Letting - 4 - Letting Go of Holding On

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This morning we continue a series of talks based on the book by Lama Surya Das, entitled, Letting Go of the Person you Used to Be.  This is a beautifully written book that cuts at the heart of suffering.  The subtitle is Change, Loss and Spiritual Transformation.   Last week, we went into the belly of the beast and took a look at those difficult times, the fearful emotions, the stressful reactions that we all have experienced from time to time.  Today, we will talk about how to accept and love all parts of our being, ourselves. 

Lama Surya Das, in the fifth chapter of his book, talks about letting go of holding on.  He says that the first step in letting go is see more clearly what we are thinking, what we are feeling and what we are doing--what are we holding on to?   In what ways are you hanging on--to old ways of seeing yourself and others, old ways that might be unskillful, old ways that may no longer be valid or helpful?  You may find that you are hanging on to unskillful beliefs, thoughts, emotions, perspectives, biases, judgments, and/or relationships--with yourself and with others.  In Buddhism, being attached to things or people or even our selves always being a certain way is a sure path to suffering.   Can we love without any expectations? Should we love without any expectations?  How can we love and not be attached AND not be a doormat?  These are some of the tough questions we must ask about letting go.

We all have opinions and judgments that we create about ourselves and about others that then become concretized--we cease to evaluate whether they are still true or not, or perhaps whether they were ever true.  The Buddha taught that no opinion or judgment is objectively right or wrong, because it depends on the situation.  Is it wrong to stab someone with a knife?  What if you a surgeon and trying to save their life?  In Buddhism, we practice questioning ourselves and our beliefs, even in questioning the Buddhist teachings themselves—is it true?  Does it ease the most suffering and/or does it lead to awakening? This is the litmus test question for all responses in all situations.

One transformational practice is to create and nurture a positive inner voice.  You might be telling yourself that you are bad because you are not letting go—our minds play games with us, and it becomes a vicious cycle of judgments, emotions, more judgments, more emotions.  Imagine finding a kinder voice inside you, creating your own internal cheerleader.  Josh Korda, a Buddhist teacher and addiction counselor, encourages us cultivate a kinder voice in our head.    Ask yourself these questions, “Whatever I’m telling myself internally, would I say that to a dear friend?  Would I want someone to say that to me?"

Tara Brach has a wonderful book entitled, Radical Acceptance, and in it, she goes through several practices that enable us to see more clearly what we are shying away from, what we subconsciously are holding on to.  In the book, she quotes Dogen, who was a 13^th century Zen master.  Dogen encourages us that true awakening comes from being in harmony with ourselves just as we are.  Josh Korda encourages us to not think of ourselves as broken, but rather as whole and complete in our complexity.  A man who attends AA here says that he has completely shifted his thinking from focusing on being a powerless alcoholic to being joyfully sober.  He may still be powerless over alcohol, but he can balance that reality by pouring his energy into being joyfully sober.

Tara Brach says there is an epidemic in this country—she calls it a trance of unworthiness.  Our media and our culture have bombarded us with messages that we are not quite good enough just as we are.   We are not pretty enough, not successful enough, we don’t have quite enough money or possessions or fun or friends or exciting lives. Whatever we have or are, we are constantly being told that something isn’t quite enough.  (Of course, it would be if we buy the right beer or wear the right lipstick...)

Tara also talks about practicing letting difficult emotions pass through us, like the wind blowing through the trees, instead of getting stuck in the fear or denial or wallowing or pain or whatever the difficult experience might be.  Can you find the courage within you (The Buddha taught that we all have this courage within us) to look directly at your fears and feelings of unworthiness and makes friends with them?  Imagine what it would feel like to be in harmony with whatever arises, letting the difficult emotions arise and fall away on their own, instead of holding on to them and letting them fester and boil inside.

An important component of the Buddhist practice is about finding the most skillful response.   It is NOT about ignoring injustice or hatred or bullying or abuse.  Sometimes the most skillful response to an unskillful situation IS anger and action. Let’s gather up the courage to see more clearly.  Let’s gather up the strength to stand in the face of uncertainty and fear.  Let’s support and encourage each other in facing our fears and disappointments and setbacks.  Let’s stand tall and find that inner voice of wisdom and compassion that can nurture us and enable us to let go of the thoughts, words and actions that we are hanging onto that are no longer serving us.

