old soul. new perspective

You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all down to you, mate.

Contemplate the images in your mind. Is that what really happened? Is that what really will happen? Really? Are you guessing again? Notice.

warm tea and blanket environment

How? 

1. NO judgement of how far I’ve come or how much I should have done, or if I had only done this, this, and this over the semester I wouldn’t be so stressed right now 

2. put away the phone. its okay not to be social for one day. its okay to live in your little bubble of warm tea and blanket studying 

3. deep breaths 

4. you’ll do the best you can 

To have genuine sincerity is absolutely necessary in the spiritual life. Sincerity encompasses the qualities of honesty, genuineness, and integrity. To be sincere does not mean to be perfect. In fact, the very effort to be perfect is itself insincere, because it is a way of avoiding seeing yourself as you are right now. To be able and willing to see yourself as you are, with all of your imperfections and illusions, requires genuine sincerity and courage. If we are constantly trying to hide from ourselves, we will never be able to awaken from our illusion of self.

—Adyashanti (via astraeia)

(Source: lazyyogi, via unconditionedconsciousness)

Do not allow yourself to suppress your thoughts. Instead, let the thoughts come before you and become a sort of observer. Start observing your own mind. Do not try to escape; do not be afraid of your thinking.

—Śrī Swāmī Rāma  (via universeobserver)

(Source: yogachocolatelove, via fromashramstozen)

A liminal space, the place of transition, waiting, and not knowing is…a unique spiritual position where human beings hate to be. It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are finally out of the way. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer. If you are not trained in how to hold anxiety, how to live with ambiguity, how to entrust and wait, you will run…anything to flee this terrible cloud of unknowing.”

- Richard Rohr

—how i love it when my papers for my english class on the enlightenment are about my spiritual path 

ombuddha: When I was in solitary retreat, I knew that I was together with all sentient beings in innumerable worlds. Even though I seemed to be alone in a small, enclosed room, actually I was in company with many ants who found their way inside, and there were many insects around the hut who created all kinds of sounds in the evening. When I opened the Sutras, people thousands of years in the past were talking to me. How could I feel lonely? Some people think I must feel lonely being a monk without any wife or children. Not at all. I have the 5 precepts and the 10 Virtuous Deeds as my wife, and my children are all the people who I have developed a karmic affinity with and who call me Shih-fu. It is only those pitiable people who enclose themselves and cannot establish a relationship with the outside world who feel lonely. If you keep yourself enclosed, even if you live among thousands of people you will still feel very lonely. However, if you keep yourself open, then even if you are living alone, you will still have a very full life. So open your mind and treat everyone as your intimate, virtuous friend. Shih-fu Sheng-ye. Photo by Kancano.

ombuddha:

When I was in solitary retreat, I knew that I was together with all sentient beings in innumerable worlds. Even though I seemed to be alone in a small, enclosed room, actually I was in company with many ants who found their way inside, and there were many insects around the hut who created all kinds of sounds in the evening. When I opened the Sutras, people thousands of years in the past were talking to me. How could I feel lonely? Some people think I must feel lonely being a monk without any wife or children. Not at all. I have the 5 precepts and the 10 Virtuous Deeds as my wife, and my children are all the people who I have developed a karmic affinity with and who call me Shih-fu. It is only those pitiable people who enclose themselves and cannot establish a relationship with the outside world who feel lonely. If you keep yourself enclosed, even if you live among thousands of people you will still feel very lonely. However, if you keep yourself open, then even if you are living alone, you will still have a very full life. So open your mind and treat everyone as your intimate, virtuous friend.

Shih-fu Sheng-ye.

Photo by Kancano.

The more you realise that you are openness, the more your physical body realises there is nothing to protect. Then it can open itself. On an emotional level, you can feel this as a sensation in your muscles and your bones. Then the body’s deepest function starts to unfold and it becomes an expression of the openness you are in physical form, an expression of truth instead of the protector of the me. It becomes an extension of openness itself

—Adyashanti (via ecstaticallyinspired)

(Source: ashramof1, via ecstaticallyinspired)