A Panda's Journey
“We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time.
But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be.
To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving. And that is what the world needs most.”
— Thich Nhat Hahn
To be or to do? I say both.
Let us always “be”, even as we do.
Meditation is a wonderful place to cultivate “being”.
“The discovery that the experiencer is the experience, is meditation.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
Two people can be sitting next to each other in the same room of a hundred people, watching a sports game & may experience completely different things.
They are in the same environment. Surrounded by the same people.
Watching the same game.
Yet they have a different experience than the people around them.
Same thing if you’re watching a play, or reading a meditation book, listening to music, or walking in nature.
You may hear & read & see the same exact things that others are hearing, reading, & seeing, yet you have your own interpretations of the experience.
It’s good to have your own interpretation.
All children are living from their individual perspective until they reach a certain age & the world sort of takes away their individuality & tells the person what to think, how to feel, and how to interpret things…
So as we age we sort of lose ourselves as we conform to our surroundings, but what if we didn’t?
What if we kept our individuality?
What if we understood the power of conformity, & then we understood the power of our individual self?
What if we stepped away from the crowds, & decided what we actually thought about things?
Your perception is your reality.
And how we feel about it?
Do not disempower yourself by adopting other people’s perspective.
You are it!
“Reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half baked moron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.”
— Terence McKenna
There are several “powers that be” that operate to control peoples minds…
Mind control. It happens more than you can imagine.
You lose your mind & your inner power when you believe that people outside of you are more powerful than you.
But you are much more powerful than you can imagine.
Meditation is one way to realize your potential and you power.
You must discover your inner self. And you can do this through the practice of meditation.
“And what does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity.”
— William S Burroughs
The systems, in multiple countries, operate to guide people into working for the system.
Death roams this planet looking for the next life to devour. The next life to transform to be more death-like and less life-like.
The majority of children are vibrant & excited to live & learn about life…until ignorant & dead-minded “adults” teach them to fearfully obey them.
Many people & organizations teach fear to children and adults, and then they wonder where life went… the feeling of being alive.
The joy of life & living has turned more into a fear & blind obedience – & to behave like a lifeless machine – so that you’ll fit in with all the other lifeless machine people.
Some fear is healthy – but too much fear truly drains the life out of a person.
Mindfulness meditation is one practice to allow life to fill you up again.
Something I observe with the human race is that most of them are never present.
Their minds are elsewhere.
One persons mind is living in the past.
One persons mind is dreaming of the future.
And one persons mind is not even their own… they’ve lost their mind and now they are everywhere but present with themselves.
Everything is always happening in the present moment, even if your mind is not present.
The body is present, always, but the mind can be all sorts of places.
The good news is that your mind can be present too, in an intelligent way.
I may write another meditation guide, but the first one I wrote is here, titled the 7 psychedelic meditations.
Psychedelic in this context means “mind-manifesting”
Life happens in the present.
Buy the meditation guide today to begin your journey into the present moment.
“There are many ways to calm a negative energy without suppressing or fighting it. You recognize it, you smile to it, and you invite something nicer to come up and replace it; you read some inspiring words, you listen to a piece of beautiful music, you go somewhere in nature, or you do some walking meditation.”
— Thich Nhat Hahn
Negativity is a part of human society.
Positivity is too, but negativity seems to be “winning” so far.
It’s easy to watch the news and get emotional and angry.
70% of USA politicians intentions are to provoke negative emotions in people.
It’s easy to take the negative bait of a politician – but then you’re caught like a fish.
It’s easy to be negative. It’s easy to be angry.
It’s easy to hate.
And the majority of people conform to “easy” because what is great is difficult.
It takes time to be positive.
It takes being intentional about your mental health.
It takes ignoring cruel politicians and focusing on good leaders and being a good leader.
But yea, Thich Nhat Hahn has some good ideas about how to calm negative energy:
— Invite something nicer to replace the negative
— Read some inspiring words
— Listen to beautiful music
— Go somewhere in nature
— Do walking meditation
“Anti-social behavior is a trait of intelligence in a world full of conformists.”
— Nikola Tesla
Why would anyone socialize with people they don’t even like?
Also, cultures like that in the USA are enemies of meditation.
They are an enemy of the individual being with themselves and enjoying their own company.
The USA culture wants people constantly moving, constantly consuming, constantly being busy, constantly distracted.
The “powers that be” are great at creating predictable people who obey their systems without question.
What the “powers that be” cannot stand is an empowered individual who thinks for themself.
The “powers that be” will literally break laws to break down the empowered individual, and all the mindless masses will just think that the individual was wrong for being an individual…
It’s a crazy system…if you think about it, but most people don’t think about it – they just try fitting in so they lose their individual self in hopes for acceptance, yet then they are almost never really satisfied.
Don’t lose yourself and gain the world… but most people lose themselves and the world, as they conform to what the system wants, and lose their individual self.
How can you begin taking back your individuality?
Go somewhere and be silent. No technology. No media. No music. Just you with yourself. In nature is the best place to do this.
Here is a short meditation guide to help.
This is the beginning of meditation.
This is the beginning of taking back your individual power.
“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”
— Chinese Proverb
We live in tense, fast paced societies.
So fast that some people & organizations appear as if they are on a train going full speed – with an unbreakable mountain ahead that they will inevitably crash into.
Society persuades its citizens to hop on this train, and most people do, but it’s not going anywhere.
What is the antidote? Slowing down. Not getting on that train. Relaxing.
But even if you get further than most and are able to relax in these restless societies – ignorant fools will inevitably go out of their way to try and bother you. Try to disturb your inner peace – since they have no peace within themselves.
Observe those fools like they are demons sent from hell – and treat them as such. Just as Jesus did, and live your life.
Stand up for your inner peace and don’t conform to being a miserable, ignorant fool.
“Fortune and blessing gather where there is stillness. But if you do not keep still—this is what is called sitting but racing around.”
— Zhuangzi
Where there is stillness, fortune and blessings gather.
Do you have stillness in your mind heart body?
“I have no fear of depths, and a great fear of shallow living.”
— Anaïs Nin
Ralph Waldo Emerson also said “It is not length of life, but depth.”
Depth has multiple definitions, one of them is: “a point far below the surface.”
People dig into the Earth to find gold, minerals, things that will help themselves. But who digs into themselves to find gold within? Almost no one.
There is gold within you – there is gold within all of us, but most will never find or seek the gold within.
“Pearls don’t lie on the seashore; if you want one, you must dive for it.”
It’s easy to do what everyone else is doing – to follow the crowd, to conform, to let someone else tell you the meaning of life. But that is living on the surface; shallow living.
You will get by on the surface, but you won’t find or experience gold within your life.
You must dive within yourself to reach the gold, and it really does take years.
But you have to start somewhere.
Meditation is the place to begin.
You can be like the majority of people & live life on the surface, or you can begin your journey to the gold within yourself.
With Ken Thompson 