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“When we practice, wisdom grows.
When we don’t practice, it wanes.”
~ Buddha
Joseph Goldstein, who is one of my favorite meditation teachers, cited that quote by the Buddha and then he went on to say this about it:
“Wisdom is not something we acquire and then we have. Rather, it’s a force in the mind that’s very dynamic. And something we need to continually nurture and ripen in our lives. Otherwise it simply becomes a memory of some past understanding, and we can easily fall back into our old habitual patterns. We have to DO what we know. We have to continually put them into practice.”
~ Joseph Goldstein
We all have our own knowledge base – our own wise understandings about life 🦉
What are the wise things YOU know to do because you know they make life better?
Are you practicing those understandings – actively? Are you cultivating the good stuff by continually putting what you know into practice? 💪
When I ask myself such questions, it inspires me to want to get them going on. And to do them in a way that feels enjoyable. Fortunately, ‘fun & playful’ is a specialty of mine 😃😍
Here are two classic practices and examples of how I make them fun…
Mindfulness – present moment awareness
I’ll just notice what I’m doing. Say walking, for example. And then I’ll bring my attention to all the ways my body moves as it walks 🚶♀️
Suddenly walking is utterly fascinating. It’s so simple and it’s so complex – all at the same time.
To make it fun maybe I’ll slow it down… or pretend I’m a queen as I walk 👑 … or be really aware of my feet 👣
Or maybe I’ll do that Stoics thing and take the ability to walk away from myself… and then give it back to myself 🎁
All in the service of bringing more awareness to what I’m doing while I’m doing it 💭
Metta – loving-kindness practice
Sometimes I’ll notice my mind is doing something not cool. Like being jealous of somebody 😡 I just hate it when that’s going on 😖 I also hate hating it 🙁
Neither one of those things are things I want to be practicing. So once I notice it’s going on, I use it as a cue to do something radically different.
The person I’m jealous of is already strongly in my mind – like they’re taunting me with what they have and I want. So I turn the experience on its head by… sending them loving-kindness 💌
I do it formally with these phrases that I have made my own over time…
May you be happy and peaceful
May you be safe and free from harm
May you know the ease of well-being
May you enjoy generosity and prosperity
Just as I want these things for myself, I want them for you too.
I really connect 💕 to the words and I imagine that they are receiving 💕💕 those words.
Then I check back in with how I feel and… there’s no more jealousy. In fact, what’s there is happiness for them AND the feeling that what they have is for me, too! 😋
~.~
I have a ton more fun practices. And I bet you do too.
Would you hit Reply and share one (or more) of yours with me? Then in my next newsletter I can share them with everyone.
We are always practicing something. What are you practicing?
With ❤️,
Jeanne
💖 💖 💖
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