All of us want to form good habits in different areas of our life: physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual areas of our life. Habits are learned behaviors. We can cultivate good habits as well as bad habits. We can learn new and good habits and get rid of harmful habits. How can we accomplish this worthy goal?

There are four steps we can take to form good habits: Cue, Craving, Response, and Reward. Let us take one unwholesome habit that you really want to break.  You go to the kitchen and you see a bag of potato chips. You are not hungry and you know that eating potato chips is not good for your health. But seeing the potato chips (Cue) you feel a strong urge (Craving) for the chips and
automatically or habitually you grab (Response) a handful chips to satisfy(Reward) your craving. You get an instant short- term reward- pleasure of eating the chips. And you pay the price for succumbing to the harmful craving. If you do not take the right steps in time, you will be enslaved by these harmful habits.

So, what do you do? Cue: Make the bag of chips invisible- out of sight, out of mind or get rid of it. Another example. You want to break the habit of overusing your mobile phone because it becomes a distraction every now and then when it buzzes. Keep the phone away from you or out of your reach. When you take this step consistently, you are breaking this wrong habit. Now you are in control of your craving. You are not yielding to it. This is your wise decision, the right
choice. With practice you form a good helpful habit.

Cue is a stimulus that triggers craving. Craving is in the mind. You use mindfulness practice to relate to the cue and let it go without getting attached to it and bound by it. Mindfulness practice provides insight for the problem and helps us change our mindset. We learn how to respond to the cue or the stimulus wisely. This is another step for changing the harmful habit and forming the wholesome habit. When we take the right step we feel good and happy. That is
the Reward. It reinforces the cultivation of good habits.

There is another model for changing our habitual patterns. It is described in the ancient spiritual book the Bhagavad Gita. It is a dialogue between Arjuna, the disciple, shishya, and Sri Krishna the Spiritual teacher, Guru. Arjun asks an important question to Krishna. He said, “ I Know I should not be carried away (response) by the pull of the senses that may lead me on the wrong path and I do not want to do that. What is the force in me that takes me on the harmful or sinful path even against my will?” Shri Krishna tells Arjuna that it is your selfish passion
Kama or desire that takes you away from the right path. That is the enemy , the insatiable fire in the form of desire...Therefore, control your senses in the beginning and slay this sinful destroyer of knowledge and Self-realization.” 

Desire has three houses: senses, mind and intellect. Desire’s favorite house is five senses. Kama or lust is very powerful. Desire for power, pleasure, prestige, and possessions are also very strong. It is the lust for power that in our modern age is much responsible for destruction and misery. We need to recognize when the desire arises and we need to nip it in the bud before it grows bigger and stronger.

Desire’s second house is the mind where it lives. We need to remain awake and aware when the desire arises in our mind. Mindfulness, Meditation and Prayer are very helpful in regulating our harmful desires. 

Kama’s third house is intellect. Intellect is our mental faculty that discerns between right and wrong and helps the mind in making right choices. What desires and thoughts we entertain in our mind is very crucial. As the Gita says, the mind causes bondage or freedom. So how we use our mind is very important. Kathopanishad, the ancient book of spiritual wisdom, offers a holistic model to understand the power of senses and how to to regulate them.

The body is the chariot, the Self as the master of the chariot, the intellect as the charioteer, and the mind as the reins. The senses are the five horses and the paths are sense objects. The person which is united with the body, senses and mind is the enjoyer. One who lacks understanding and has undisciplined mind, has uncontrolled senses which are unmanageable like the vicious horses of a charioteer. But one who possesses the right understanding and has a disciplined mind has senses under control like the good horses of a charioteer.

Excerpt from John J. Prendergast's book: Relaxed Groundedness is posted here. Below is my reflection to the article:

Who am I? What is reality? Is everything changing? Is there something unchanging? Am I born with it? How do I know? I have been exploring these kinds of questions for quite some time. When my mind is silent I have a clear felt sense of open awareness. My mind is clear. my heart is open. I rest in the deepest ground which John J. Prendergast calls our home ground or groundless ground.

There is a continuum of groundedness. The author lists four broad experiential stages of groundedness:
(a) no ground: I am not in the body.
(b) foreground: I am in the body.
(c) background: my body is me (as open awareness).
(d) homeground: Everything is my body.

When I meditate I go through these stages of natural awareness.
(a) I realize that I have a body but I- the soul-am not the body.
(b) My soul is in the body.
(c) When I become aware of the boundless nature of the soul I realize that my body is contained in the container of natural awareness.
(d) The disconnect between different parts of my self goes away. I am in the homeground. I have difficulty in understanding what the author means by saying " Everything is my body."

