Exclusive love?

Flow like a river

Food and love

I celebrate myself

Belief is like holding your breath of fear that it will stop

Meditaton

Meditation: The End of Suffering
Meditation is not something that you do; meditation is something that you become. Meditation is not an act; it is a certain quality that you grow into. Why is there a need to become meditative, first of all?
When you were born, you were so small. And now, you have grown your body. Obviously, the body is something that you gathered; it is an accumulation. Similarly, the mind is also an accumulation. The body is an accumulation of food; the mind is an accumulation of impressions. Whatever you accumulate can be yours, but it can never be you, because the very fact that you accumulate means you gather something from somewhere else. Let us say you gathered a 150-pound body; if you are determined, in a few days, you could make it 140 pounds. Where did these 10 pounds of body go? You would not go looking for them, because they are an accumulation.
Once you get identified with things that you have gathered from the outside, your perception has completely gone haywire; you cannot perceive life the way it is. The moment you experience the body as "myself," and the moment you experience the impressions that you have in your mind as "myself," you cannot perceive life the way it is. You can only perceive life the way it is necessary for your survival. For a human being, survival is very important, but it is not enough. For any other creature on this planet, when the stomach is full, life is settled. But for a human being, life does not end with the survival process. Actually, for a human being, life begins only after survival is fulfilled.
Meditation means giving you an experience, an inner state, where what is you and what is yours is separate. It brings an absolute clarity of perception; you see life just the way it is. Right now, your ability to go through this world is only to the extent that you clearly see it. For example, for thousands of years, people went on arguing about whether the planet is round or flat. Leave all the textbooks that you have read aside, take a walk and see -- in your experience, is this planet round or flat? In your experience, it is still flat. This argument could have continued forever, but man started flying. We went up and looked down and it was very clear that the planet was round. We even went to the moon and looked down, and it was 100 percent clear. Only when we removed ourselves from this earth and looked down was there no more argument about it. Otherwise, we would still be arguing.
The same is true for your own body and mind; unless there is a little distance, you don't see it the way it is, because you are in it. Meditation is a simple process that gives you a little distance from your own mind and your own body. You have probably heard of the word "Buddha." Bu means "buddhi," or the intellect. Dha means "dada," or one who is above. One who is above his intellect is a Buddha. A Buddha has clear perception of the nature of his mind. One who is in the intellect is a nonstop suffering human being.
Look at this sincerely. Whatever you experience as moments of happiness and peacefulness are just those moments where you are able to leave anxiety, tension and stress behind. But if you turn back, they will be sitting right there, because once you are in your intellect, stress, anxiety and tension are very normal. But if you are above the intellect, it is the end of suffering. Being a Buddha means there is no question of suffering, because suffering has either come through your body or through your mind. Do you know any other kind of suffering other than physical and mental suffering? Once there is a distance from your physical body and your mental structure, that is the end of suffering.
Meditation is the first and the last freedom, because it gives you a gallery view of your own body and your own mind. There can be no suffering once this distance is established.
Its a REPOST.

Lovely article - Do something.

 http://markmanson.net/do-something

I‘ve been working with self development advice for a large percentage of my life. I’ve come across a lot of concepts and ideas as well as invented quite a few of my own. But the following is one of the most important ideas I’ve stumbled across in my life:

Action isn’t just the effect of motivation, but also the cause of it.

Most people only commit to action if they feel a certain level of motivation. And they only feel motivation when they feel an emotional inspiration.

People only become motivated to study for the exam when they’re afraid of the consequences. People only pick up and learn that instrument when they feel inspired by the people they can play for.

And we’ve all slacked off for lack of motivation before. Especially in times where we shouldn’t.  We feel lethargic and apathetic towards a certain goal that we’ve set for ourselves because we lack the motivation and we lack the motivation because we don’t feel any overarching emotional desire to accomplish something.

Emotional Inspiration → Motivation → Desirable Action

But there’s a problem with operating under this framework: often the changes and actions we most need in our lives are inspired by negative emotions which simultaneously hinder us from taking action.

