72 shortcuts for getting out of your mind and into the moment
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Just got this wonderful e-book by Arjuna Ardagh - this is from the introduction:
"In recent years many people just like you
have fallen into the realization of who they are deeper than the mind, a realization of being silence, of being peace, of being infinity... that what they have been seeking outside themselves is actually who they are, and who they were all along. What they have been seeking in fact is the medium, the stillness, in which everything arises. They see that who they are is the silence in which sound is happening, the spaciousness in which movement occurs. This kind of recognition, whether fleeting or abiding, is called an awakening.
"We discover that who we are, who I am, who everyone is, is less of an entity and more of a presence. Not even a presence, but presence itself, with no boundaries, no beginning or end in time. That living presence is empty of form and content but full of love, full of creative intelligence. Presence is that which is aware of all that is changing. In order for a recognition of that latent presence - the silence beneath the noise - to be transformed into a gift and a blessing, practice is needed."
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What I like about this book is that the author does not talk about presence as just another idea or concept - he offers what he calls "shortcuts", awareness and embodiment exercises that can be done in the midst of ordinary life, that allow you to experience presence directly and immediately. Here's an example from the chapter on Letting Go:
Could You Let It Go?
When caught up in a strong belief,
needing to be liked, to be right about something,
or stuck in a strong emotion, ask yourself,
"Could I, just could I, let it go?"
Could you abandon your position?
Could you open your clenched fist
and allow whatever is held there to drop to the floor?
Are you willing for your position to be defeated,
even when you think that you are right?
When you have no position left,
knowing nothing,
how does the world smell to you now?
This practice is not intended to put you under pressure to let things go. That only creates resistance. The exercise is simply to inquire and evaluate, in a relaxed way, if it is possible to let it go. This discrimination, between what is obligatory and what is optional, is liberation.
Letting go does not happen primarily in the mind - it happens in the body. You do not need to decide to let go; you need only ask yourself if it is possible. In the recognition of this possibility, something happens in the body: a deep sigh, a muscle spasm, or a release of tension you might not have even known was there, and what had seemed to be a prison becomes a choice. There is no need to know where a belief comes from, or to try to change it in any way, or to understand anything at all. It is enough to feel into the essence of any contraction. That alone will release tremendous energy. That very energy becomes awakening and connects us to what is real.
~~~~
The medium is the message.
~ Marshall McLuhan
~~~~
"In recent years many people just like you
have fallen into the realization of who they are deeper than the mind, a realization of being silence, of being peace, of being infinity... that what they have been seeking outside themselves is actually who they are, and who they were all along. What they have been seeking in fact is the medium, the stillness, in which everything arises. They see that who they are is the silence in which sound is happening, the spaciousness in which movement occurs. This kind of recognition, whether fleeting or abiding, is called an awakening."We discover that who we are, who I am, who everyone is, is less of an entity and more of a presence. Not even a presence, but presence itself, with no boundaries, no beginning or end in time. That living presence is empty of form and content but full of love, full of creative intelligence. Presence is that which is aware of all that is changing. In order for a recognition of that latent presence - the silence beneath the noise - to be transformed into a gift and a blessing, practice is needed."
~~~~
What I like about this book is that the author does not talk about presence as just another idea or concept - he offers what he calls "shortcuts", awareness and embodiment exercises that can be done in the midst of ordinary life, that allow you to experience presence directly and immediately. Here's an example from the chapter on Letting Go:
Could You Let It Go?
When caught up in a strong belief,
needing to be liked, to be right about something,
or stuck in a strong emotion, ask yourself,
"Could I, just could I, let it go?"
Could you abandon your position?
Could you open your clenched fist
and allow whatever is held there to drop to the floor?
Are you willing for your position to be defeated,
even when you think that you are right?
When you have no position left,
knowing nothing,
how does the world smell to you now?
This practice is not intended to put you under pressure to let things go. That only creates resistance. The exercise is simply to inquire and evaluate, in a relaxed way, if it is possible to let it go. This discrimination, between what is obligatory and what is optional, is liberation.
Letting go does not happen primarily in the mind - it happens in the body. You do not need to decide to let go; you need only ask yourself if it is possible. In the recognition of this possibility, something happens in the body: a deep sigh, a muscle spasm, or a release of tension you might not have even known was there, and what had seemed to be a prison becomes a choice. There is no need to know where a belief comes from, or to try to change it in any way, or to understand anything at all. It is enough to feel into the essence of any contraction. That alone will release tremendous energy. That very energy becomes awakening and connects us to what is real.
~~~~
The medium is the message.
~ Marshall McLuhan
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