the garden of my heart

To listen to the soothing voice of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh leading a guided meditation, transcripted bellow, please click on the following link (and then again on the button at the page that will open):


http://www.beliefnet.com/story/188/story_18813_1.html#



May the sound of this bell penetrate deep into the cosmos
Even in the darkest spots living beings are able to hear it clearly
So that all suffering in them ceases, understanding comes to their heart
And they transcend the path of sorrow and death.

The universal dharma door is already open
The sound of the rising tide is heard clearly
The miracle happens
A beautiful child appears in the heart of the lotus flower
One single drop of this compassionate water is enough to bring back the refreshing spring to our mountains and rivers.

Listening to the bell I feel the afflictions in me begin to dissolve
My mind calm, my body relaxed
A smile is born on my lips
Following the sound of the bell, my breath brings me back to the safe island of mindfulness
In the garden of my heart, the flowers of peace bloom beautifully.




"The End of Suffering" featuring spoken word from Thich Nhat Hanh, the singing voice of Vietnamese monk Phap Niem, and music by Gary Malkin, is excerpted from the book and CD set, "Graceful Passages: A Companion For Living and Dying," which was produced by Gary Malkin and Michael Stillwater, for Wisdom of the World, published by New World Library.

To learn more about Thich Nhat Hanh, please refer to:
http://www.plumvillage.org/HTML/ourteacher.html

If you'd like to see some more photos of flower fields please refer to:
http://www.landschaftsfotos.at/Radtour%20Oberwart%202007_04_25/Radtour%20Oberwart_2007_04_25.htm

what is true mindfulness?

Meditation isn't really about getting rid of thoughts, it's about changing the pattern of grasping on to things, which in our everyday experience is our thoughts.

The thoughts are fine if they are seen as transparent, but we get so caught up judging thoughts as right or wrong, for and against, yes and no, needing it to be this way and not that way. And even that might be okay except that is accompanied by strong, strong emotions. So we just start ballooning out more and more. With this grasping onto thoughts we just get more caught, more and more hooked. All of us. Every single one of us.

It's as if you had vast, unlimited space —complete openness, total freedom, complete liberation —and the habit of the human race is to always, out of fear, grasp onto little parts of it. And that is called ego and ego is grasping on to the content of our thoughts. That is also the root of suffering, because there is something in narrowing it down which inherently causes us a lot of pain because it is then that we are always in a relationship of wanting or not wanting. We are always in a struggle with other people, with situations, even with our own being. That's what we call stress. That's what we experience as continual, on-going stress. Even in the most healthy, unneurotic of us, there's some kind of slight or very profound anxiety of some kind, some kind of uneasiness or dissatisfaction.



teachings by Pema Chödrön. To read more from her, please refer to:

http://www.pemachodron.org/