What Is Our True Being

Looking Mindfully Inward.

Who are we deep inside? Are we a complex or  simple beings? Are we still or in motion, always doing?

Consider for a moment water flowing in a gentle stream. You may see small amounts of debris or leaves gently moving along the surface. Maybe you see the small undulations of the ripples. Or perhaps small grains of sand moving along the bottom with the flow. This is the nature of water. Even the stillest of lakes has some movement.

Now, consider if you will, the water in a calm lake or pond on an sunny, windless day. Water fills the depression of the land to a point of equilibrium, a separation of water and land. 

As a result of your perspective, you can see the bottom only near the shoreline but not closer towards the center. 

But even in the depths there is gentle movement. Small currents beneath the surface are present as the sun warms the water. This is the being of water. And this is the being of you and all living organisms.

Even down to the molecular level, the water molecule is vibrating. And this too is the being of water.

Now bring attention to yourself, your being. 

What is your being? Are you doing or not doing? Do you exist or do you not exist? Is it true that you think therefor you are?

When you are walking, you are doing more than moving your feet from one spot to another. You are breathing in. You are breathing out. You are looking, hearing, feeling the air and temperature on your skin. You are observing what is around you. Utilizing your senses you are connecting to the world around you. This is your being.

When you are sitting you are doing more than being stationary. Again, you are breathing in. You are breathing out. You are feeling the pressure of your bottom pushing on the seat. You are thinking, smelling, observing your surroundings. Here too, you are utilizing your senses to connect to the world around you. This too, is your being.

When we look at our actions, no matter how big or small, our thoughts, our words, our emotions, that is our being. And this is our doing. 

We carry our being with us where ever we go and in all of our doings. We are always true to our being, observing mindfully our thoughts, our actions, and our feelings. Not judging them in any way, only observing. Our being is our loving companion as we walk along our mindful journey.

We are more than a collections of bones, organs, skin, blood, thoughts, feelings, and actions. Our being is more than a sum of the physical body we see in the mirror and more than what anyone else may see when they gaze upon us. Or being is loving kindness and therefore extends beyond the physical and into the spiritual which connects us all.

It is with that connection that we all share the same world, the same presence. Much as a single molecule is connected to an entire lake and is no more or less important than another, so too are we. Connected to each other in a meaningful way. 

I wish you peace and ease,

Vladimir

Blue Lotus Mindfulness and Meditation Center is a registered 501(c)(3) religious organization.

How Mindfulness Literally Saved A Life

The Power Of Doing Nothing

We all have read a poem or story or heard a speech that moved us in some way. Sometimes these words are so moving and life altering that they help us to adjust course along our life's path.

We often do not understand the power of our words. Some people do and use this realization for either personal gain or for the benefit of others. It is also important to realize that you do not need to be in a position of power to have this effect on people too. It could be a small post on social media, a kind word to a stranger passing by, that impacts a persons life.

To my knowledge I have never been that person who had positively impacted another's life in such a way. It was not until the other day when I had a very humbling conversation with one of my practitioners who passed on a conversation they had had with another fellow practitioner.

It was related to me that this person had accidently stumbled on our Sangha and thought what the heck, I'll give mindfulness meditation a try.

It turns out this fortunate encounter saved their life, literally. There was a lot going on in this persons life and they were at an impasse. But the practice of sitting and 'doing nothing', connecting with themselves and the world around them, and relearning all that they had been taught in the past changed their perspective for the better.

Mindfulness allowed them to change their perspective from one that had a catastrophic outcome to one that was more subdued and then eventually to one of balance. Perspective is an important consideration when analyzing a situation. Most often we view circumstances in the most catastrophic manner possible. And more realistically it is not typically a viable outcome.

People often tend to dwell on a situation, playing it forwards and backwards, constructing 'what if's' that too will never come to fruition all in the name of 'covering their bases'. When we look back at many of these events in our own lives we see that they very seldom happen and if they do it is no where near as bad as we play in our minds.

All in all, you are still here and you have overcome what ever the circumstance was.