We are not just our past.  We are not broken.  We are an amalgamation of all that has gotten us to this point, right here, right now.  We take whatever has happen to us, whatever we have done to ourselves and to others, whatever others have done to us, and we can use that as the fuel for enlightenment, the tool of awakening.  Simple wishing for things to be different than they are is a fool’s folly.

Let’s rise up and claim the incredible power and wisdom and compassion we have to transform how we see ourselves and how we see the world.  This is the precious gift that we all have, we need only realize it, and respond from that place of wisdom!  How different the world would be if we all let go of holding on to unskillful thoughts, words and actions, and created a kind and loving internal voice (and external voice!) to encourage and support ourselves and others.  How amazing would that be!?!

Letting Go – 3 – Making allies of our internal enemies

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This morning we continue a series of talks based on the book by Lama Surya Das, entitled, Letting Go of the Person you Used to Be.  This is a beautifully written book that cuts at the heart of suffering.  The subtitle is Change, Loss and Spiritual Transformation.   Last week, we simply tried, in spite of the losses and tragedies in life, to find some humor, to lighten up a bit about our stresses, our misfortunes, or difficult emotions.

Today, we are going directly into the belly of the beast and taking a look at those difficult times, the fearful emotions, the stressful reactions that we all have experienced from time to time.  I was watching an excellent series of Dharma talks by Josh Korda.  In relating his personal experience with addiction, he says that we can learn to not fear those difficult emotions or states (in Buddhism, they are sometimes called our demons), but rather, we have tools and techniques we practice for co-existing with them, not feeding them with fear and anxiety, but feeding them with love and compassion. This is the paradoxical teaching in Buddhism about the shadows of being.

The misperception is that when we “let go of the person that we used to be”, we are going to leave behind the shadow parts of ourselves and just keep the happy parts, the parts we like.  That is not the letting we are speaking of.  Instead, imagine that we are letting go of the person that used to be sleep-walking through life, the person who was distracted, the person who was continually craving and constantly living with the underlying sense of suffering or dissatisfaction.

Let's go back to what is causing this great suffering for most of us.  The Buddha found that suffering was caused by the three poisons:  craving, aversion and ignorance.  Some people have heard that to be a Buddhist, you’re not supposed to “desire” anything, and that is very misleading.  The Buddhist perspective on "desire" can be a bit confusing. The word "desire" is used to convey both the wanting AND the attachment to the outcome (also described as craving--when we feel dissatisfied until we get what we want.)  The teachings encourage us to want to be mindful, but not crave it in a way that we feel dissatisfied in this moment. 

We may also want other things.  If we have a difficult emotion or an addiction, we may want to just push it away.  We often think, “I’m not okay in this moment because I’m experiencing this awful feeling.”  “I’m not okay because I feel the craving of my addiction so strongly today.”  The teachings say when we try to push things away, we become dissatisfied in this moment--I suffer because I feel like I'm not okay in this moment.  We can practice not being attached to the thing or the outcome in a way that takes us away from being fully present in each moment.  

The third poison is ignorance--when we don’t even realize that we are having a craving or aversion—we sometimes live in a state of denial and ignorance of what is really going on.  The Buddhist practices of mindfulness, meditation and positive visualization enable us to make allies of these internal enemies.  We can see them clearly, face them directly , even befriend them, without wallowing or pushing them away or ignoring them.  

Someone posted a great Carl Jung quote this week: 

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate.  You will call it fate, or an accident, or misfortune. Invite your unconscious shadow material into the light of conscious awareness and everything will change, inside of you and outside of you.” 

Each moment is precious--an opportunity to be fully awake, regardless of the external circumstances or our internal thoughts, emotions and sensations. It's said that there is a Natural Great Perfection to be found in each moment.    If we practice first being, then the doing comes from a place of peace, instead of doing and forgetting to be aware of being.

We practice making friends with whatever thoughts or distractions arise, then come back to the breath or the sensations in the body.  We can mentally go to a higher level of consciousness. When we see clearly the judgments we so often have about what we think, what we feel, what we do, then we can ask ourselves some pointed questions that dive into the heart of our demons, the shadows that make us ashamed or fearful.   

