Be not Affraid!

 My Grandmother and her three sisters and one brother left Finland during WWI as very young kids and teenagers. They traveled by a ship for several weeks, a unknown couple help them make it here. They left with the clothes on their back, and were not bilingual. As a kid I was often reminded how lucky we have it here and not take things for granted. Growing up we had no cable, internet etc. it was a different time we learned culture and traditions. Time was spent on nurturing life lessons, learning on what to do in life.  My parents and grand parents, elders will always be my greatest teachers to me; they made me who I am today. Those lessons make these trying days alot easier; my father always said don't worry alot things sort out if you can maintain patience. So very true!

There are many things you can do within your home life. This is not the end of the world having to sacrifice for the good of the cause.Now is the time to cleanse, lose a bad habit or get closer to a loved one whom might not always be around.My grandmother often said that her mother taught:

*Never give up on yourself or your dreams; there is always hope after despair.
*There is always a tomorrow after the storm
*True poverty is that of a lost soul; must have faith even in the worst circumstances.

Gary Abersold           

Sacred Symbol of Awakening ~ Lotus Flower

A student asked who's explanation on the Lotus Flower is correct? It's a good question since there's literally hundreds of articles on it. I feel everyone is allowed to express there feelings on anything; and I don't want to be the policeman on who's right, who's wrong. I believe everyone has their worth to chime in. 

One pithy answer from my early Ordained Buddhist Mentor is that the Lotus Flower is an important symbol in Buddhism, as it represents the process of awakening. The Lotus Flower beginning as a seed, it becomes secured in the sticky muck of a pond or dead end water body, and grows from that environment to blossom into this beautiful radiant flower. 

As a sacred symbol of awakening it represents the purity of our awakened body/mind, which in order to manifest itself, has to spring from the muck of normal existence. The Buddhist Religion in many forms has depicted this in their sacred art. The Lotus Flower/Lotus Blossom  is often depicted in the hands of various Icon's or shown as a platform seat on which they sit.  There are countless Buddhist documents, Recitation Practice's, short Mantra's (vocalization as a form of meditation), Mudra's (hand symbols) and Lotus Meditations using tantric imagery, and schools named after the Lotus Flower. Properly understood it for sure came from the Buddhist and has merged into many other systems of spirituality and health.

 Lotus Flower Invocation 

The purity of heaven, purity of earth; purity within and without; purity of my sense organs. Our mind being pure, there is no impurity in any pollution. Our sense organs of our body are pure, I am one with spirits of heaven and earth. Just as the awakened one has taught us the teaching of the Lotus Flower is like the shadow that accompanies form, if what we and what we do are pure, then all our personal request will be fulfilled and our happiness and longevity will be limitless. I am now endowed with the most revered and supreme sacred treasured teaching, my body/mind is pure like a beautiful Lotus Flower which transformed out of the emotional mud of the world.    

GWA

   

                                       

Otto Warmbier: A Tragedy for Everyone.

Otto Warmbier

 December 12, 1994 - June 19, 2017

 

 Update 6/19/2017 8:47pm: Otto Warmbier has passed away late today. My heartfelt condolences to Fred and Cindy Warmbier, family and loved ones. Although I donot know the family or Otto; he reminded me of myself and many friends I grown up with. I do think this was a ethical post to fuse like minded caring people together and use their ability's for the good of one of our own. The parents had expressed that his facial features began to lighten up as time went on since he returned home. 

 I would like to thank the outpouring support of the many people who connected with energy healing, prayers, questions and comments etc..my insight tells me that this was the proper thing to happen, to exit his damaged body and move on to his next journey. Death is just a dead body; but the spirits and soul remains it never dies.  

 I truly hope that the current administration will follow through with their statements of "determination to prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that donot respect the rule of law and basic decency". 

Sincerely, 

Gary W Abersold    

      

Original Post

As we know North Korea is a Feudal Empire, lead by a completely insane leader which could become worse than Mao Tse Tung ever was in China. The world should get serious and boycott this country and maniac, hopefully his own people will get sick of it and remove him from power one day soon. North Korea is like Pandora's Box just waiting to open. It truly is a serious world problem on so many levels.