The situation they were currently dealing with did not change. However their perspective, or view, as a direct result of sitting mindfully, connecting with themselves to achieve calmness of this circumstance did. And that is one of the many results of mindfulness.

One person can make a difference and that person can easily be you. Everyone you meet, even for the briefest of moments, whether it is at the grocery store, the cashier at a restaurant, the cart collector at a retail store, is an opportunity for you to help someone.

Many people are fighting internal battles which we will never know and part of being a mindfulness practitioner is helping people ease their suffering.

Be kind. Be considerate. Be empathetic. You never know what someone else is going through.

I wish you all peace and ease.

Vladimir

Blue Lotus Mindfulness and Meditation Center is a registered 501(c)(3) religious organization.

How Can Pets Teach Us About Mindfulness

The Mindful Pet Owner

A lot of us had pets as kids. And even now as adults some of us still do. We enjoy their company. Wagging tails after a long day at work. A furry face sitting on your chest in the morning saying 'feed me, I'm hungry'. Or just sitting on the couch watching TV or reading a book with your companion on your lap.

As children we learned that our beloved friend needs us to feed them, take them outside, play with, housebreaking, and to provide them with the love and security that all living beings need.

When we were sick they provided us comfort. When they were sick we lovingly reciprocated. When we cried they offered us comfort. When they cried we offered them comfort. 

And they certainly made us laugh when they acted silly.

When they were afraid, we offered them solace and refuge. If they used the floor as their restroom, we cleaned it up, perhaps we got a little angry with them (or ourselves) but that soon dissipated.

All of these actions were how we learned love, compassion, empathy, and patience for living beings. These are the seeds of mindfulness that enable us to also offer compassion and empathy towards all loving being.

So how can we use what we have learned from our pets and translate those considerations to people, including ourselves?

All sentient beings have emotions. When our pet experienced sadness we didn't minimize that feeling. We offered them reassurance and love.

When any person feels sadness why should we treat them any differently? We may hear from someone justifying their sentiments with 'Oh, I told you they were trouble'!

When we see a stray animal on the street we immediately offer it food. 

Why should we treat a person differently? Some may justify not doing so by thinking 'They must be on drugs or an alcoholic'!

If an animal needs a new home we go to a shelter and offer them ours.

Why should we treat a person differently? (Oh, they are from a poor country and will steal our jobs and bring disease).

Use what you have learned with your beloved and precious pet and offer the same compassion, love, and empathy to people, including yourself.

When you do, the world changes. You change. You become more connected with yourself, others, and the entire world.

Sadly, they too are very often the ones who teach us a final and very precious lesson, death. If you had a pet as a child that you grew up with you experienced what happens to a body as it ages and then succumbs to passing. 

When this happens, we experience loss for the first time and it is difficult. But we learn to accept that death is a natural part of life, just as much as birth is.

Every living being you encounter will die and as mindfulness practitioners we can carry this reverence for life into all we do.

Pets do offer us a wonderful opportunity to truly develop our mindfulness practice.  

Wishing you peace and ease,

Vladimir

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Blue Lotus Meditation and Mindfulness Center is a registered 501(c)(3) religious organization.

Mindfulness, Test Anxiety, and Tea

Using Mindfulness As A Way To Answer Questions.

During the pandemic many were forced to work from home. No longer were some forced to drive from home to office and back home. Daily commutes evaporated much of our quality time with ourselves and loved ones. This newfound freedom allowed many to enroll in some form of online education, to complete the degree they so longed for many years ago. 

After finding a suitable school and registering for classes sooner or later the inevitable test would present itself. 

People don't like tests, especially when we don't pass them. We feel that the instructor judges us. We also judge ourselves to harshly. As a result test anxiety creeps in and robs you of the performance you're certainly capable of, if you prepared studiously.

Anxiety is living in the future and as mindful practitioners you know that the future does not exist, only this precious moment.

So how do you minimize the anxiety before a test? 

Acknowledge that you're feeling anxious. Don't try to shove anxiety into some dark corner of your mind. What happens to any emotion when its been bottled up too long? Imagine a tiger who has been in a cage for many hours on a bumpy trip. What would you do when released? 