We can stop pretending that they are not there, and we stop attempting to paint over them with smiley faces.   Someone once suggested that maybe Buddhism was just atheism with a smiley face.  I encourage you to understand these teachings at a far deeper level--that is NOT what these teachings are about.  We may become more peaceful, but still have our demons.  We may feel a greater sense of happiness, but still have times of struggle and despair.  Buddhism is not about some magical process for experiencing only the good—it’s about experiencing it all from a place of clear seeing, direct knowing, courageously facing our uncomfortable emotions or even our worst demons, and making allies out of them, instead of enemies. That is where innate, unlimited peace will be found.

We can also ask ourselves this very tough question, found in the Eightfold Path with Wise Intention:  Ask yourself, “Do I really want to relieve my suffering, or do I still want to hang on to my story at all costs?”

Gary O’Connor once attended a retreat that included the practice of making allies of our demons.  He was asked to see the dark stuff more clearly, to imagine them as a demon, then ask the question, “What do you want of me?”  Ask your difficult emotions, your fears and anxieties, your demons of whatever size or shape, “What do you want of me?”   They may want your attention, your energy, your acknowledgement, or they may want love or recognition or peace.  For our guided meditation, this is what we will examine more deeply.  

Lama Surya Das has a series of questions in Chapter Three that I encourage you to reflect upon and journal about if that feels like it would be helpful.  For the guided meditation, I ask that you reflect on these questions.  Make them your own:

1. What is it that disturbs my peace of mind?
2. Can I see it more clearly?  Can I give it a name? Can I describe it in detail to myself?
3. Taking this specific issue, I imagine it sitting in front of me in this very moment.  What is it?
4. Now, ask it the question, “What do you want of me?”
5. Find the innate ability within you to simply be present.  And within this present moment, viscerally recognize that we can always find the innate Buddha Nature, the innate wisdom and courage that is within each and every one of us, through the present moment, it can always be found.  Allow that innate wisdom to arise and speak to you.
6. Now, simply imagine saying to this issue in front of you, “I love you. You are a part of me, but you are not all of me. And that's okay.” 
7. And so it is.  We can continue to practice making allies of our internal enemies, letting go of being asleep, and find the joyfulness in mindful awareness and with ourselves, in all our complexities.

Letting Go - 2 - The Power of Laughter

(For Podcast, click here.  For ITunes version, click here)

This morning we continue a series of talks based on the book by Lama Surya Das, entitled, Letting Go of the Person you Used to Be.  This is a beautifully written book that cuts at the heart of suffering.  The subtitle is Change, Loss and Spiritual Transformation.   Last week, we began with a discussion about the importance of seeing clearing what is happening in our lives, not simply through the lens of our past experiences.  It turns out that our brains don’t register most of what is going on around us.  We are experiencing ourselves and the entire world through this filter of what we have decided is important and what is not.  We selectively choose what to pay attention to and not, and we decide most often on the basis of our past experiences.  This is sometime helpful.  There is a hum of the heater in the background, so we ignore it.  Someone in the other room is speaking—we might ignore it or try listening in or be irritated or even frightened by their voice. 

Because of the faultiness of these filters, there is great value in questioning our thoughts and our emotions when we are going through difficult times.  It can be difficult to know what is true and real, and what is simply our imagination.  I was watching a TED talk given by a forensic psychologist named Scott Fraser who explains how our brains fill in the details about what we remember.  Even if you think you have remembered something or someone 100% accurately, Fraser shows the scientific evidence that is most likely not true.  So, clear seeing is a process that is part of the Buddhist practices.  As part of the practice, we keep examining if our thoughts and our emotions are really giving us an accurate picture of what is happening internally and externally.  

In his book, Lama Surya Das wrote about the loss of his father, and how much sadness and grieving went along with that experience.  I lost my father ten years ago, and there are still days when I miss him so terribly.  We were very close.  He used to call and leave me a voicemail to just tell me he was thinking about me, and that he loved me.  After he passed away, the phone would ring, and I would think it might be him, then remember...   I kept one of those voicemails he left on my phone, and I’m not ashamed to say that I played it many times, just listening to his voice, mourning the loss of his generous, compassionate spirit.  In the midst of just sorrow and loss, how do we make sense of the tragedies in our lives—the loss of a parent, the loss of our health, the loss of innocence, the loss of purpose, the loss of understanding, the loss of meaning, the loss of friendship—all the people and things that fade away or get lost or die?