The story of Otto Warmbier is like most 21-22 year old's, looking for experience and adventure in life. He obviously is a brave adventurous person to go to North Korea in the first place. What young man does not like a challenge? As well all know he was persecuted and prosecuted for removing one of their propaganda posters off the hotel wall (give me a break!). Typical young guy move in the moment of fun. Every guy I know in life and I for sure am guilty of this - has pulled stunts like this if not worse. Unfortunately it was videotaped and we know the rest of the story. Truly a tragedy.

I call this a tragedy for "everyone" because this should have never happened. It is not going to go away either; there will be other Otto's this is for sure..remember Kenneth Bae. We failed Otto by not being more vocal for his release, where were the protest, media coverage beyond a snippet video and outcry for one of our own? Where was our leaders and so called representatives? So it's water under the bridge now what done is done. A damn shame for someone with so much promise and hope; I am sure Otto would of stood up for one of our own; he seems like a person with integrity.  

  It is very plausible that Otto experienced an extreme Panic Attack, which could of induced some sort of cardiac arrest or torture ala..foul play that was involved. His life will be forever changed; hopefully he has a miracle recovery at some level. It is a true heartbreak of a story; a person who looks like most 20 something's. To all Energy Healing Practitioners, People of Faith and Belief Let's send  prayer messages and healing energy to Otto and his family. Hopefully he will have some kind of turn around at some level. Everyone deserves a fresh start, a second chance in life. Anything is possible to those with unshakable faith.

 https://www.yahoo.com/tv/obama-issues-statement-otto-warmbier-175753164.html

The Wonderful Meditation on Compassion

 The Blooming Lotus Flower Mudra

(Lian Hua Shou Yin)

View Teaching/Information: This simple adaptation is from a larger practice, here for the web. It is one I learned from my teacher Wen Lei Chen of Emei Mountain Lotus Tradition. Emei Lotus Tradition is a hybrid system that has Buddhist and Taoist practice in a tradition.They are seated meditations that have many movement sequences to nourish life force and periods of formless meditation. In my classes most of the people whom follow it use it for personal healing and balance. Some follow the spiritual tradition, but not a mandatory aspect for the daily health benefits.  

 The blooming Lotus Flower Mudra as depicted above  is the Mudra of Compassion. In Buddhist Traditions and Taoism it connects to the Spiritual power of Kuanyin Buddha, deity of compassion.There is not enough space here although to go into depth conversation although. In Chinese Lian Hua ( 莲花) "Lotus Flower" the lotus hold special significance in many East Asian practice systems. Commonly taught as though rooted in the mud, the lotus blossom rises above to blossom in the sun. Although it grows in pools of water the leaves of the lotus always remain dry. The symbolism of the lotus points to the purity of consciousness and the journey of transformation from ignorance to awakening. Some give the analogy before we learned practices we existed in the emotional mud of life! 

Meditation practice for "Compassion" is a wonderful practice for anyone. The purpose of Meditation of Compassion is to help us eliminate anger and arouse the desire to alleviate discontent and suffering in others. We practice Meditation of Compassion with aspiring mindset of a enlightened adept to help family, friends, and coworkers free themselves from bodily and mental anguish, and if causes and conditions are right, to help them derive happiness from the teachings of Healing Meditation, and ultimately to reach personal enlightenment. Here are some ways to practice Meditations of Compassion:

(1) Generally first step is always connect to entering in tranquility, essentially formless meditation. Just be yourself and get comfortable with coming into harmony of the session. Utilize a position that is conducive to your body type and adopt a mudra/hand position that you like. The common meditation mudra of left hand resting on top of right and thumbs touching is traditional. The left represents formlessness and right represents skillful means of practice. The mudras are important for shaping the consciousness of practice.   

