The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticpate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.
Buddha

Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation,
the other eight are unimportant.
Henry Miller

It made me smile…

Ganesh is the Hindu God of knowledge and the remover of obstacles or God of elimination of troubles. He is also called Ganapati (leader of people), Buddhividhata ( god of knowledge ), or Vighnahara (god to remove obstacles).

The son of Shiva and Parvati, Ganesha has an elephantine countenance with a curved trunk and big ears, and a huge pot-bellied body of a human being. He is the Lord of success and destroyer of evils and obstacles. He is also worshipped as the god of education, knowledge, wisdom and wealth.

It is interesting to read about the Significance of the Ganesha Form. I also found an image that lists the symbolisms.

I believe in life long learning, gathering and sharing knowledge. Both as coach and healer I work with removal of obstacles and elimination of troubles.

There is also a Ganesha Mudra (hand yoga) that “can be employed whenever you are struggling. Symbolizes strength when facing troubles. Eases tension.”

Read more:
Ganesha at Wikipedia
Lord Ganesh
Ganesha: Lord of Success

Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen has a guest post at Zen Habits about How to Live Life to the Max with Beginner’s Mind.

At Goodlife Zen is a post about Lifestyle Makeover: How to Simplify Your life in 5 Easy Steps.

Another post about simplify: Living Simply: The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Your Clutter.

There are Hardcore Zen and Zen Lite. Over at Taoism.net I found What is Zen? which has a definition I like and share. There it says that:

The closest we can come to describing Zen in words may be as follows:
• Zen is more of an attitude than a belief.
• Zen is the peace that comes from being one with an entity other than yourself.
• Zen means being aware of your oneness with the world and everything in it.
• Zen means living in the present and experience this reality fully.
• Zen means being free of the distractions and illusory conflicts of the material world.
• Zen means being in the flow of the universe.
• Zen means experiencing fully the present, and delighting in the basic miracle of life itself.

I exclude Buddhism from my definition of Zen, I am currently not interested in that part.

This post is moved to at Bengt’s Notes.

I like the book, it is easy to read yet it makes you think and feel. My purpose with buying the book was to learn more about Zen, to be able to put the pieces together in my own view of Zen and mindfulness.

In the first part Alan writes that “Zen is a method of rediscovering the experience of being alive”. He brings up the concept of “ten thousand formations, one suchness”, there is simply one energy.

From the second part I select some quotes about the present:

If you understand fully that it is from the present that everything happens, then the only place for you to be, the only place for you to live, is here, right now.

If your plans are flexible and adaptable, and if you are here when things happen, you will always stay balanced.

Alan also writes “Anything that you can do without a great deal of thought becomes a perfect form of meditation”. That is the same as is said in The 5-minute Meditator.

The third part about the book is about space, how empty space is considered more important in the East than in the West. Alan mentions that Zen represents a simplified way of life and that the personality of Zen people is the uncluttered mind. He also says that “The beginning of Zen is overcoming the fear of death”. That is what made the samurai interested in Zen, as a way to become fearless.

The fourth and last part is about Zen Mind. Alan says that “The understanding of Zen is intuitive”. A final quote from the book:

The whole point of Zen is to suspend the rules we have superimposed on things and to see the world as it is – as all of a piece.

One of my favourite blogs is Zen Habits, it has to be in a post about Zen-related blogs.

Goodlife Zen has a post about Is there Life After Death?

Zendonut writes about Very Interesting Meditation Study From Harvard, similar to what I wrote about in Scientists probe meditation secrets.

cheerfulmonk.com has a post about Celebrating Baby Steps.

Transforming Stress Into Personal Power has a post about One Size Doesn’t Fit All. That post is filed under Lifelong Learning, something I like and also think is needed.

Success Soul has an interesting post about Bruce Lee’s 6 Ways to Develop a Kick-Ass Attitude.

Note: Photo by theopie.

Don’t be hard like a rock, be soft like water. Ultimately the soft wins over the hard. Be like water, soft, flowing, at ease. The hardness inside will eventually be reduced to sand, and the rock will completely disappear.
Lao Tzu

What areas of your life do YOU intend to change forever, today?

I decided to instead get the book the movie is based on, Way Of The Peaceful Warrior. The author Dan Millman is a former world champion athlete, university coach, martial arts instructor and college professor.

Blending fact and fiction, the story relates an odyssey into realms of light and shadow, romance, and mystery. Guided by an eccentric old warrior named Socrates, drawn to an elusive young woman called Joy, Dan moves toward a final confrontation that will deliver or destroy him.

This classic tale, told with heart and humor, speaks to the peaceful warrior in each of us, moving readers to laughter and tears — even to moments of illumination — as they rediscover life’s larger meaning and purpose. Join Dan on the peaceful warrior’s path. Find out why this book has changed lives.

I picked some quotes from the FAQ-section at Dan’s website that are relevant to my comments:

Life, literature and film overflow with such pairings (a struggling student and mysterious mentor): Arthur had Merlin, Frodo had Gandalf; Mitch had Morrie; Luke Skywalker had Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda. And I had my Socrates.

According to an old proverb, “Art is a lie that helps us see the truth.”

The student – mentor setup is great, the focus is on the life of Dan the student with Socrates the mentor there to help in the spiritual process. I like the book for its spiritual teachings, they are similar to what I have learned from my mentors. But I would have preferred less fiction, sometimes Socrates gets ‘superhero’ abilities and that is strange to me. Still, the book is well worth reading and gave me some new insights.

I have picked some quotes from the book, pieces that stuck with me.

• Everything you’ll ever need to know is within you.
• You do not see your prison because its bars are invisible.
• To rid yourself of old patterns, focus all your energy not on struggling with the old but on building the new.
• Once you make your choice, do it with all your spirit.
• Responsibility means recognizing both pleasure and price, action and consequence, then making a choice.
• You are rich if you have enough money to satisfy all your desires. (Get more money or simplify life.)
• It does not matter what you do, only how well you do it.

The article starts like this:

Some people might consider the harmonica an unlikely vehicle with which to explore and transcend that mysterious and often mutinous entity known as the human mind. But as we’ll see in this article, the unique qualities of the harmonica are particularly well-suited to those in pursuit of a healthy, integrated approach to life. From its direct relationship with the breath to the fact that you can’t play a wrong note, the harmonica offers a pocket-sized key to meditation and mindfulness.