Lama Surya Das is clear about one point—we have a choice about how to respond to even the worst situations.  This essence of the Buddhist teachings is our ability to choose how to live.  We may not choose our tragedies, or our losses, but we definitely choose how we respond.  Of course, sadness and grieving are two appropriate responses in situations of loss, but we need not see our responses as one dimensional.  In the midst of sadness can also be understanding, there can be acceptance, there can even be love. 

A second point that Lama Surya Das makes is that most of us, we take life and ourselves far too seriously.  Yes, I said last week that we should prioritize mindfulness and meditation like our hair was on fire, BUT the Buddhist practices of dealing with loss and tragedy is to also about finding the joy and laughter in each moment, despite the tragedy and pain.  Anyone  ever inappropriate laughed at a funeral?  Or maybe it was appropriate?  Are our lives solely about being solemn and serious? 

When you think of someone special whom you have lost in your life, can you think of a joyous time that you spent together, perhaps even a time when you laughed together?  My father had the cheesiest thing he did that always made me and my siblings laugh—I have no idea where this idea came from—maybe it was a Texas thing.  He would grab my knee and say “got a can a corn!”  I would giggle uncontrollably and run off or just get tickled, and he would laugh in that deep, honest, warm way, that he always did.  As tragic as it is when I think of my dad’s death, I also remember that I’m so sad because there were some wonderful times that we had together.  

Maybe other people’s death didn’t include a sense of joy whatsoever.  We still have a choice to move forward with a sense of optimism.  Laughter and joy make life more manageable, even in the darkest of days.  Starting now, or perhaps you are already doing it, what will you do to infuse laughter and joy into your daily life, to create a life worth living and worth celebrating when it is done?  

Lama Surya Das encourages us to name our losses, acknowledge them honestly, then assess how best to move on.  What can I do to honor my father’s life?  What can do to I honor my own life? How can I infuse joy and laughter into my purpose in living? 

In Feng shui, the laughing Buddha is often used to remind us of the bliss that can be found in humor and smiling and the turn of the good joke, the simple pleasure of finding laughter amidst the pain. 

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.  ~Woody Allen

Laughter is an instant vacation. ~Milton Berle

When people are laughing, they're generally not killing each other. ~Alan Alda

Letting Go - Part 1

(For Podcast, click here.  For ITunes version, click here)

This morning we begin a new series of talks based on the book by Lama Surya Das, entitled, Letting Go of the Person you used to Be.  This is a beautiful written book that cuts at the heart of suffering.  The subtitle is Change, Loss and Spiritual Transformation.   Who among us has NOT experienced loss and change?  I wish that it wasn’t true, but it seems that our greatest spiritual growth often comes in the times when life seems the toughest.  We each have the opportunity amidst the sadness and fear to choose exploration versus shutting down, to choose curiosity instead of fear.  Or at least choose curiosity about fear.

In this book, we will look at several Buddhist tools for leveraging these difficult times in our lives to accelerate our spiritual transformation, to deepen our sense of serenity and peace, regardless of what is happening in our lives.  Two of the methods we’ll being with are Realism and Laughter.

Buddhism is often criticized because it begins with acknowledging that life includes suffering—what a bummer!  Can’t we just gloss off the bad stuff?  Isn’t that what American culture is all about?  We often ignore or push away that which is unpleasant and uncomfortable.  OR, sometimes we go in the other direction and wallow to the depths of despair about our situation.  “Woe is me!  This is awful!  It’ll never get better!”

So, over the next few weeks, we are going to try something a little different. First, we will explore ways to be realistic about what is happening within us and all around us.  We can, as Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun often says, hold our seat amidst the storms of living, and see more clearly what is happening.  See Clearly—that is a tall order.  We all have collected many experiences in our lives up to this point.  Some are valuable in guiding us forward, and others are the exact thing that is holding us back.  Byron Katie has an elegantly simple process of seeing more clearly by asking four questions:

Step 1              Is it true?

Step 2             Can you absolutely know that it's true?

Step 3              How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

Step 4              Who would you be without the thought?

