Zen alarm clock. Wake up and smell the coffee.
You know the snooze button you reach for on your alarm clock, when really you should be getting up? Because it's easier than getting up. It's easier to do nothing, than to do something?
Now look at your life, are you hitting the snooze button there too? What part are you avoiding waking up to? Check yourself for mental laziness. It's time to wake up!
Can you smell the coffee yet?
– Ando, Transform Your Day
Wake up!
Thich Nhat Hanh tells you how…
“Smile when you wake up. Begin a practice of smiling. When you smile, you are dwelling in awareness and can approach the day with gentleness and understanding.”
In addition, these essential tools will help you surf change in your life, instead of drowning beneath it's waves :
- Breath. Use it to bring awareness to the present moment, whatever is happening in your life, and to nourish the essential systems of your body, bringing oxygen, prana and energy.
- Water. Use it to nourish, cleanse, and hydrate the rivers and streams of your body.
- Meditation. Use the quality of your attention and silence to look and listen within. This is an opportunity to wake up and listen to the desires of your Spirit. Start with that!
- Yoga. Use it to create energy, bringing more strength, flexibility, alignment, openness, and balance to your body – and to clear and free the emotional backlog that may be stored in your body.
Using these basic tools on a regular basis will aid you in improving and maintaining your mental, spiritual, emotional and physical health. It will bring clarity, no matter what is going on in your life.
When you face a challenge, a choice you must make, take the simple path of choosing the way that brightens your spirit, not the way that dims it. If you make a wrong choice, know that there is no wrong choice. It’s just a perception. So drop the thought, and move on, following the bright path that supports the shining of your life.
Are you taking good care of yourself? Take a look. If not, do something about it, today. Wake up!
This retreat ends today, and life continues…
Don’t hit the snooze button today, wake up and shine!
[images : pixeltree / thich nhat hanh]
ANDO / LIVING ZEN RETREAT / DAY 31 / WEDNESDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2014, 07:00.