Manuia le taeao! Good morning Saturday. If you are interested to visit our center this weekend, please give us a call at (888) 390-5580. Todays regular Dharma program as follow: Silent meditation: 4 pm to 5.30 pm (all are welcome) Achi Practice: 6 pm Heads-up: Dzambhala & Bodhicitta Practice retreat with Venerable Lama Konchok Sonam. Mark your calendar - 28 December 2014. Details to follow soon. Amazon Smile: If you happen to be shopping at Amazo please go to Amazon Smile and select Drikung Meditation as your charity organization. We thank you in advance for supporting our Dharma activities. Here is the direct link: smile.amazon/ch/04-3459087 *******Dharma Quote of the Day******* [Meditations have power to our mental, emotional, and physical afflictions grows stronger. Today were sharing an excerpt from very beautiful healing meditation instruction that could be performed by everyone, Buddhists and non-Buddhists for healing our body and mind.] THE FOUR HEALING POWERS OF MIND The four healing powers are positive images, words, feeling and belief. When we bring these qualities of mind to our meditation, the power to heal our mental, emotional, and physical afflictions grows stronger. 1) Positive Images: When we visualize positive objects, the exercise of our imagination engages and absorbs our mind. If we can maintain the images in our mind for some duration, the healing will be more intimate and effective. The mind tends to wander about, especially if you are new to meditation. Practice staying with the image as long as you comfortably can, and eventually your concentration will improve. Although visualization is a pillar of Tibetan meditation, many Westerners find it rather strange at first. Forming mental images is universal, even if we are not used to doing it as part of meditation. With few exceptions, we all visualize constantly in daily life. Most of the time, our minds are occupied with neutral images or negative ones. Instead, if we build a habit of seeing positive images, the peaceful nature of our mind begins to emerge and we give joy a chance to flourish…In your own life, you can bring meditation and its images and associated feelings into your life, during a short break at work, for example. This encourages the positive feelings to take hold… 2) Positive Words: Words can have great power, for good or ill. As thinking creatures, words and inner dialogues are constantly going on in our heads. We put labels on things and name them. It is our way of recognizing and confirming the quality of something. Meditating upon an image is made all the stronger when we recognize it as positive, and even comment to ourselves on its positive nature. Eg. If we are visualizing a flower, you might think about its positive qualities: “This beautiful flower is blossoming,” or “Its color is spectacular… Sometimes just the conscious recognition of positive qualities is enough, without a label. But a label can help open your mind to an image, such as just simply saying to yourself: “It’s beautiful,” or “It’s red.” The point is to confirm in your mind the power of the positive. In this way, we begin to transform the negative mindset we have built up. We can choose positive or negative perceptions. Recognizing the positive can be a strong ally in transforming our minds, both in meditation and daily life. In addition to positive images, we can incorporate positive sounds and scents, or use gestures or touch. By recognizing the positive qualities of any of these means, we can expand their power. 3) Positive Feeling: The mind not only thinks and recognizes, it feels. If we involve our awareness of the positive qualities of an object through emotion, the healing of mind and body is much stronger. Eg. In meditation if we imagine a beautiful flower, we might just think in our heads, “How beautiful that flower is,” but then the positive impression is a shadow of what it could be. Instead, open up to the flower on the level of feeling. Feel the enchanting beauty, the freshness of dew dripping from it, the clarity of its colors like immaculate light. Feel the qualities of the flower in your heart and body and celebrate it, instead of just thinking of it intellectually. You can bring this same open-hearted approach to appreciating the beauty around you every day of your life. Opening yourself to feelings in meditation can bring more zest and enjoyment to everything you do. Generally we need to feel our emotions; it’s healthy to do so. But at times we may want or need to protect ourselves from harmful emotions generated by negative situations and images. To do this, try to deal with them at the level of thinking and intellect, rather than getting overwhelmed by the emotion of the moment. You don’t necessarily need to allow negative perceptions to be driven deep into your heart at the level of feeling. In meditation and all of life, we can bring the awareness of feeling to the positive qualities as perceived through any of our senses: seeing, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. We feel the vastness of the sky, the refreshing power of the wind, the comforting warmth of the sun, and so on. 4) Positive Belief: If you do not trust in the power of your meditation to heal, its strength and energy will be weak. Belief gives the meditation a firm foundation; it engages the mind in a way that is effective and total. This is not blind faith, but a faith and trust based upon knowledge that the healing power of mind can be fully called forth with the help of images, words, and feelings. We need to believe that we actually can improve our lives in this way. Even if meditation moves you one step forward, you can fall right back if you are always harboring doubts in your mind. …The four healing powers are also applicable to daily life. We can see the positive in ourselves and around us, confirm this quality in our minds by recognizing it, rejoice in any positive or peaceful feelings, and believe in the healing power of this way of looking at the world. This approach to life can reap a great harvest of benefits.” - Excerpt taken from Boundless Healing: Meditation Exercises to Enlighten the Mind & Heal the Body” by H.E. Tulku Thondup Rinpoche *H.E. Tulku Thondup Rinpoche was recognised at the age of four as the reincarnation of a famous scholar of the Dodrupchen monastery, Konme Khenpo. He is an accomplish teacher of the Nyingma (Dzogchen) school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 12:00:01 +0000
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