In Buddhism, we practice mindful awareness, striving in each moment to be fully aware of what is happening, teasing apart that which is an old unskillful habit and that which enlivens and encourages us.  Many of us seek out this practice because we feel stressed and overwhelmed.  It might seem that mindfulness is all about relaxing and letting go of that which we are stressed about.  But have you ever tried to relax and let go, only to find yourself holding on more tightly?  This is the illusory bind that our minds put us in.  In Buddhism, we are taught about the paradox of mindfulness, the paradox of practice, that to truly let go, we must first be fully aware, to be mindful is to be aware in three ways—BY not pushing away, not holding on to,and not ignoring.  We practice just being awake to what is happening in each moment.

These three instructions are the key to being fully mindful in the moment.  These practices of not pushing away, not holding on to, not ignoring enable us to become aware more fully with what is.  We start exactly where we are at, it is only from that starting point, that we can then see new possibilities in our lives.  The practice of mindfulness is the doorway to these new possibilities, new ways to see our selves and our lives and others.  By seeing more possibilities in our lives, we give ourselves the gift of a deeper, richer, fuller experience of living.  

I love a particular saying from George Santayana, which is so deeply buddhist.  “Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness. “  Albert Einstein has some wonderful quotes about seeing our selves and our lives with fresh eyes.  One quote is that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  The other quote I love is that "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." These are very Buddhist perspectives, encouraging us to see everything and everyone in our lives, including ourselves with a fresh perspective, like seeing with new eyes.

The paradox of the practice of mindful awareness is that by not pushing away, not clinging to, not ignoring, we start to see things and people and situations in our lives in new ways, and we begin to create new possibilities.  From The Power of Habit that I quoted a few weeks ago, the research indicates that 90% of what we do in any given day, we do out of habit.  On most days, most of us probably spend the majority of our time reacting in conditioned ways.  We wake up in the same way, we brush our teeth in the same way, we drink our tea or coffee in the same way, we respond to the stresses in our lives in the same way.  So, how do we wake up in the middle of our lives?

There are simple ways to try this theory out.  One way to open ourselves up is to change our routine in some way.  For example, today, when you drive or walk home, try taking a different route.  Try holding your coffee cup with the opposite hand.  Try eating with the opposite hand.  By not reacting in conditioned ways, we are actually training our brains to see ourselves and the world in new ways.   

We are creating new neural networks that enable us to create new possibilities in our lives. 

Another simple exercise that we can try is in this moment, cross your arms.  Something we all often do.  Just cross your arms in this moment.  Now, try crossing your arms in the opposite way.  There are so many ways in our lives to shake up our old way of seeing things. 

So, we can strive to see ourselves and our world realistically, with fresh eyes. 

In the teachings of Tilopa, a buddhist teacher around the tenth century, he says:

“If you strive in this endeavor, you will free yourself from the imprisonment of the endless cycle of suffering.

If you meditate in this way, you will burn away the karma of the past.

Therefore YOU are known as “The Torch of the Truth”.

Each of us can strive to not push away, not cling to, not ignore our old ways of being and see life full of new possibilities.  You are  “The Torch of the Truth”!"

Awareness' is the quintessential teaching of the Buddha--from the awareness of cool air as you breath in and then out, to the profound awareness of natural perfection. And with boundless compassion and courage, the sole purpose and activity of all the buddhas is to ring the alarm bell that brings us to this awareness."

-Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

And in the coming weeks, we’ll also talk about the use of laughter, not taking everything so seriously.  As Lama Surya Das says, we can enlighten up!  My favorite quote on the subject is by a Buddhist Master named Longchenpa who said, “Life is not as it seems, nor is it otherwise, so we might as well burst out laughing!”

AND, for those interested, in April, we will have a special chance to meditate WITH Lama Surya at his retreat center in Austin, Texas, the weekend of April 4-7^th.  I have some information about that if you want to pick up after the meditation today.  And the Temple will be giving away one scholarship to the retreat, so email me if you want to be considered for that.

Visualization:

Ham – So (and Inner chant)

Ham = Light of Love coming int hrough the crown of your; head

So = Light of Love going out from your heart

Basics of Buddhism - Final - What do you really want?

(For Podcast, click here.  For ITunes version, click here)

Buddhist practices are designed to help us find and experience unlimited freedom—this is a freedom beyond all others—it is the inner freedom that liberates us from the mercurial mental and emotional ups and downs of daily living.  