Instead sit with your anxiety, invite it to tea. As you sit, breath in, pause, and slowly exhale. Do this several times before and during your test. The more you get to know your anxiety the less afraid you become.

But as you prepare for your wonderful studies here are several testing suggestions I offer as you drink tea with your new, harmless friend:

First, this test doesn't define you. Pass or fail, you are still the loving, caring, and wonderful person you were yesterday and will be tomorrow. Don't let a a few questions from perfect stranger rob you of this peace.

Second, take your time. We live in a fast paced society and this pace seems to inundate every facet of our lives. But speed is the opposite approach you want to take. Be slow. Be methodical. Skip questions and come back to them. Take the same approach here as you would holding hands with your significant other or enjoying a sunny day in the park.

Third, write or draw what's described or listed in the questions. Too often we rely on the visual images in our head. This can lead to missing key components of a question. When you write or draw what's being asked you'll find you might have skipped an important aspect of the question.

Fourth, preparation. Practice with questions already given to you in your text book. When you're familiar with these practice questions you'll begin to notice certain recurring themes and verbiage. These themes and wording will show up again on your test. 

And the fifth, ties in with the fourth suggestion - have confidence in yourself. The more you get correct with practice questions the more confident you'll feel when you take the real test. Don't second guess your answers either. You're two-thirds likely to change your correct answer to an incorrect one. 

I've administered many tests in my past and these suggestions are the culmination of mindfulness and effective strategies. I know they are successful tips too.

Wishing you peace and ease,

Vladimir

Blue Lotus Meditation and Mindfulness Center is a registered 501(c)(3) religious organization.

Maintaining Your Practice While Travelling

Mindfulness On The Road

It is often easier to keep a steady mindfulness practice when we are in our familiar settings like home or work. But what about while traveling?

With travel for work and leisure beginning to resume after a long and necessary pause, we can often find it challenging to maintain our meditation practice.

Although challenging this does not have to be the situation or a barrier to your practice. On the contrary, as mindfulness practitioners we understand that meditation can be done anywhere and during any activity. Meditation is not always sitting in a lotus position, quiet and still for a period of time.

For example, suppose you are on a business trip and you are attending a conference or seminar. As you walk from one location to another you can easily practice a walking meditation. Look around you, there are many wonderful observations to been seen in the architecture or even the indoor floral arraignments.

Or perhaps examine the floor, is it carpet or tile? What are the patterns, if any? Think about the care the workers had to use to place the tile or carpet down. This skill is how they earn a living to care for themselves and family.

What smells are around you? Are there vendors selling food? Maybe you can smell hotdogs or popcorn? Consider where these foods came from and the process in which it took for it to get here. Know that the vendor themselves is providing you a service so that they may support themselves as well.

As you sit and wait for the speaker to come on stage to talk think about how your body is feeling in the chair? Or perhaps your feet if you are standing.

At night when you return to your hotel room affords a wonderful opportunity to quietly meditate and reflect on the days activities and feelings.

Or perhaps you are on vacation with your family. Maybe you went to a large amusement park in another state. Lines are something one typically encounters here and provide a unique opportunity to practice patience and meditate as well. 

Everyone is waiting to form what will hopefully turn out to be a pleasant memory, one that they too can share in the future. Maybe you can smell cotton candy? 

One recollection I have is seeing birds and squirrels running around trying to scavenge food that has been dropped. Do they eat this reward right away or do they bring it back to a nest to feed their offspring? 

In the mornings, perhaps you will need to rise a little earlier to have your solitary mediations.

Both of these situations have taken us from our mindfulness and meditation routines but this is exactly why we have undertaken them in the first place. These changes in routine provide a gentle illustration of impermanence too. 

And these adjustments to our routine also offers us helpful insight as to where we can improve our practice as well. Remember to bring gentleness and openness to your practice wherever you may be and take the lessons given and use them to improve your wellbeing.

