Early Morning Zen Buddhism Inspiration - 6/1/2013
Early Morning Zen Buddhism Inspiration - 6/1/2013 |
- Early Morning Zen Buddhism Inspiration - 6/1/2013
- Relationship Advice: 7 Unexpected Ways To Make Love Last
- The pursuit of happiness
- I reveal Mystery of the Cosmos: its strange!
- Early Morning Stress Reduction Inspiration - 5/31/2013
- Fertile Women More Likely to Wear Red
| Early Morning Zen Buddhism Inspiration - 6/1/2013 Posted: 01 Jun 2013 11:00 AM PDT  "If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love." ~Thich Nhat Hanh      Read More @ Source | ||
| Relationship Advice: 7 Unexpected Ways To Make Love Last Posted: 01 Jun 2013 10:00 AM PDT  If you've got the basics covered - like being faithful, remembering to talk to each other and having great sex – you might be wondering what else you can do to make it through the years. Here are seven lesser known ways to keep the spark alive that have worked for me and my husband for over twenty years. 1. Have Secrets Everyone will tell you that good communication is vital in keeping love alive, and it is. But it's also essential to keep some things to yourself. If you suddenly develop a crush for the intern in Accounts, don't do anything about it, and also don't tell your other half that you were tempted. What's more, your partner does not need to know how much you spent on those shoes or that gadget you craved, if you have your own bank account. You'll both be happier, if you forget to mention it. Read more »     Read More @ Source | ||
| Posted: 31 May 2013 10:00 PM PDT
Most people, when they're asked this question, will say "not much." Many may go entire days, or even weeks, without any significant joy. Life can often seem like an endless round of chasing deadlines and striving to stay on top of an ever-growing to-do list, and so be imbued with a sense of stress. Do we even expect to be happy? It strikes me that many of us have low expectations for how happy we will be. We don't expect our lives to produce much joy. How do we look for happiness? By vegging out in front of the TV, or by eating, or shopping, or Facebook, or through alcohol? But these pursuits often lead, at best, to that sense of dull pleasure I mentioned earlier, rather than genuine joy. Maybe we think that happiness is just around the corner, but we haven't got there yet. Or maybe it's a ways off; perhaps we'll be happy after we get a new job, or more pay, or once we lose some weight, or when we're on vacation, or after we get past this busy spell. The trouble is, that we create unhappiness for ourselves through our thoughts and attitudes, and then expect to consume our way out of unhappiness. And that just doesn't work. There's a piece of "cowboy wisdom" I heard many years ago that goes, "When you find you're in a hole, the first thing you gotta do is stop diggin'." And I think that's absolutely true. To live happily, we have to drop the mental habits that make us unhappy. Often that's all we have to do — stop making ourselves unhappy, since joy is something we actively suppress. Joy is our natural way of being, but most of our "doing" cuts us off from our natural happiness. So what are those mental habits that suppress our happiness? Basically, they are anything we do that resists the present moment. The "usual suspects" are things like responding with clinging rather than letting go, resisting rather than accepting, anger rather than kindness, complaining rather than celebrating, worrying rather than being optimistic, and trying to escape our experience rather than being mindful. Being joyful is a skill, and most people lack skill in creating joy. Just look at people driving or walking past you; what percentage of people are actually smiling? The things we do that suppress our joy are called "unskillful" activities in Buddhism. Conversely, when we act in ways that allow joy to emerge, we're acting skillfully. As soon as we drop any of these unskillful, joy-suppressing activities, we feel happier. We may not go straight to a deep sense of joy the moment we drop an angry thought, but at least when we do that we're heading in the right direction. If we keep letting go of unskillful thoughts, and refrain from unskillful words and actions, we are creating a space for joy to emerge. And if we cultivate skillful habits of thought, speech, and action, joy will emerge. It's guaranteed. So just watch your mind. Notice your thoughts, and notice whether they're contributing to a sense of joy, or a sense of disharmony. And if you're creating suffering for yourself, let go of or change those thoughts or replace them with more skillful ones. And you can do the same with your speech, as well. So this is what we're going to be working on in the next phase of 100 Days of Lovingkindness. We'll be cultivating skillful habits that allow joy to emerge naturally. We'll be practicing mindfulness, kindness, celebration, appreciation, and other joy-enabling habits. And we'll see what happens! PS. You can see all of the 100 Days of Lovingkindness posts here. Read More @ Source | ||
| I reveal Mystery of the Cosmos: its strange! Posted: 31 May 2013 09:00 PM PDT Yesterday I achieved one of my lifelong goals: I became a newspaper columnist. Sure, the paper is Salem Weekly -- which actually is published every two weeks, but since this is Salem's alternative newspaper, likely most of the readers are too stoned to notice. And Salem Weekly is free. So I'm a columnist in a paper which gets grabbed out of boxes, sometimes by people who need a foundation layer for their kitty litter. But like I said in a post on my other blog: Still, hey, I'm a columnist! Along with Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman. I'm just one (freaking gigantic) step from being read regularly by readers of this country's most respected newspaper. Since I have my permission to do so, I'll share another quote from that post about why I'm so enthused about being able to ponder the ins and outs of strangeness bi-weekly. At the age of 64, it's all becoming very clear to me now. Very clear indeed. I'm homing in on the Secret of the Cosmos, the Theory of Everything, the Key that Unlocks Every Mystery. It's been right in front of me this whole time: strangeness. I just made the mistake of thinking, "That's so strange; I've got to look somewhere else." No, it's Strange that we want, need, and long for. It's Strange that makes everyday life into something mind-blowing. It's Strange