My ever diminishing practice routine

[Christi]

Hi Nirodha,
 

quote:Hi Christi,

No, I don't mind you asking at all. However, I come from a Buddhist background, so my old routine reflects that.

In brief, I use to do an extended puja (ritaulized devotional practice): with offerings of light, water, flowers and incense, extended sutra recitations, protective meditations - reflections on death, the Buddha's virtues, loving kindness and the law of karma - and two or three other things I can't even remember now. It would usually take about 30 minutes to get through that all, even before I started a formal meditation session.

thanks for sharing that, they sound like very beautiful practices.

I forgot to say.... welcome to the forum!  

Christi

[Nirodha]

thanks

[Anthem]

I enjoyed a nice moment of grace on the weekend I wanted to share which somehow required some self-pacing.

I was driving my car home and enjoyed a moment where my mind became very quiet, thoughts were few and far between and I became intensely aware of the "now". My field of awareness expanded so that I became more aware of the thoughts when they did come along and how they could just enter my awareness and leave without me "latching" on to them. They were just there. I realized how I get "magnetically" attached to the thoughts that enter my mind at times by identifying with them on some level.

I began to settle into a deep and profound peacefulness and ease in my heart with everything in and outside around me. It was a cloudy day, but the sun was shining through the clouds and there was water to my right and everything was incredibly beautiful even the "man-made" structures I could see. As the peacefulness came up so did a quiet, pervading ecstasy and love, I felt connected with everything around me. This is hard to put into words and will sound strange and egotistical but it felt as though it was all there intimately for me. Hard to describe but it is not the "me" in this body that I am referring to.

It lasted a few hours, but when I got home, I had a nap and then did my short sitting routine only to find myself over and irritable. The irritability passed a couple of hours later, but the experience I had, for some reason, required some self-pacing, I am guessing some purification had taken place.

Overall, though not to the same degree, I have been enjoying more peacefulness and silence of the mind since.

[NagoyaSea]

Anthem, you said... “A moment of grace…” ”I began to settle into a deep and profound peacefulness and ease in my heart with everything in and outside around me.”

Beautiful. Just beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

I had a ‘moment of grace’ this weekend too. My son, daughter-in-law and my grandson came over for dinner Saturday. Zachariah, six months old, was fussy. I picked him up, draped him in a soft blanket, and the bundle of softness and I walked quietly outside as the sun was beginning to set.

I held him close and we talked to the fragrant jasmine. Then we conversed with the roses, the daisies, the English daisies, from flower to flower, purple, white, yellow, pink. Then we walked over and had a gentle conversation with the tree. I whispered in his ear the whole time, so softly, words to the plants and messages from the plants and tree back to Zach. Every once in a while he would lift his little head up and look directly into my eyes, studying my eyes and then he would lay his little head back down on my chest, listening to my heart, splaying his pudgy hands out against my shoulders.

It felt like perfect love and perfect peace surrounding us both as we quietly moved from plant to plant. It felt as if everything was connected as one perfect energy, including Zachariah and myself. As you said, “a deep and profound peacefulness and ease in my heart and everything in and outside of me.”  A stillness and profound silence stayed with us both for quite some time…


Kathy