I wish you peace and ease,

Vladimir

Blue Lotus Mindfulness and Meditation Center is a registered 501(c)(3) religious organization.

Walking With Gratitude

Cultivating Gratitude For Connection

Gratitude allows us to connect with others on a level that is very granular down to the very essence of what it means to be a loving being. Loving towards yourself. Loving towards others.

In many societies showing self-love and kindness towards others is regarded as a sign of softness and is something to be shied away from. But when we embrace gratitude, let go of hardness, we are able to see the beauty the world truly has to offer.

But how can we walk with gratitude? How can we cultivate and foster gratitude within?

First, let's ask what is gratitude?

Gratitude is having a sense of happiness or appreciation with what we have in the present moment and for the gifts we receive. Gratitude does not lie in the future because we cannot be grateful for what we do not have. 

If someone has a lot they may find it hard to be grateful. But the same may hold true for someone who has very little. And yes, this may even hold true of someone who is in between, neither extremely wealthy or in dire poverty.

Gratitude does not depend on one's home, car, career, income, geographic location, political affiliation, sexual identity, or marital status. Gratitude originates with a sense that everything is a gift and that all we have is impermeant. It could disappear at any time without notice.

So what are some ways or actions we can employ to foster gratitude and graciousness?

We all begin our days with waking up and this is a wonderful time to include gratitude into our morning routine. Before getting out of bed you can start with a simple ‘I am grateful that I have woken up’. This is truly something to be grateful for because sadly many people today will not. You could follow this up with I am grateful for the shelter I had last night, the fresh air I am breathing, and the clothing I will put on. Start with and keep it simple. Then set the tone for the day with an ‘I'm going to do my best today’.

Waking up affords you the opportunity to do so much good. For example, perhaps you’re meeting a friend at a coffee shop later, maybe you could, without announcing it, pay for their purchase.

Each morning is a fresh start from the day before and is truly a gift.

Overthinking can easily diminish our sense of gratitude. When we overthink we play so many unlikely scenarios in our imagination that it begins to overwhelm us. This causes undo anxiety and stress about the future and it’s a future that is non-existent.

So how do we begin to stop overthinking?

By looking at what we do have right here, now.

For example, suppose it’s a few days until your next payday. You’re hungry and you open the refrigerator and you see a half o head of lettuce, some condiments, and a half a jar of pickles. Your first thought is ‘I have no food, what will I do? ! I’m going to starve’ 

But is that entirely true? No, it isn't. You have overthought your present situation to a ‘catastrophic’ outcome. You do have food. It may not be the amount you want. The variety you’d like. But it is food and what you have is more than what most have. This is where overthinking has dominated and diminished your gratitude.

To tie in with the previous example of food let’s consider eating. This is a practice best done alone or with someone of the same mindset. It’s an opportunity to consider all that goes into the food you’re about to eat, from the Sun, rain, and soil, to harvesting, shipping, stocking, selection, preparation, to eating.

Everyone involved in this process has done their part to ensure that you, at this very moment, get the necessary nutrition your body requires to live. This certainly is something to be grateful for.

You can embody kindness and selflessness in all acts you perform and with all gifts received. When we give to someone with sincere generosity we are promoting the growth of compassion and selflessness within.

Acts of kindness and generosity never need to be grandiose. Instead focus on doing the small acts such as buying a coffee for the person next in line, letting someone merge on the freeway, asking how the cashiers day is. Recognizing someone's existence as a living being is so very vital to promoting kindness we all want to experience in the world.

Lastly, we can change our perspective from one entitlement, that no matter how hard we work, or good we may think we are, or effort we put into a task, that we are not entitled to a reward or recognition. Instead, appreciating all rewards we receive can be viewed as a gift. This appreciation begins with the moment we wake up and open our eyes. You were not promised this day.

When we change from the entitlement perspective to one of graciousness and gratitude the world looks different. We’re able to see much more of the kindness that truly exists and not the apathy and sarcasm and indifference that seem to make the headlines.