(2) Then after a certain amount of time, you shift into focused insight practice; - activate insight on how you tend to see people as either beneficial or harmful to you, or as neither beneficial nor harmful. Therefore, we should contemplate our relationships to others to better understand how you can help them.

(3) Next, we could use insight to see how we respond to others with like or dislike.We see that our feelings are often based upon the perceived benefit or harm we receive from others. If we understand that the mind is an ever-changing succession of sense impressions and illusory thoughts, we would see there is no reason to like or dislike our interactions with others.

 (4) Next we could investigate what really happens when we interact with others. We see that praise and blame are only sounds or vibrations entering our ears; a smile or a frown is only light rays perceived by our eyes. Just as the body is illusory, so are these external stimuli illusory. Once we realize this, we no longer need to give rise to feelings of like or dislike and we will treat all family, friends and coworkers as equal.

(5) Next we could, contemplate why people we know suffer from discontent, which is that they are ignorant of the true nature of the self. So up to now, there is still no true compassion in our meditation. How can we feel compassion towards people that possess an illusory self?..lol, so not knowing why they act in certain ways, our family members, friends or coworker don’t know why they feel happiness or anger. They are attached to emotions and possessions and are fearful of loss. This causes personal discontent or just plain personal suffering. They are not as free in body and mind as they think; they know they shouldn’t do certain things but do them anyway, and this also causes a endless circle of reoccurring discontent/suffering.  Kinda like never ending personal Chaos.

Sometimes it seems we have two selves, each struggling towards different ends. Kinda like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde persona with many we know. All of us are born, grow old, get sick, and eventually die. In the very short life span, each of us endures all kinds of afflictions of body and mind. Because of the discontent of life sometimes our loved ones undergo this and everyone should have compassion for them. I know this sounds like a lofty goal in  world of "Me-ism"...:)

(6) Finally, next we could contemplate people not as beneficial, harmful, or neutral, but as equals. We realize that our relationships with them are not fixed or unchanging. We cannot say that those with whom we now share affinity with, were not once our enemy or vice versa. There is no definite, unchanging relationship of closeness or adversity. Seen from the perspective of the infinite past, present, and future, all family, friends and coworkers beings have had some interaction with each other in the past, and probably will have in the future. From this point of view we can see all people as equal to ourselves, and can feel compassion for them.

(7) You can close the practice with returning to formlessness meditation as in number (1). In the beginning it could make you feel tired especially if meditation skill is new.

Closing Thoughts: I hope you find this practice inspiring and useful as I did when I first learned it. Give yourself a few months to work with it. Could be a perfect meditation for fall and holiday season. East Asian Traditions aim to liberate anyone not just the devout or special in crowd participants. Even the many who don't believe in good sense of the traditions message; or who engage in bad deeds. Are worthy of personal healing and salvation from darkness. Likewise, other practice systems and spiritual practices that are dedicated to compassion and awakening of the self, are accepted as welcome participants on the path. No matter how different traditions may be anyone that shares the healing ways of these indigenous world traditions is considered to be worthy and of value. With that being said we can say that all spiritual people lives a life that contains all other lives and practices a path that contains all the other paths...GWA 

         

  

Don't Lose Personal Faith in a Modern World!

The focus on today's entry is on prayer. We live in stressful and at times for some a world that all may be lost. It is not, its our personal disconnect from nature that's lost. In many of my classes I introduce the meditative traditions of China and Japan into peoples life and see remarkable changes occur. Many come to these practice because of the disconnect, and the lost of tradition in our modern world. Personal Prayer, Meditation and Spirituality are part of Qigong. Its important to have these in ones life, prayer is a practice that is in all the spiritual traditions. Prayer has been called the heart and soul of spirituality. Without prayer, spirituality would be void of its main means for connecting individuals to God, the gods, saints, ancestors, or whatever is taken to be a divine or spiritual source of power. Prayer, then, is connection via communion. As such, prayer is what establishes a relationship between individuals and a spiritual power or the Divine.

