The Peaceful Minds Center Thought For The Week

“The pain and sadness we sometimes feel in our gut is one thing - fear. When we shine the light of our consciousness upon it, it evaporates like a puddle on a warm summers day. As we remember that we are always safe within ourselves, the pain goes away and we smile.”

                                                                           ~ Tom Notarianni Jr.

©2009 All Right Reserved The Peaceful Minds Center™LLC 561-531-3626 peacefulminds.org

External Matter and Internal Mind

Although you can find certain differences among the Buddhist philosophical schools about how the universe came into being, the basic common question addressed is how the two fundamental principles--external matter and internal mind or consciousness--although distinct, affect one another. External causes and conditions are responsible for certain of our experiences of happiness and suffering. Yet we find that it is principally our own feelings, our thoughts and our emotions, that really determine whether we are going to suffer or be happy. 

- Dalai Lama

The Peaceful Minds Center Thought For The Week

"The fun thing about fishing is not knowing what you’re going to catch"

  ~ Tom Notarianni Jr.


©2009 All Right Reserved The Peaceful Minds Center™LLC 561-531-3626 peacefulminds.org

You Are the One You Are Waiting For - Turn to Yourself

From www.dailyom.com

The outer world serves as a mirror and our inner world has a magnetic force that draws to us what we need to evolve.

We spend a lot of our lives looking for role models, mentors, teachers, and gurus to guide us on our path. There is nothing wrong with this and, in fact, finding the right person at the right time can really help. However, it is important to realize that in the absence of such a figure, we can very safely rely upon ourselves. We carry within us everything we need to know to make progress on our paths to self-realization. The outer world serves as a mirror. Or to use another metaphor, our inner world has a magnetic force that draws to us what we need to evolve to the next level. All we need to do to see that we already have everything we need is to let go of our belief that we need to seek in order to find.

The path of the spirit is often defined as a journey with a goal such as the fabled pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Compassion and the Individual

By Tenzin Gyatso; The Fourteenth Dalai Lama

The purpose of life
 ONE GREAT QUESTION underlies our experience, whether we think about it consciously or not: What is the purpose of life?  I have considered this question and would like to share my thoughts in the hope that they may be of direct, practical benefit to those who read them.

I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy.  From the moment of birth, every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering.  Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affect this.  From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment.  I don't know whether the universe, with its countless galaxies, stars and planets, has a deeper meaning or not, but at the very least, it is clear that we humans who live on this earth face the task of making a happy life for ourselves.  Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.

How to achieve happiness
For a start, it is possible to divide every kind of happiness and suffering into two main categories: mental and physical.  Of the two, it is the mind that exerts the greatest influence on most of us.  Unless we are either gravely ill or deprived of basic necessities, our physical condition plays a secondary role in life.  If the body is content, we virtually ignore it. The mind, however, registers every event, no matter how small. Hence we should devote our most serious efforts to bringing about mental peace.

Once You Remove The Things That Are Not You ...

"Once you remove the things that are not you, all you have left is you."

  ~ Tom Notarianni Jr.

The Peaceful Minds Center Thought For The Week

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."   ~ Rumi

Addiction

 Addiction may be better described as a brain malfunction rather than a disease. Granted, there may be some with a disease or abnormality. However, I think that most who deal with the addictive process are dealing with the mind brilliantly attempting to help them avoid painful thoughts by creating the addiction as a huge distraction from ones life. Many times "the addict" (I rather loath labels) is ignorant and resistant to even getting close to what is actually causing the pain. Thus, the mind creates a hurricane on which we must focus. All the mental focus is applied to solving the addiction and all the distractions that come with it as a means of avoiding the real pain. Unfortunately, this only leads to more pain in addition to the core issues that are cleverly being avoided. Having suffered with my own addictions I can only say what is true for me and this comment is certainly anecdotal. What is useful for me in dealing with addictions is a question I used to ask myself and ask many of my current clients - "When you are thinking or even obsessed about and addiction or any thought for that matter, what are you not thinking about?" After much work including a lot of coaching and journaling, I was almost always able to become aware of a very, very deep fear of which I was not formerly aware. As I shined the light of my consciousness upon my deepest fears they would evaporate like puddles on a hot summers day. And, the need for the addiction would evaporate with it - until the next fear popped up. Awareness is the key and foundation on which I coach ...

  ~ Tom Notarianni

©2009 All Right Reserved The Peaceful Minds Center™LLC 561-531-3626 peacefulminds.org

Unwritten ~ Natasha Bedingfield

Unwritten 

Songwriters: Brisebois, Danielle A; Bedingfield, Natasha Anne; Rodriques, Wayne Steven

I am unwritten
Can't read my mind
I'm undefined

I'm just beginning
The pen's in my hand
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Barriers To Love

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

  ~ Rumi

The Peaceful Minds Center Thought For The Week

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”

  ~ The Dalai Lama 



©2009 All Right Reserved The Peaceful Minds Center™LLC 561-531-3626 peacefulminds.org

Osho on difference between A Mystic and A Master

Question  - Beloved Osho, Please throw light on the difference between a mystic and a master.

Osho - There is an ancient Tibetan parable. It says, "When one hundred people try to reach the goal only ten ever start the journey; and out of the ten only one reaches the goal." And those few people who reach the goal are not capable of being masters. They are all mystics. They have known, they have seen, they have realized, but they cannot help anybody else towards the truth. They cannot explain their experience.

The mystic and the master are in the same state of being, but the master is articulate. He finds ways and means, devices, to indicate towards that which cannot be brought into words. The mystic is dumb. He has tasted the sweet; it is not that he does not know that it is sweet. He is full of the sweetness, but he cannot say anything about it, he is simply dumb.
The master is articulate. And it is the greatest art in the world.


The Peaceful Minds Center Thought For The Week

"One thing that helps our minds be peaceful is the knowing that everything that is happening is somehow moving us closer to what we really want - even when we don't understand how. The Universe is always conspiring to help us."

 ~ Tom Notarianni Jr.

©2009 All Right Reserved The Peaceful Minds Center™LLC 561-531-3626 peacefulminds.org

Zen Is Not Simply A Teacher ~ Osho

A master in Zen is not simply a teacher. In all the religions there are only teachers. They teach you about subjects which you dont know, and they ask you to believe because there is no way to bring those experiences into objective reality. Neither has the teacher known them - he has believed them; he transfers his belief to somebody else. Zen is not a believers world. It is not for the faithful ones; it is for those daring souls who can drop all belief, unbelief, doubt, reason, mind, and simply enter into their pure existence without boundaries. But it brings a tremendous transformation. Hence, let me say that while others are involved in philosophies, Zen is involved in metamorphosis, in a transformation. It is authentic alchemy: it changes you from base metal into gold. But its language has to be understood, not with your reasoning and intellectual mind but with your loving heart. Or even just listening, not bothering whether it is true or not. And a moment comes suddenly that you see it, which has been eluding you your whole life. Suddenly, what Gautam Buddha called "eighty-four thousand doors" open.

Osho