Natural awareness without inner obstructions helps me grow in my senses of groundedness. when I practice Mindfulness Meditation, my mind becomes attentive and does not get carried away by wandering thoughts, feelings, and desires. Meditation opens up doors to be connected with what is happening in the present moment. Meditative experience is not bound by time and space.
Namaste!

Rachel Naomi Remen is a best-author of many books. Excerpt from her book, My Grandfather's Blessings is posted in the Awakin.org website. Below is my reflection to the wonderful article.

This story narrated by the grand daughter is very timely as we are approaching the gift-giving Christmas time. The conventional way of buying gifts is so terribly time consuming and people feel confused and inadequate about what to give. The spiritual approach for gift-giving is very simple. We do it as a service to God without getting anything in return. My experience of gift-giving is simple and uncomplicated like the experience of the granddaughter Neshume-le. I can easily relate to what the grandfather told his granddaughter, it is not the water the seeds need to grow but" All it needs is your faithfulness." Faith is the foundation of all relationships and of all spiritual practices.

Blessing life is the most effective way of creating and nurturing life in all forms-human and natural. There are times when relationships thin out or break up. Giving unconditional love from the heart based on the foundation of faith repairs and heals our fragile relationships. Several years ago I had an agonizing and depressive experience in my life. It was a heart-breaking experience. It took time for me to recover from it. My deep faith in the goodness of heart helped me emerge from the hurting heart to the healing heart. It was a transforming experience for me.

The best teacher is within ourselves. What we need is calmness, patience, empathy, compassion and above all faithfulness. Life offers many opportunities for working on ourselves to repair and heal our relationships. It is a daily metta, loving kindness practice that heals me and others. It is blessing from the heart.

May we relate to us and others with the loving light of faith and kindness!
​
Namaste!

Upeksha means equanimity. To remain still, unwavering, centered and rooted in the midst of small or big changes taking place in our life. Upeksha is also considered a vihara out of four viharas. They are Loving Kindness, Compassion, Peaceful Joy and Equanimity. We can use one word for Equanimity- Even Mindedness .

We all know how difficult it is to remain centered and rooted when all of a sudden a season of life changes. How can we remain steady and solid in the midst of life’s seasonal changes. How can we remain rooted like a mountain facing dark clouds and bright clouds, rain and snow. The Bhagavad Gita uses the word Sthitaprajna. A sthitaprajna is a person who is well established in wisdom.

Rumi describes equanimity poetically in his poem The Guest House. We will read it at
the end of our experiential equanimity session.

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 Ilie Cioara has written an interesting article here and here is my reflection to it:

We all have a deep longing for Happiness. It is the Sacred within us. It is an egoless Presence with no time and space boundaries. It is Universal. It is Within us. It is Divinity within us. It is Pure Consciousness. It is Holy.

I feel the presence of Happiness when my thinking mind is quiet. I feel the presence of Happiness when I let go of searching for Happiness. It is always within us like pure love, clear light, complete silence. I experience such Happiness when I am fully present with myself or with others; when I am fully absorbed in what I am doing. These are the times when I in the Flow of Happiness.

Daily practice of Mindfulness Meditation, serving others selflessly, loving others kindly and unconditionally helps me. I am not against thinking mind. I need to think to solve the problems when I encounter them. I use my mind to make wise choices. I am thinking when I am responding to these questions. I am happy to reflect on this wonderful reading close to my heart.
Namaste!

Nancy Collier has written an interesting article and below is my reflection to it:

The self-image that I create is only the reflection of the outside of me. It is like stagnant water rather than the flowing river. My life is dynamic. It is not static. It is becoming. It is a process and not a product. The image of me is not my identity which is vibrating with energy and changing. The outside of me does not represent the inside of me.

We all have potential to grow horizontally and vertically. The horizontal axis represents the expansion of my consciousness-my organic connection with nature and people. The vertical axis represents the depth of my relationship with nature and people. In order to experience my inner world, my true identity, I need to be with me fully without getting caught up in mentally narrating what happened in the past or worrying about what will happen in the future. It is flowing with the present. This happens when I do mindfulness meditation and practicing mindfulness in different contexts of my everyday life. This practice helps me grow on both horizontal and vertical axes. It happens when I am listening to me and to others with an open mind and an open heart. It happens when I listen to music or get absorbed in reading a book or contemplating.

Non-judgmental awareness of my inner and outer world helps me avoid the trap of using life as a product to protect my image. Knowing that posting my image on a smart phone is not my true identity. Knowing that my shadow is an unrecognized and unaccepted part of darkness within me and working on it frees me from my self-created bondage. This is a life-long process. There is light within me that keeps me awake in the journey of my life. That light is my guide, my savior.
Namaste!

