Ilchi Lee's Blog, page 46

Love More the Harder Things Get

There is a Korean saying: “Give the one you dislike another piece of rice cake.” In other words, “Kill ’em with kindness.” The more you continue to resent someone you dislike, the more unlikable they become. Doing that will make you lonelier and lonelier.

How could you be surrounded only by people you like? And are only good things going to happen all the time? As you encourage yourself to see even disagreeable people in a good light, as you ceaselessly strive to break through frustrating circumstances, the seeds of patience, forgiveness, and love grow in your heart.

You come to dislike even yourself when your circumstances seem to stand in your way. Instead of thinking, “Who’s going to love me when I don’t even like myself?” you should give yourself a pat of encouragement. Only then can you do the same for others, too. The most foolish thing in the world is disliking yourself.

Love more and more the harder things get. Love yourself and those around you. As you make yourself brighter, your life will grow more valuable.

Flames will ignite, illuminating your inner darkness when you realize that you are a beautiful, holy being. That brightness is a lamp able to design and create a new future.

 

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Look Below the Waves of Your Emotions

Our emotions change many times a day. All those different feelings are like clouds, flowing by, morphing with time.

Many people are troubled by their emotions while they cling tightly to them. There are cloudy, rainy days in everyone’s life. Some people ask at such times why the days of fair weather don’t continue; others look on dispassionately, simply noting, “Oh, it’s raining.”

While we all have emotions, they are not who we really are. Emotions are merely waves, rising and falling in the ocean of the mind. The waves are not the whole ocean; they’re just a part of it.

Emotions are nothing but a movie projected on the screen of the mind. Immersed deep in their thoughts and feelings, people don’t realize that their sentiments are just a show. So they remain firmly attached to being happy or sad.

The screen doesn’t disappear when the movie is over. In the same way, there is something unchanging amid those emotions, which come and go like scenes in a movie. A being is there, watching the anxiety, sadness, and loneliness.

That is the true self, the true mind.

Feelings are guests in our lives, coming and going restlessly. So don’t look for true happiness in your feelings. Instead of floundering in waves of emotion, learn how to ride your emotions, surfing them like waves.

Getting your balance is important if you want to surf well. In the same way, when you are firmly rooted, centered in your true self, you can use your emotions freely, keeping your feelings at your beck and call.

Strive to have eyes to see the changeless amid the changing. Listen to the sounds of the ocean waves of Hawaii in this video, and let your mind sink beneath the waves to the stillness in the depths of yourself.

 

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Joy or Pain, Welcome It All

You may taste joy in life, but you may also experience pain. Discard any thought that you should expect only joy. Don’t curse the presence of conflict in your life, for it is your invitation to grow. You can never grow if you just curl up, afraid of the pain that comes from confrontation. Like lotuses growing in the mud, our souls are able to bloom beautifully through pain.

Joy or pain, welcome it all. Spread your arms wide, making your heart large enough to embrace all of life’s suffering and pleasure.

Be grateful that you have been given problems to solve and the space and time in which you can solve them bit by bit, running up against your ego, other people, and the world. Be grateful that your heart and soul are always present—right now, in this moment.

These gifts are all here for you and for the growth of your soul.

 

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[Video] Drinking Hot Water Meditation

Water is essential for our bodies. Health experts agree that we need to drink enough water every day in order to be physically and mentally healthy. If we drink water mindfully, then its health effects are enhanced.

I recommend doing a meditation with hot water every night. This will not only cleanse your body, but help you release your emotions before bed as well.

Just as you can change the temperature of water by blowing on it, you can change the quality and strength of your emotions. This meditation reminds you that you create your emotions and you create your life.

Follow me as I do a simple drinking hot water meditation in this video.

 

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Draw a New You

You are nothingness, a blank slate. Different thoughts come, painting all kinds of pictures on that empty canvas. Good thoughts, evil thoughts, happy thoughts, unhappy thoughts, imaginings of all sorts leave their traces on the bare background before going on their way. The vacant page itself is neither good nor bad. It’s just a blank sheet. Drawing a good picture makes it good, and drawing a bad picture makes it bad. That is all.