that converts ordinary into unique, mundane into special, ignorable into can't-take-my-eyes-off-of-you. I'm going to enjoy explaining to others, and to myself, why I'm not crazy to think this way. Or, if I am crazy, why this is a fine madness. Now, it might seem that these thoughts are at odds with my churchlessness. Aren't agnostic/atheist religious skeptics like me scientific'y rationalists who like their reality all lined up in neat clean boxes filled with boringly factual demonstrable evidence? No, not at all. In fact, one of my gripes with religious faiths is that they aren't weird enough. The universe is strange. Life is strange. You and me... we're strange. Everything is strange. Just imagine: existence exists. Seemingly always has; always will. That is just so freaking strange! Along with the specifics of what exists within existence. Look around. Fourteen billion years after the big bang, a mystery in itself, this is what the cosmos has come up with in our little corner of the universe. The Kardashians. iPhone. The Colbert Report. McDonalds. Lattes. Tiny dogs people carry around with them. The list is endless. If you look at Earth through eyes attuned to Strange, every single thing on this planet is amazingly unlikely in the cosmic scheme of things. An alien spaceship visits us. Beings exit the craft. Do you think they will tell us, "We have found other civilizations just like yours in other galaxies." I don't. I bet they'd gaze upon what we've got going on here and cognize, Wow, this planet is so freaking strange! Never seen anything like it. Feelings I share. (Not surprisingly, since I made up the alien's feelings.) Might as well end by quoting my first Salem Weekly column. At one point in my life I worried about being considered strange. Now, I consider it a compliment. The most interesting people I've known, the most fascinating places I've been to, the most unforgettable experiences I've had — they've all been compellingly strange. ...Strange Up Salem has to be a communal happening, a venture into uncharted territory where we all stand on the border between who each of us is now and what our city is now, and boldly keep stepping forward. Onward, into strangeness. Which is another way of saying, I have no idea. Of exactly where this column is going. Of precisely how Salem should change for it to be the city we long for. And that's a good thing. Strangeness blossoms in the fertile soil of openness. When we're absolutely certain, the strangling Dogmatic Weed doesn't allow ooh and ah fruit to ripen. ...Most importantly: be strange. Passionately, confidently, lovingly. "Beauty always has an element of strangeness." | ||
| Early Morning Stress Reduction Inspiration - 5/31/2013 Posted: 31 May 2013 08:00 PM PDT  "True love always brings joy to ourselves and to the one we love. If our love does not bring joy to both of us, it is not true love." ~Thich Nhat Hanh   Read More @ Source | ||
| Fertile Women More Likely to Wear Red Posted: 31 May 2013 02:00 PM PDT
WASHINGTON D.C. — That little red dress or pink sweater may be sending more of a message than you think: it could be an overt sign of a woman's fertility, a new study suggests. In the study, 124 women ages 18 to 47 were asked what color shirt they were wearing, and when they had their last period. From the latter question, researchers calculated which women in the study were currently at the peak of fertility in their cycles (about six to 14 days after the last period). Those who were wearing red or pink were about three times more likely to be at peak fertility than those who wore other colors, the study found. Previous research showed that some animals put on displays during their fertile periods to attract mates, but no such displays were known to exist in humans, the researchers said. The new study provides some evidence to suggest there may be a way to directly observe ovulation — the time of the month when a woman is most likely to become pregnant, the researchers said. However, more research is needed to replicate the findings in a larger population. The study also did not measure hormone levels, which is a more accurate way to determine peak fertility. The researchers plan to conduct a follow-up study that asks women why they chose to wear a particular color that day, said study researcher Alec Beall, a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia. Many cultures associated the color red with love and passion, and previous studies have shown that men rate pictures of women as more attractive if they are surrounded by a red border. Some studies have found that women report increased sexual desire around peak fertility, greater attraction to masculine features, and a tendency to wear more revealing clothing, the researchers said. The reason behind the new findings is not clear, and future studies are needed to determine whether women wear red or pink around ovulation because they want to look sexy, the researchers said. It could also be that women may wear these colors because they are attention-grabbing, and women — consciously or subconsciously — want to bring attention to themselves at a time when they feel sexy, even if they are not necessarily seeking the attention of men, the researchers said. A follow-up study by the same group of researchers found that fewer women wore red at their peak fertility in the summertime, compared with the wintertime. A possible explanation for this finding is that women may be more likely to use the "wearing red" strategy in situations when they cannot use other attention-getting strategies, such as wearing less clothing (which would be easier in the summertime), Beall said. The study was presented here at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science on May 26. It has been accepted for publication in the journal Psychological Science. Beall conducted the work with Jessica Tracy, associate professor of psychology and director of UBC's Emotion & Self Lab. Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND,Facebook & Google+. Originally published on LiveScience . MORE FROM LiveScience.com
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We all want happiness, but much joy do you experience in your life? And I mean real "heart welling up," "spring in the step," "full of the joys of spring joy," "happy for no reason" joy, rather than the dull sense of pleasure that we often experience.
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