.John Yates is the author of 'The Mind Illuminated'. An excerpt from the book is published here. Below is my reflection to the article:

Our minds discriminate between right and wrong or this and that. What is being discriminated takes place in our unconscious sub-minds. In that sense I is the narrator of the experience or I is the product of a collection of the unconscious sub-minds. How do I know that? What is that I? It is awareness. Awareness is like an observer. It is pure witnessing consciousness untouched by the collection of sub-minds. That helps us from being caught up in mistaken identity.

When I need to or want to make an important decision about what to choose I do not act impulsively or by my habitual patterns of rushing without pausing. From my experience of such actions I have learned not to be controlled by the voices of unconscious sub-minds. This way of making wise choices is an ongoing process. It is worth doing to prevent or avoid myself from falling into a pit of suffering.

The light of awareness helps me when I am moving toward the dark zone-the wrong zone. When I am aware of what is going on in my mind and refrain myself from doing harm to me and to others, my action becomes a blessing to me and to others connected with me. Mindful actions bring blessings and prevent curses.
Namaste!

Ashley Whillans has written a nice article on importance of time. Following is my reflection on it:

When my mind is divided between two cognitive polls like I want to do something leisurely and enjoyable such as reading a book and checking important email messages I feel trapped by time and feel time poverty. When I do something which I enjoy doing without technological interruptions and technological invasions I feel time affluence, a relaxed, gratifying and joyful state of mind. When my time is fragmented by two demanding tasks, I feel stressed out and not satisfied with either of the two tasks. Time confetti fragments the time of leisure, peacefulness and restfulness. Technology saves time but at the same time takes time away. It's like I have saved time but also I have lost time. Gain and loss at the same time! This is indeed the autonomy paradox.

Good life is choice making. I use discretion when it comes to spending my time. I do not make every situation urgent unless it is really urgent. I have intentionally and wisely broken habitual patterns of automatically and mindlessly responding to tempting and distracting stimuli. It takes time to disengage from the grip of time confetti. I maintain a balance between demanding work and leisurely play. This is an ongoing process.

As Ashley Whillans says, " Working toward time affluence is about recognizing and overcoming the time traps in our lives." It amounts to controlling impulses that captivate my mind. It means cultivating the virtue of wisdom and the virtue of patience leading to wise choices and wise actions.
​
Namaste!

 Metta, Loving Kindness is one of the ten virtues of wisdom. There are three ways of cultivating skills of loving kindness. Before we learn how to practice loving kindness we need to know what hinders or obstructs the cultivation of loving kindness.
There are five hindrances.

1. Ill will
2. Greed or craving
3. Sleepiness and tiredness.
4. Doubt
5. Monkey mind.

We need to work on these hurdles before we cultivate the skill of loving kindness. Otherwise our progress will be slowed by the hindrances.

The first way or version is for the monastics. As the Metta Sutta describes,” Come, monastics, give up these five hindrances, corruptions of the heart that weaken wisdom, and meditate spreading a heart full of lovingkindness to the whole world-abundantant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will. “

The second way or version is for the worldly people. As the Metta Sutta describes, “ Just as a mother would protect her only son, with her own life, so one should develop toward all beings a state of mind without boundaries.”

We broadcast these emotions of loving kindness like a conch blower or horn blower spreading the sound everywhere, in all directions. This practice is to change the way our unmindful mind works. It is to make our mind malleable and fluid without bounding, spreading all around in all directions; to shift the focus of our mind from unskillful emotions like ill will, resentment, anger or hatred to the skillful emotions like loving kindness towards all beings. Changes do not happen in a short time. We need to practice loving kindness on a consistent basis. You may select one person per day and expand your circle slowly. Do not rush. It is like planting the seeds of loving kindness in a small pot and slowly expanding the pot.

The word love has many faces. In ancient Greek language three are three different words for love:

• Agape-pure, universal Divine Love.
• Philia-brotherly love. Love for family, mother child love, love for friends, even strangers who extend their helping hands unconditionally.
  
• Romantic and sexual love.

Loving kindness is pushing us toward agape and philia from the limiting romantic and sexual love. It does not mean not to enjoy life. In fact life becomes more joyful when we free ourselves from the shackles of unmindfulness and unawareness.

When we start practicing Metta, we begin with being kind and loving to us. May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be kind. May I be peaceful. May I be at ease. May I be loving. Select three areas of your relational life which are relevant to you at this time in your life. Then replace them and expand the areas. From the self we expand to family, friends, neighbors, strangers and others. The last circle is our enemy or adversary. This is not easy to do. This is our spiritual practice that embraces all beings without boundaries and barriers.

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