 We have many kinds of prayer. In our world we have individual, petitionary prayers directed to Divine/God. Public, institutional prayers to serve their purposes; however, it is the individual, personal prayers that are most significant for the process of connecting and establishing a relationship. The focus on petitionary prayers (prayers where specific requests are made and wishes are shared) is justified given that this is by far the most common type of prayer.

As for the focus on prayers directed to Divine, God, or Tao; such prayers have a similar, if not identical form to prayers directed to gods, saints, and ancestors—so we may assume that there is carryover with respect to what prayer means for these other prayer contexts. Prayer as a form of communion and relating follows
similar patterns to those found in relationships between persons.

Therefore, we gain a better understanding of prayer if we see prayer from the point of view of how our human relationships develop. One of the most striking features of modern culture, is the ways of communicating and relating to others has to do with the difficulty we have in distinguishing our own perspective or point of view from that of others. This difficulty comes from I believe the inability to distinguish and coordinate perspectives. Many just cannot be objective and causes divisions within us.

The Different Shapes of Prayer Throughout Life

A life of prayer in the spiritual traditions takes many shapes and maturity and uses. As a young person or maybe even now; our prayers are non resistant for the way we request that the divine is there to answer our wishes. That is, as a young people that had an active prayer tradition, we usually demonstrate an unshakable faith and conviction that our request will come true and our life and the way of the divine's are unified as one. For people of personal faith and spirituality, the attitude is that "The Divine, God or Tao exists to hear and answer our wishes and requests. We have a unshakable Life Path of Inner Meditations, Prayers and Communion with all that is.

In the early part of American history we seen prayer used by world leaders. During the American civil war,one of Abraham Lincoln’s generals once said to him, “Let us pray that God is on our side” to which Abraham Lincoln responded, “No, let us pray that we are on God’s side.” The contrast being here is a contrast in general attitude. For Abraham Lincoln if this is true - it still demonstrates a unshakable faith and one of personal ethics.

 Prayer develops also as a shift away from taking a passive to taking an active stance toward life’s problems. It is used for empowerment to help people to take first steps forward into the unknown. The abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, who was raised a slave, said as a child, he prayed asking almighty to free him. Later on, he said, “My prayers got down in my feet, and I ran away.” This empowerment shift in prayer is most commonly seen in the shift away from asking " The Divine, God or Tao" to change external reality to asking "The Divine, God or Tao" for support needed for the praying individual to have the hope, courage, wisdom, or whatever to act more responsively or effectively.  This empowerment concept is praying for strength, then, makes a significant shift to raise the spirit of the human individual of the "Now". For many of us that made a life change we can recall that time in our life, and remember such spiritual empowering prayers.

The Power of Presence

Many of us will find that prayer’s functions and development has to do with feeling "Universal Presence".

In all the traditions with a concept of  "The Divine, God, Tao etc., there is the practice of keeping the power transcendent and powerful. I feel that many that practice paths like Qigong, Yogic traditions, Native Medicine and Eastern Spirituality find also their private prayer's serves to aid a sense of "Universal Presence". For the adepts of these traditions do not pray so much because they believe in "The Divine, God or Tao" but, rather, the adepts of the path, believe in the tangible, feelable reality and presence. This is  because they actualize a "oneness" with what I call here "Universal Presence". 

Simply, prayer functions and develops to make "Universal Presence" reality and presence felt because that feeling can be empowered. People who have the meditation quality to prayer work, have deeper, more spiritually meaningful transformations occurring. There just seems to be a magical effect always around these types of individual one could say. The wise elders in most traditions will tell one that  there is a clear distinction between appearance (empty prayers) and a deeper intrinsic spiritual reality here.

If one begins to merge meditation, cultivation within prayer; I believe one begins as an effort to harmonize the"Universal Presence" in ones life. 

It functions first and foremost to change the reality outside of ourselves. It begins with a process of prayer which  becomes a way to discover and mold ourselves to what is felt to be Universal Consciousness, will, to feel connected to the breath of the way in order to cope with or change troublesome feelings, and to experience closeness with and the presence of : all that it is" and thereby become empowered.