Self Meditation and...craft tip!

• Whenever walking in kinhin, keep your mind totally focused on your environment, not on the thoughts that try to distract you.
• Power breath: Begin by going for a walk, preferably alone and outside. Inhale, silently saying "Om" to the count of two. Mentally see that the oxygen coming into your body is filled with life-force energy and hold the breath in your mouth. As you force the air against your cheeks, let them fill to capacity and bulge out. Keep pressing the air into your cheeks as long as you can, without creating discomfort. Then exhale to the count of seven. Repeat this twelve times. Try doing this twice a day, gradually increasing to hold your breath for five counts and exhale for ten counts, then hold your breath outside for five counts.
• Breathing in, be aware of the activities of your mind being calm and at peace. Breathing out, be aware of the activities of your mind being calm and at peace.

www.thingstobehappyabout.com

Craft Tip:

If you have a paper shredder you can use it to shred left over bits of wrapping paper to make fun and festive bag filler.

Self-meditation

Self- Meditation

• Find something that has been a toy for you that you can part with now. Give it away. See what it is like to be without it. Do that with yet another toy when you are ready. Give them away, one at a time. Note how you feel and what your life is Simplifying your life doesn't necessarily mean doing without. It might, but it doesn't have to. Rather, the prevailing philosophy of today's voluntary simplicity movement is not to live without possessions or to live in frugality, but to slow down and live a more balanced, deliberate, and thoughtful life. And as research increasingly shows, a healthier life as well.without them.
• Be liberated by these two: examination and analysis.
• Both in times of formal practice and everyday life, practice distinguishing the level of consciousness.

Meditation of the day

Meditation does not belong to any religion, and meditation is not a belief.
It is a pure science of the inner.
Learning to be silent, learning to be watchful, learning to be a witness;
learning that you are not the mind, but something beyond --
the consciousness -- will prepare you to receive truth.

Osho