Listening With Your Heart

AA wrote: Wieder ein wundervoller Text mit einer sehr schönen Botschaft. Danke, Sabina!

Listening With Your Heart

Real love listens, knowing that it is in the mystery of exchange that we are bonded and that such an exchange occurs not only through what is said, but through what is profoundly received. Speaking is done through the mouth, but listening is done with the heart where meanings sink in like a stone in a pond, leaving an imprint at the deepest level.

Take the opportunity of this day to really listen to someone close to you. For while we may be relieved when we speak – delivered of the burden of information or feelings that we have been carrying in solitude – we are transformed when we listen. The stone that falls to the bottom of the pond when we listen impinges on our souls, requiring that we make room in our hearts to feel the imprint of the essence of another human being.

Daphne Rose Kingma: A Garland of Love

Listening with our hearts is truly transformative, we just need to take the time and focus. Drop your own stories for a while and let yourself be touched by another human being.

( Impinge = have an effect )

Be Here Now

Be Here Now

By attending to the details of this present moment, by choosing not to recollect the past or plan for the future, you are engaged in a process of creating yourself in a specific and deliberate way.

Stephen Bachelor: Buddhism Without Beliefs

Early in the morning I sit at my dinner table writing. A little bird flies across the window. The snow-capped mountains across the valley glow in the first rays of sun. The tea in my cup has grown cold and my neck hurts from sleeping in a bad position.

When writing, I am concentrating inwards. Then I pause, and become aware of the world around me. The important thing is to stay there – to only attend to the details of this present moment and not wander off into the past or the future.

As Stephen Bachelor says, it’s a choice. If I frequently choose to stay in the Here and Now, it will become a habit. The more often I drop thinking and stay in the present moment, the more authentic I become. No masks, no worries, no wishes. Only me and my consciousness, only here, only now.

Take Care of Yourself II

Take Care of Yourself II

Take care of your body as if you were going to live forever; and take care of your soul as if you were going to die tomorrow.

                        Saint Augustine

Most of us take good care of our bodies. We work out regularly, choose healthy food and try to get our 6-8 hours of sleep per night.  We do our best to create the conditions for growing old in a healthy state.

Do we give the same attention to our souls? Often an honest answer is no. We run through life at high speed and when we have a moment of rest, the “soul food” we take in is not really food for our souls. 

Saint Augustine reminds us that we need to take care of our souls as if there were no tomorrow. I think he means that we should do the best of our (inner) life so that when we take our last breath we have no regrets. The end can come anytime.

How do we take care of our souls? By listening to our hearts more than to our heads, by taking time to meditate or just be still in the here and now. By being grateful and enjoying what we have instead of always wanting life to be different. And, most important of all, by being kind; kind to those around us and kind to ourselves. A tender heart is a perfect home for your soul.

Touch the Earth

Touch the Earth

Please touch the earth in mindfulness, in joy and concentration. The earth will heal you and you will heal the earth.

                                                 Thich Nhat Hanh: Touching Peace

The recent wave of engagement in the state of the Earth by young people has made environmental issues a hot topic again. Rightly so! We all need to revise our lifestyle and Reduce, Reuse and Recycle as much as we can. Even the smallest act counts.

Touching the earth in mindfulness is an energising way of showing respect and love to our planet. It heals not only the earth, but yourself as well. Do it while practicing walking meditation or try the “light” version below.

First, find your own walking rhythm, where each in-breath and each out-breath lasts a certain number of steps (normally 3-5 steps). Then continue as follows:

• Breathing in, fill yourself with love and care
• Breathing out, let it flow through your feet into the earth
• Breathing in, feel how the earth’s energy fills you from your feet upwards
• Breathing out, let that energy spread into your whole being.

Enjoy this exchange for a few steps, and know that it is not wasted.