes.

[I AM]

[I AM]

I call that man awake who, with conscious knowledge and understanding, can perceive the deep unreasoning powers in his soul, his whole innermost strength, desire and weakness, and knows how to reckon with himself.

Hermann Hesse (via purplebuddhaproject)

[I AM]

[irismoon]

“All food contains consciousness at some point in its own development, whether you fry it, boil it, or pick it from the garden; you ingest it to keep yourself nourished. Your emotions are food for others. When you are controlled to bring about havoc and frenzy, you are creating a vibrational frequency that supports the existence of these others because that is how they are nourished.”

Excerpt From: Marciniak, Barbara. “Bringers of the Dawn.” Bear & Company, 2011-06-21.

[I AM]

[I AM]

[motherofhermes]

Realize who you are. Each and every morning. Do this now. No matter how many seemingly horrible, vile things have happened on this earth, the beautiful sunrise appears every morning. There has never been a morning when the sun did not rise. What compassion this is. What beauty. What forgiveness. This is the nature of unfoldment. Accept this opportunity to use the short time you have on this earth to rise with the sun within. Silently. Humbly. Gloriously.- Robert Adams

Image credit: Sunrise over Arunachala by Thomas Riddle on Flickr

[I AM]

[I AM]

Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering its a feather bed.

Terence McKenna

(via panchakshara)