5 posts tagged “mindfullness”
Apparently it's the first chocolate the Dalai Lama ever tasted.
It is the founder's intention to "reintroduce the ancient wisdom of embedding conscious intention and love into food."
All Our Chocolate is Embedded With This Intention:
“Whoever consumes this chocolate will manifest optimal health and functioning at physical, emotional and mental levels, and in particular will enjoy an increased sense of energy, vigor and well-being for the benefit of all beings.”
My doctor-ish friend Mark probably won't like the "science" of this I'm sure, but I'm rather impressed with the marketing science. They added me on Twitter today and the next thing you know I'm reading their blog, watching videos like the one below and going to their website to order some chocolate.
Mindfully of course.
"We inhabit ourselves without valuing ourselves, unable to see that here, now, this very moment is sacred; but once it's gone, its value is incontestable. "
Joyce Carol Oates
I had a most lovely dinner with the extraordinary Deborah at Xanh in Mountain View and then got to meet my "sister in spirit", Tama Kieves tonight.
When I sat down to have her sign my book, she looked me straight in the eye and said, "Do I know you? I feel like we've met before."
I told her that I felt the same way reading her book on a flight back from New York back in December. And despite us both living in Denver at the same time, I doubted we'd ever met in person before. I called her my "sister in spirit".
I know, that's too "woo-woo" hippie New Age for some of you to believe is coming out of my mouth, but what can I say? I'm rather possessed with positive synchronicity these days! :-)
Having read her one-and-only book, for me there wasn't much new she said. But I came away from hearing her speak tonight with a renewed sense of purpose and a heaping boost of the energy I felt jump off the page from her a few months ago. I smiled throughout most of the 90 minute talk and question and answer session.
She did dole out one very sound piece of advice that I don't remember reading in the book: "don't ever take advice from unhappy people." I think that hit me particularly hard tonight because of some advice I've been getting from a woman who I think is coming to terms with the end of her own career with regrets instead of a sense of accomplishment. I decided tonight to stop listening to her words of discouragement about the path I think I want to take.
So with that and with much positive mojo and well wishes for everyone's happiness, I will advise you to read Tama's book. I think it particularly resonates with woman...especially women over 30. I bought 12 copies back in December and gave away 10 of them already. But don't wait yourself, just read it...and then let's talk about it. Seriously, how many times can I say this?
Also check out Tama's website Awakening Artistry.
Here's just a little recap post in photos before I call it a night. I'm smiling and re-energized.
One of my goals for this year was to find a sangha, a practicing Buddhist/mindfulness community closer to me.
I've been living in California for over three years now and it's time.
I love Green Gulch Farm, which is part of the San Francisco Zen Center, but it's just too far away to be practical for me. Ironically, since moving geographically closer to the community I knew and had affinity with in San Francisco, I've found myself further away from a spiritual community than I ever was in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
I recently read that a wonderful woman had been made head teacher at Clouds In Water Zen Center, where I used to practice. I also continue to make contributions for the expansion of another teacher's community in Minneapolis, Compassionate Ocean Dharma Center.
The longing to go sit with others and reflect on matters of the spirit and the heart is strong right now.
I've been passively following the Yahoo Group postings for the Kannon Do Zen Center in Mountain View. Someone last week sent me a link to their website.
I think it's time to check it out.
What's on your "do before I die" list?
Submitted by Caroline.
Sometimes I just don't like the Question of the Day and I think, "whatever". But there was something bothering me about this one; I didn't want to answer it and it sort of upset me.
Maybe because I have a love-hate relationship with To-Do lists. Maybe the fact that this list's title references my death was enough to justify my discomfort.
(I also have a love-hate thing with death - see this and this for reference.)
But the question lingered, it rolled around in the back of my mind for the past few days. Then suddenly today it occurred to me; there is something I could put on such a list.
It's actually very simple; a single bullet point. If I can do this before I die, I think I will be happy.
It's not very specific, it's not easy and it's going to take a whole lifetime to be able to cross off. In fact, if I do manage to believe I've accomplished this in any given moment, I just have to start all over again.
But I think it's my perfect answer to this question.
Now I can get on to the business of doing it instead of ruminatiing on it.
- Live every moment mindfully, fully, lovingly, awake and alive.
"Live every moment in the present. Do it. Risk it. Buy it if you love it.
Loving well takes practice, delicious practice.
If it feels good, it must be good.”
Gael Greene -- food and restaurant writer for New York Magazine.