If someone wants to fix their relationship with their mother, the emotions of the situation (hurt, resentment, avoidance) completely go against the necessary action to fix it (confrontation, honesty, communication). If someone wants to lose weight, but experiences massive amounts of shame about their body, then the act of going to the gym is apt to inspire in them the exact emotions that kept them at home on the couch in the first place. Past traumas, negative expectations, and feelings of guilt, shame and fear often motivate us away from the actions necessary to overcome those very traumas, negative expectations, and negative emotions.

It’s a Catch-22 of sorts. But the thing about the motivation chain is that it’s not only a three-part chain, but an endless loop:

Inspiration → Motivation → Action → Inspiration → Motivation → Action → Etc.

Your actions create further emotional reactions and inspirations and move on to motivate your future actions. Taking advantage of this knowledge, we can actually re-orient our mindset in the following way:

Action → Inspiration → Motivation

The conclusion is that if you lack the motivation to make an important change in your life, then do something, anything really, and then harness the reaction to that action as a way to begin motivating yourself.

I call this The “Do Something” Principle. And I developed it on accident back in my years as a consultant, helping people who were otherwise immobilized by fears, rationalizations, and apathy to take action.

It began out of simple pragmatism: you paid me to be here so you might as well do something. I don’t care, do anything!

What I found is that often once they did something, even the smallest of actions, it would soon give them the inspiration and motivation to do something else. They had sent a signal to themselves, “OK, I did that, I guess I can do more.” And slowly we could take it from there.

Over the years, I’ve applied the “Do Something” Principle in my own life as well.

The most obvious example is running this website and my business ventures online. I work for myself. I don’t have a boss telling me what to do and not to do. I also often have to take major calculated risks in which I’m personally invested, both financially and emotionally (spending months writing a book, re-branding my entire website, ceasing promotions of my past products, etc.). It’s been nerve-wracking at times, and major feelings of doubt and uncertainty arise. And when no one is around to push you, sitting around and watching TV reruns all day can quickly become a more appealing option.

The first couple years I worked for myself, entire weeks would go by without accomplishing much for no other reason than I was anxious and stressed about what I had to do, and it was too easy to put it off. I quickly learned that forcing myself to do something, even the most menial of tasks, quickly made the larger tasks seem much easier. If I had to redesign an entire website, then I’d force myself to sit down and would say, “OK, I’ll just design the header right now.” But after the header was done, I’d find myself moving on to other parts of it. And before I knew it, I’d be energized and engaged in the project.

I also use this regularly in my own life. If I’m about to tackle a large project that I’m anxious about, or if I’m in a new country and I need to give myself a little push to get out and meet people, I apply the Do Something Principle. Instead of expecting the moon, I just decide, “OK, I’ll start on the outline,” or “OK, I’ll just go out and have a beer and see what’s going on.” The mere action of doing this almost always spurs me on.

Inevitably, the appropriate action occurs at some point or another. The motivation is natural. The inspiration is genuine. It’s an overall far more pleasant way of accomplishing my goals.

My math teacher used to tell us in high school, “If you don’t know how to do a problem, start writing something down, your brain will begin to figure it out as you go.” And sure enough, to this day, this seems to be true. The mere action itself inspires new thoughts and ideas which lead us to solving the problems in our lives. But that new insight never comes if we simply sit around contemplating it.

I recently heard a story about a novelist who had written over 70 novels. Someone asked him how he was able to write so consistently and remain inspired and motivated every day, as writers are notorious for procrastination and for fighting through bouts of “writer’s block”. The novelist said, “200 crappy words per day, that’s it.” The idea is that if he forced himself to write 200 crappy words, more often than not, the act of writing would inspire him and before he knew it he’d have thousands down on the page.

You may recognize this concept among other writings in different guises. I’ve seen it mentioned in terms such as “failing forward” or “ready, fire, aim.” But no matter how you frame it to yourself, it’s an extremely useful mindset and habit to adopt. The more time goes on, the more I realize that success in anything is tied less to knowledge or talent, and tied more to action supplemented by knowledge and talent. You can become successful at something without knowing what you’re doing. You can become successful at something without having much particular talent at it. But you can never become successful at anything without taking action. Ever.