Do you ever wake up feeling grumpy, stressed or with that feeling of gloom and doom about the day ahead?  I did this one Sunday morning. It reminded me, of how years ago I had been in the habit of doing this. I was working across town and would wake each morning and hop aboard that 'grumpy negative thought train'.  I would have thoughts like, ‘Oh no, I don't want to get up, I've got to drive to work in all that traffic, I have so many people to see and reports to write and it’s raining!’

So in years gone by and on this particular Sunday morning instead of seeing the many positives about my amazing life, I was choosing to see all the negatives. I did not realise that I had a choice. I also did not realise, the choice I was making to board the grumpy negative train was making me very unhappy. And on that Sunday, I forgot I had that choice, which turned out to be a good reminder.

Fortunately, many years ago I received some wise advice from Lama Marut that turned that negative unhelpful habit around. Lama Marut says that mindfulness as simply remembering to pay attention to what is happening and meditation as thinking about or putting my mind on something (useful).  


Lama Marut introduced to a very simple mindfulness meditation many years ago. It is simply a gratitude mediation in the morning (and whenever else we remember!) it is now a well-established helpful habit of mine, except for when I occasionally forget.  It is, simply to remember to wake up grateful.  I will elaborate in more detail in ‘A Morning Gratitude Practice’ coming up. This simple practice has turned around my grumpy morning mindset habit into a grateful one instead. 

So, what happened last Sunday?  I woke feeling grumpy.  I was aware of feeling this discontent and instead of remembering to be grateful for what was going right I forgot and chose to board that grumpy thought train.  "I was tired, hadn't slept so well, our 30th wedding anniversary camping trip had a few hiccups, including mechanical problems with our camper.  STOP! I turned into my wise self to remember to be grateful and to do my morning gratitude practice. 

There was of course so much to be grateful for. I had woken up for a start, have been married for 30 years (what a wonderful assignment from the cosmos), have a great family and an amazing life full of so many blessings.  So, after remembering my morning gratitude practice I got up feeling grateful and decided to embrace whatever our 30th anniversary Grampians adventure looked like.  We ended up in a beautiful spot in the Grampians.  I am so grateful for 30 years of fun, frustration, laughter, tears and joy and the wonderful family and friends with whom I share my life, with all its ups and downs and interesting twists and turns. Gratitude changes everything!

Next blog we’ll talk more about a morning gratitude practice or as I prefer to think of it, Part 1 of Lama Marut’s morning loll
 

I​ know I have told this story before; I find it a very useful illustration and reminder to thank ourselves, I hope you do too. One morning, when my family were all still at home, I opened the dishwasher and to my surprise it had been emptied. It is not that such things don’t happen in our house, they sometimes do, but as I rise early I can tend to be a hog around doing such tasks. 
 
I felt thankful and wondered who the mystery unpacker was. I began to thank others and then I remembered it was me! I had done it the night before! I could have dismissed the whole thing and berated myself with ‘how silly I was for not remembering’. Instead, I took a breath and checked into my wise self to be reminded to give myself some thanks.  I know the power and importance of being grateful for the kindness others show me. But what about being grateful to myself for the kindness I show myself and others and the way I am a positive force in the world! As Alice Walker wisely says 'Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.' (remember to say that 'thank you prayer' to yourself about all we are grateful for including ourselves too'.
 
So, I remembered to check in with my wise self and instead of being dismissive, I took a few moments to be thankful to past me and also for the me that was interested in showing kindness to others too. I also remembered a cautionary note here – to check in with my intention behind being thankful to myself for kindness. I am very thankful to Lama Marut for his helpful understanding around this. He reminds us to have the intention to be kind in order to be better FOR others, rather than to unhelpfully think of ourselves as better THAN others because we are being kind. This intention check helps to form a happy healthy self-perception and motivates humility and kindness instead of pride. 
 
Another helpful reminder is to be happy about all kind actions, both our own and others. When we notice kindness and remember to be thankful and happy about it, we strengthen the interest we have in being that positive kind force in the world. Remembering to rejoice about happy, kind people in the world, including yourself creates a joyful upward spiral! We can also ramp it up further and give away all the goodness we create in being kind to the health and well being of everyone!

Thank you Geraldine for sending this 'What you choose to focus on will grow', which is pictured above. It reminds us we are in charge of what we create by where we put our focus. So let's choose to focus on love, gratitude and the positive things that are going on and be grateful for them. Let's reinforce and create that reality. 
 
So remember to express lots of ‘thank you’s’ to all including you.
 
Thank you for your kindness everyone.

With love, appreciation and very best well wishes to us all 
Maree xx

I am grateful to be sending this blog to you all on Mother's Day aboard the train on route from Canberra to Sydney! 