So as you go out into the world don't compare what you have with someone else. What you have and what they have is impermanent. So walk with gratitude with what you have, share your compassion with others, and give the gift of yourself to others. This is how we can develop and share the Buddha nature we all carry inside. 

I wish you peace and ease,

Vladimir

Blue Lotus Mindfulness and Meditation Center is a registered 501(c)(3) religious organization.

Right Thought And Thinking Traps

Fostering Right Thought For Wellbeing

Why do we oftentimes support others more than we do ourselves? Do we feel others are more capable than we are?

Recall the Noble Eightfold path – Right Thought. Wholesome thoughts that serve to uplift us. Now, that doesn’t mean not to evaluate with honest reflections on mistakes, that’s how we learn. 

But Right Thought can mean we search with sincerity so we can improve ourselves, not belittle ourselves.

So what are thinking traps? Thinking traps are ways we process , rationalize, or justify actions or results thereby holding us back from being truly connected with ourselves and our surroundings. They are traps that do not promote nor foster Right Thought.

I’ve selected five that I feel are most common although there are a few more to consider.

i. Mind Reading

This is a common trap that a lot of people do and it is still very detrimental. Mind reading is when we assume we know what others are thinking or what they think of us. 

We may misinterpret an innocuous look or gesture and have mentally determined an outcome.

Try to recall a situation in your life when you had a preconceived notion of an outcome (positive or negative) and the person did the opposite.

For example, as you sit with friends as a restaurant you 'just know' that this attractive person is looking at you intently but you soon realize you're sitting under the TV.

ii. Fortune Telling

Although similar to mind reading this is more situational mind trap. Here, we've already determined the outcome of a particular situation.

It doesnt necessarily have to be what we would consider a negative outcome and could easily be a positive result as well. 

For example, I just know I'm not going to get that promotion so I wont even try. Or, this teacher is so easy I wont study for their exam.

Or another example, you 'just know' that Tabitha will forget to bring a side dish to our company picnic. But as you approach the table, she's unwrapping her dish.

Both of these examples result in an outcome opposite of what you had 'predicted'.

iii. Black/White Or Binary Thinking

This thinking trap is dangerous on several levels. For one, it doesn't allow you to accept a middle ground. Very few events in life are binary. But the dangerous aspect comes from others and ay also be a sign of a manipulative and controlling person.

When one is only able to consider such binary outcomes from a situation one is minimizing another persons perspective of the situation, particularly intention. 

For example, if someone offers you assistance in a task they are not very proficient with and as a result does not perform it well the black and white thinker would be quick to point out the faults instead of the loving, supportive effort offered.

iv. Fallacy Of Fairness

You think you know what is right or fair. If someone gets something you feel you're entitled to as well or they're not deserving of you may feel that the world is out to get you. 

Going through life judging what is fair and what is not, one may become angry, resentful, unhappy to the beauty that surrounds you.

For example, currently the US Government is considering some form of student loan forgiveness. There are some individuals who have successfully paid off this debt and feel that others being relieved of all or some portion is unfair.

In ones lifetime, there will always be some person or group of people who receive a benefit that you may not have. Certainly there have been times when you were the beneficiary and others were not.

When we are happy for someone else that elicits compassion for others as well as yourself.

v. Always Being Right

You or others may go to great lengths to prove yourself right and someone else is wrong. Being right was more important than being kind.

This is very often seen in social media posts where two people, most likely unknown to one another, disagree on a result or comment and one goes on a search to find some small piece of evidence to support his claim.

This is a misuse of your time and energy.

Protecting ourselves from harm, physically and mentally, is an evolutionary self-preservation product but we have also been conditioned by society to be negative. Too much positivity, empathy, and compassion and you are labeled 'soft'. As a result our mind tells us to 'hold back' resulting in limited growth and imbalance.

Developing Right Thought, cultivating what is wholesome and good mentally, is necessary to avoid Thinking Traps. Once we are able to recognize these traps we are able to flourish and embrace the positive life we are capable of having.

Wishing you peace and ease,

Vladimir


Blue Lotus Mindfulness and Meditation Center is a registered 501(c)(3) religious organization.