When we were children, most of us thought of freedom as the ability stay up late or watch TV and we thought that was what happiness was all about.  Then, as we became teenagers, we wanted the freedom to be with our friends and we thought that would bring us happiness.  Then, we got out of the house, away from our parents and wanted the freedom that being on our own would bring, the freedom that money could buy, being able to do the things that we thought would make us happy.  This desire for freedom in some form or fashion seems to be an important part of our psyche.    So, here we are today. At whatever point you are in your life you are here, right now.  When you think about being free in this moment, what comes to mind?  What is the freedom you desire?

It’s powerful to be able to acknowledge that even though we’ve grown up, we may still might feel enslaved to our old ways of thinking about ourselves and the world.  We might still be enslaved to this old idea of freedom.  

In a superficial way, freedom is sometimes described as an ability to chase after any desire that we have.  We want the freedom to eat what we want to eat, to drink what we want to drink, the freedom to act on any whim that strikes us.  But what Buddha discovered is that acting on any whim that arises is actually no freedom at all. In fact, it becomes the worst kind of imprisonment.  We are imprisoned by our desires, forced to act on them, unable to withstand the feelings of withdrawal that arise if not acted upon.   What Buddha discovered was that NOT acting on every whim of desire was the FIRST step towards ultimate happiness.  Starting with a willingness to see clearly what these whims are all about, we start to see the world at a deeper level of richness, of fullness, of true reality, of true freedom. 

You are the one you’ve been waiting for.  You alone can transform your life.

We often put ourselves in prison, the prison of limiting thoughts and actions.  We keep seeking freedom from what is. Instead, we can learn to harness present awareness into a freedom to be with whatever is, a freedom with far less judgment and far move love and compassion.  In Buddhism, the desire for Ultimate Freedom is one of the tools that we can harness to find the long-lasting peace and happiness that we’ve been looking for all along.  As adults, we are no longer constrained by our parents or our past, but sometimes WE allow it to be so.  We may feel constrained by our old ways of thinking, our unskillful habits or constrained by our emotions, constrained by our illusions about what life is about or constrained by what we think we are supposed to be doing.  It’s easy to get lost in the shackles of illusions that keep us from being completely happy and at peace.  The Buddha taught that the only obstacle to complete freedom and happiness is our own misguided way of thinking. 

Buddhism teaches us to focus our desire on the inner freedom of choice.  Emotions or thoughts will continue to arise. We always have the freedom to choose IF to react and then HOW to react 

In a beautifully written book entitled Wake Up to Your Life, Ken McLeod gives an eloquent description of how bringing attention to our thoughts and emotions can free us from their hold.  He gives a four-step process for dismantling these old patterns.

1. Recognize:  When we have sensations or emotions or thoughts, we begin to pay attention to them early on. 
2. Dis-identify: We can start to see these sensations or emotions or thoughts as NOT who we are, see them as just ephemeral desires or aversions arising and allowing them to fall away. THOUGHTS ONLY HAVE POWER IF WE GIVE IT TO THEM.  EMOTIONS ONLY HAVE POWER IF WE GIVE IT TO THEM.  When we dis-identify with our thoughts and emotions, we are free to place our energy in more skillful responses.
3. Develop a practice: We practice not identifying with them.  Each time a thought or emotion arises, we have an opportunity to form a new habit, to pay attention, to examine it and dis-identify with it, so we can see it more clearly.
4. Continue the practice:  Each time a thought or emotion arises, we can apply the antidote of awareness and compassionate attention.  Again and again, until compassionate attention becomes the habit.

When compassionate attention becomes the habit, then we are truly free to live our lives in peace regardless of what arises.

Let’s not wait for some magical time when we get it right every time.  Let’s start now, working at it, with each thought and emotion, a fresh opportunity to practice, and with each opportunity, we open ourselves to this incredible freedom little by little.  Over time, our lives do become magical, in the sense of wonder and deep happiness that comes naturally from the experience of inner freedom.  We have everything we need right now, in this moment, to experience the ultimate freedom of choosing to be happy, regardless of our external circumstances, regardless of our old thoughts and habits.

“A life-time is not what's between,

The moments of birth and death.

A life-time is one moment,

Between my two little breaths.

The present, the here, the now,

That's all the life I get,

I live each moment in full,

In kindness, in peace, without regret.”

Chade-Meng Tan, One Moment 

(Author of Search Inside Yourself)