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Taking Charlotte’s notes to Heart on Voluntary Simplicity, a simple, great exercise for tonight. And simplicity simply feels lighter doesn’t it!
Sky Gazing, a practice and a wonderful teaching in what Awareness is. The method comes from the Tibetan Dzogchens. Pretty chill!
- Lie on your back facing the sky.
- Notice the limitlessness and vast depth of the great blue.
- Notice the limitlessness and vast depth of your mind. The two have a lot in common – the feeling the sky gives can parallel observing your mind.
- Essentially the sky mirrors our Awareness.
- Be the sky. Clouds roll through – notice the vastness’s acceptance and space.
- The clouds are what enters our Awareness – fears, thoughts, images etc.
- Be the sky and let them roll through untouched!
Even with a little practice, the above paints a clear picture of what our Awareness is how we can choose to rise above all and accept!
Blessings,
Matthew
Hello, internet world! Charlotte here, for the first time on Passion Pancakes.
I was driven to write a little something here today because of some interesting ideas that I’ve been exposed to recently, ideas that I am stoked to explore more deeply and share!
I’ve joined a discussion circle on campus called “Voluntary Simplicity” in which we meet once a week and talk about a chapter of the course manual. There are around 8-12 people in a group, and these groups are held all over the Pacific Northwest (and elsewhere, as well!) There are 10 people in our group, from diverse backgrounds and holding a whole variety of value systems – yet we all hold the common interest in simplifying our lives.
So, what exactly is voluntary simplicity? I’ll lay it down for you:
Voluntary Simplicity involves both inner and outer condition. It involves singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of exterior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure a greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose. Of course, as different people have different purposes in life, what is relevant to the purpose of one person might not be relevant to the purpose of another… The degree of simplification is a matter for each individual to settle for himself.
So what does this look like? Here are some examples:
1. Limiting material possessions to what is needed and/or cherished.
2. Meaningful work, whether paid or volunteer, ideally spending no more than 30 hours per week (in order to make time for items # 3 to 12, below).
3. Quality relationships with friends and family.
4. Joyful and pleasurable leisure activities.
5. A conscious and comfortable relationship with money.
6. Connection to community, but not necessarily in formal organizations.
7. Sustainable consumption practices.
8. Healthy living practices, including exercise, adequate sleep, and nutritious food.
9. Practices that foster personal growth, an inner life, or spirituality, such as yoga, meditation, prayer, religious ceremonies, journal writing, and spiritually-related reading.
10. Connection to nature-delighting in spending time in nature regularly.
11. Aesthetic beauty in personal environment.
12. Living in harmony with values and integrity.
Beautiful.
So basically, Voluntary Simplicity is about living consciously. It’s about making choices for how you wish to live, instead of letting life string you along aimlessly.
I already hold many of the values of Voluntary Simplicity, but I’m really excited to spend time discussing this with others and formulating new ideas!
I’ll let you know how it goes.
-Charlotte
“The ability to perceive”
A powerful topic, these terms tend to go around the block:
- The All Mighty “Self Awareness“
- “Higher Awareness” (and said bragging rights upon achieve such a state.. right?)
- “Enlightened Awareness“
Time to expand our awareness on what these terms mean!
From my personal experience, awareness is the conscious viewing in the theatre of life, the theatre of experience! Whenever you take in the performance through the senses and your aware of it (I’m watching a movie right now, I’m kissing my girlfriend, I’m feeling my chest breathing etc), you achieve a level of awareness. Making the effort to notice yourself in this play of life makes the experience much more total and deep. Is it then just an external spotlight of the mind’s eye? Nope!
We also have ability to focus our spotlight of awareness within ourselves. Physical sensations – sure. Even more so, we can bring our mind’s eye to the thoughts and feelings of the mind itself! This does an amazing couple of things. One, it allows us to be more responsible for how we think and consequently feel (this also has a big effect in our physical circumstance too).
In my spiritual journey, amazing moments occur when I realize something new thus bringing awareness to it – a habitual pattern, a rusty belief, or even self-talk! I presonally believe a reason why people with such checkered backgrounds seem happier is due to these moments, these “quantum shifts”!
Then of course, there’s awareness of the soul. Writing about this is like educating fish about water. All I can say about awareness in this regard is to be open and appricate the little things. Every experience can teach us something, no matter how wonderful or detrimental! Remember, experience fuels our preference, lengthening our plumb line adding to our scale of right-and-wrong and good-and-bad! This act some believe, actually evolves our soul, satisfying the cosmic role of our presence??
Speculation aside, a great image for this lesson would be that of a staircase. With every new experience (physical) or piece of information (metaphysical) we can slow down and take notice. Observe life! With every newly gained awareness we expand the soul, floating to the next level looking at things pass. Yes it is almost hierarchy, in which life was a linear process of one event, one feeling, one thought after another. But now we have the ability to make such feelings, thoughts and experiences as children of the mind from our parent perspective.
For starters, being aware our personal priorities can push our spiritual journey along tremendously! I leave you with a great quote from Thoreau to kick start ya:
“Most men (or women) are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum, and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man’s noblest faculties.”
Being? Here’s a spotlight on this wonderful word: How does the idea of “ending suffering” in our physical life and perception of reality sound? How do run-on sentences sound?
Ultimately we must not forget our souls, our spirit and the ever pervading awareness which houses life as we know it. Complicated I know, but it can as simple as noticing your breath. Our minds, expanding further than our brain, are quite impressive! We have a freedom to shift our attention, to move our awareness – this gift alone is of great magnitude. Gratitude!
How are you feeling right now? What’s that emotion? How’s your emotional intelligence these days? Do you know what the feeling is? Is it you? Is it within or without? Regardless! Take your focus (grasp it with your iron-fisted mind, that amazing nebulous-ness our souls control) and narrow her down on your breathing – notice those curling nose hairs, the diaphragm expanding, the rib cage growth!!! Oh my! Keep it up, notice this heightened sensitivity to sound, to touch, to sight!
Did you notice the shift? What this enables us to do is lessen the mind’s grasp on ‘our’ physical plain by giving our soul to breathe. That’s right, I said it – focusing your attention on your breath allows your soul to breath! Thinking that’s too simple? Good! Thank your ego for reminding you of it’s control in your life and write him postcards from heaven.
Practice this to transcend physical attachments and be mindful, young padawan!
Love,
Matthew
Ahoy Hoy! This is the positive zone by two peoples:
Passion Pancakes? We’re here to share wonderful things – two motives: one, to inspire you and two, to figure things out for ourselves. Words from the heart and fueled with experience.
Have you ever enjoyed a process so much, you asked yourself how you could share it? Simple indeed, but pretend to guide yourself (and potentially millions of future learners) through what you’re actively doing: walking the dog, checking emails, the daily tasks become new and exciting and part our live’s story! Conscious Living! This is our theme.
Reaching this place provides acceptance of a given experience. You know it will turn to a greater good in the end! The overall tone of life becomes selfless (effortlessly too, mind you) and this my friends, is a behind-the-scenes look at Passion Pancakes.
If you are reading this – thank you! Keep the good energy going and we will too!
Forever ours,
Charlotte + Matthew
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