What’s important is that you are the owner of that blank slate. You are nothingness that can choose itself. That nothingness can attract good thoughts, and it can attract bad thoughts.

Mistakenly believing that the image in their mind at some moment is who they are, people are hurt by what they see. But the picture can always be erased and drawn again.

We are allowed more than one portrait. Having a blank canvas stretching to infinity, we can always paint another picture. There is a new you somewhere. Your essence is a clean, unmarked sheet; on it you can sketch a drawing then erase it, hundreds upon hundreds of times.

Like changing the TV to the channel you want, you can change the channel of your thoughts, habits, and feelings. You always have the right to choose the programming you watch. No one can set your channel for you.

We can encounter a new world when we escape from the narrow confines of our fixed ideas and habits. Remember that you have an infinite, blank canvas, and that you always have the right to choose your channel.

[Photo Source: @walfredcabrera1 via Twenty20]

 

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Do This to Be Truly Grateful

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is a day that reminds us to be grateful, not only today, but every day.

It’s easy to remember to be thankful when things are going well, when you’re blessed and surrounded by good fortune. But what about when things are not going well?

Those who really know how to be grateful are thankful even in very difficult, unfortunate circumstances.

Someone who has brought you misfortune will be shocked when you’re grateful for it. “Something must be wrong here,” they’d think. “There must have been a problem with the delivery.” And they’d go somewhere else, saying, “This misfortune wasn’t meant for you.”

Feeling gratitude amid misfortune is easier said than done. But it’s much more beneficial and advantageous for you.

Once difficult times have passed, haven’t you been able to understand them better? Haven’t you realized that, amid misfortune and distress, you have come to understand life’s meaning more deeply and have been able to achieve more inner growth?

So, when faced with a difficult situation, accept it gratefully as a problem you’ve been given to solve. Within genuine gratitude, our souls put down deep roots and grow.



Make Your Brain Bright!

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If Light Won’t Come to You, Walk to Light

There are people who are always complaining about being sad and lonely. They cling to sadness even as they say, “I’m sad, so sad,” and they walk into a river of loneliness even as they say, “I’m lonely, so lonely.” They cling tightly to those emotions and refuse to let them go, all while saying that they are working to overcome them.

Let’s say that a child is walking along the road and steps into a filthy puddle. All she has to do is yank her foot out of it, but instead, she just keeps crying for her mother.

Those who keep blaming their environment yet hope for change in their lives are no different from the girl who stepped into the dirty puddle.

Don’t sigh, complaining that light won’t come to you. Why not just walk toward it instead?

To hope that light chooses you even though you don’t choose it is like deciding to sit still until the mountain comes walking to you.

If light won’t come to you, walk to light.

 

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Peaceful Flute Sounds for Deep Sleeping

Do you have a hard time falling asleep from tired and anxious feelings? The sounds I play on the flute in this video will ease your tense, tired body and mind and help you fall into a deep sleep. Recall your happy moments and feel your breathing as you listen to it. Meet a world of deep inner peace with every breath.

 

 

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Meditate to See the Whole Picture

The ultimate reason we meditate is to integrate our consciousness and see the whole.

Through meditation, we see the whole when we are centered in our minds. We can never see it if we’re stuck in some attachment.

What obstacles stand in the way of our integrating our consciousness?

Judgmental attitudes. Where did those judgmental attitudes begin? They begin in the ego. That’s why many thoughts and different forms of victim consciousness arise during meditation, with mental distractions never ceasing.

Meditation is cleaning a mirror that reflects heaven, earth, and ourselves. When that mirror is clean, we can see with eyes that are not eyes and hear with ears that are not ears.

Once those true eyes and ears open, we will be able to see everything as one because real truth is one.

 

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