InnerNet Weekly: That Which is Looking
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Archive for 2011
Only when you turn attention to awareness itself, there isn’t anything behind it. That’s what returning to the source means. It means that nothing is next. There’s nothing behind it. With a thought there’s always something behind it. There’s always the awareness of thought. So awareness is behind it. With a feeling there’s always something behind it. With the conditioned tendency there’s always something behind it. There’s always awareness behind everything that’s perceivable. Everything that’s thinkable. There’s always something behind it: namely that awareness. Spirit.
Year of Dancing with Life – Week 03
|
The Limitations of Positive Thinking
We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are. — Anais Nin
~~~~ Tip of the Day: “Perhaps the statement that best exemplifies positive thinking is “When life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.” It seems so self-evident that this is a good thing that we never question the wisdom of the adage. But it does not take a whole lot of digging to unearth the flaws in this reasoning. First, did fate really hand you a lemon or was this merely your initial, unthinking response? Second, is a lemon really a bad thing, something that you would rather not have, but now that you do have it you will somehow salvage something by making lemonade? Finally, it is quite stressful to be handed a lemon until such time as you figure out how to make lemonade. Do you really have to go through this phase?” Prof. Srikumar Rao shares further about the limitations of positive thinking. http://premiere.whatcounts.com/t?ctl=169A376:C3009629A010612CB94AC74FAF468FF4B4B847859706E37D&
~~~~ Be The Change: See what happens today when you check your tendency to label things as “bad.”
**Share A Reflection** http://premiere.whatcounts.com/t?ctl=169A377:C3009629A010612CB94AC74FAF468FF4B4B847859706E37D&
A College Degree 23 yrs After Memory Loss
It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. — Lewis Carroll
~~~~ Inspiration of the Day: A freak accident involving a ceiling fan may have taken Su Meck’s memory of everything that happened for the first 22 years of her life, but it did not rob her of her determination. Since the accident that left her with amnesia, the 45-year-old from Maryland, has had to relearn how to walk, talk, read, write and drive. But Meck, whose identity was once as a mother and homemaker, carved out a place for herself as a college student. She went from having been reduced to the mental capacity of a young child to graduating from Montgomery (Md.) College with honors in May, earning an associate degree. “It was very confusing to me because everybody was telling me who I was before, and that wasn’t who I am now. It was almost like I’m a different person,” said Meck. http://premiere.whatcounts.com/t?ctl=169A30E:C3009629A010612CC14578A419928466B4B847859706E37D&
~~~~ Be The Change: Wake up to possibility, especially in the midst of loss.
**Share A Reflection** http://premiere.whatcounts.com/t?ctl=169A30F:C3009629A010612CC14578A419928466B4B847859706E37D&
Smile Newsletter: Remembering a Friend, 15 Years Later
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
“After parking my car at the supermarket or discount store, I look around to see if anyone, especially an elderly person or mother with small children, has almost finished emptying their shopping cart. Then I ask them if they would like for me to take their cart into the store with me so that they won’t have to walk it to the cart-return area. Guess what? I have never been turned down, and have always been thanked for doing so.” — Loyal
Welcome to the Heart Advic e from Pema Chödrön mailin g list
|
|
| Teachings by Pema Chödrön, taken from works published by Shambhala Publications. If you’d like to change your e-mail address, please send a message to emailList, and be sure to include both your old and new addresses. If you no longer wish to receive the Heart Advice e-mails, click here. If you can’t see the images, click here. |   |
Kindness Daily: A Pay It Forward Revolution at School
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
A Tokyo Teacher’s Lessons in Empathy
Empathy is the greatest thing. There’s an expression I love: ‘Let people live in your heart.’ — Toshiro Kanamori, 4th grade teacher
~~~~ Good News of the Day: “What’s the most important thing this year?” asks Toshiro Kanamori to his students? “To be happy!” comes the joyous response. The class goal truly is to understand how to be happy and care for other people. It sounds like the sort of class a stressed or overworked adult would find, long after they graduated school. Instead, it is a different teaching approach taken by a grammar teacher in Tokyo, Toshiro Kanamori. One tradition in his class is that every day, three students read out “notebook letters,” authentic journal entries that express happiness, irritation, gratitude — or, as 10-year-old Ren expressed — sadness over his grandmother’s death. Watch Kanamori in action in this video, as he uses Ren’s letter to teach his students how to understand their inner thoughts, and deeply empathize with each other in the process. http://premiere.whatcounts.com/t?ctl=169A243:C3009629A010612C64960FFD48DEF22EB4B847859706E37D&
~~~~ Be The Change: Share an authentic “notebook letter” with a child in your life, and invite her/him to do the same.
**Share A Reflection** http://premiere.whatcounts.com/t?ctl=169A244:C3009629A010612C64960FFD48DEF22EB4B847859706E37D&
Dalai Lama Quote from Snow Lion Publications
Dalai Lama Quote of the Week The Need for Reasoning A plant does not inherently exist because of being a dependent-arising. You begin by reflecting on the fact that a plant is a dependent-arising because its production depends on certain causes and conditions (such as a seed, soil, sunlight, and water), but eventually the reasoning process must be supported by direct perception, or it cannot stand. We can see with our eyes that plants change; they grow; mature, and finally dry up. In this sense, inference is blind, since it must eventually rely on direct perception. Inference depends on reasoning, which in turn rests on basic, shared, indisputable experience through direct perception. (p.153) –from How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins How to Practice • Now at 2O% off |
Video of the Week: I will be a hummingbird
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sangha of Auspicious Companions 