As I said last blog, It is so helpful to remember to be thankful to all those people in our lives who have been motherly, kind and caring toward us, including of course our own maternal mothers, to whom we owe so much, including our lives. So today is that special day we can reflect on being grateful to our Mother’s and all those who have shown Motherly kindness to us!

I have presented some of the ideas in this blog before so sorry if you feel there is some repeating going on.

One May, as Mother’s Day was approaching, I decided to explore what it means to be a mother, or motherly toward others. We all know what being a mother means in the traditional sense, however I wanted to expand this understanding. I looked in the dictionary and in addition to the expected definition of mother as a ‘female parent’ I also found mother means ‘a condition that gives rise to something else’. I found this so interesting as we are all doing this all the time. We are creating conditions that give rise to other things every time we speak, act and think! As Mother Teresa says 'kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless'. I then went on to look up synonyms for ‘motherly’ and found words including affectionate, kind, loving, maternal and tender. 
 
So, as we are all mothers in the creator sense, it is very helpful to be aware of what we are creating with our language, actions and thoughts. We all have the opportunity to be ‘motherly creators’ by showing kindness to others, regardless of our relationship with them. And of course, don’t forget to be kind to yourself too. We can be ‘motherly or kind’ toward our children, our partners, relatives, friends, pets, strangers and of course ourselves too, whether we are female parents or not. 
 
I enjoyed thinking about inspiring people who show motherly love toward others. People like Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, our friends who are amazing foster parents, a kind truckie who got us out of trouble, my spinster Aunt Rosa and other friends and family many of whom are not mothers in the traditional sense.

So as powerful mothers or creators it is helpful to be aware of the power of kindness, both to others and to ourselves.

Mother's Day provides a wonderful opportunity for us to reflect on and be grateful for all the kindness Mother figures, especially our own Mothers have shown and continue to show us. Some of us may have had difficult parenting or family situations. Meggan Watterson reminds us 'even if you have never experienced a mother's love, the true force of that loving protection exists within us. S,o we can give it to ourselves'.Remembering to tune into our wise self to be reminded of this love and protection within us, allows us to take care of and give ourselves the love and mothering we need. 

A really helpful reminder when it comes to a difficult mothering experience is forgiveness. Toni Salerno   shares this wise advice on forgiveness..........

'Holding on to past hurt prevents us from moving forward and achieving our heart's desires. Let it go! Forgiveness does not mean that you condone another's actions: it simply means that you are no longer willing to be a perpetual victim to a particular person or event. Blame is a waste of our precious energy. Bless and surrender the past for in doing so you will reclaim the joy of life.' And don't forget to practice forgiveness for yourself too.

Thank you for your kindness and happy Mother’s Day everyone.

With love, appreciation and very best well wishes to us all 
Maree xx

​I am grateful to be looking at gratitude; how to practice it and its amazing benefits to our well being again this blog. 

As we said last blog there has been much research which shows that gratitude contributes to happiness and self-confidence. However, it is easy to forget or to be unaware of the power of gratitude and positivity and the destructive nature of taking things for granted and negativity. 
 
At times I can find it is easy to slip into habits of negativity and taking things for granted. This is like a 'negative, everything is going wrong' soundtrack and downward spiral. Just yesterday I found myself doing this when we were walking along the Queenscliffe coastline and it began to rain.' It should be sunny' I thought. I was focusing on the one thing that was going 'so called wrong' and taking for granted and forgetting to notice and be grateful for the amazing place I was in.

Being aware that this is not an opportunity to give myself a hard time for being negative and ungrateful, and instead remembering to tune into, notice and be grateful for the so called ordinary (aka extraordinary place) I found myself in. Taking a deep breathe and noticing  the beautiful sky, birds, sea and the bush, was a great start. Taking time to appreciate the beauty all around me and be grateful for it changed everything. 

We can pull ourselves out of this unhelpful mind state by tuning into our wise selves for a reminder to do as Pema Chodron suggests and 'appreciate everything, even the ordinary, especially the ordinary'. I am also reminded to notice and be grateful for the things that are going right, instead of focusing on the negative.
 
It is easy for us to be grateful when we stop and think about our amazing lives and everything others are doing for us. We are all interdependent and without the kindness of other’s we would not be alive, let alone surviving. For example, we often don’t stop to think about all those that have contributed to our cup of coffee. There are those who grew the beans, harvested, processed, packed, shipped and transported them, the barista who made them into the cup of coffee etc. Everything is interdependent like this. It's amazing when we stop to consider all those people at play making our lives possible, and being grateful for them all. 
 
For many years I was in the unhelpful habit of waking up with that feeling of dread about the work day ahead. It took some mind retraining, but now I wake and think about all the things I am grateful. Lama Marut introduced me to this practice which he called the ‘2-Part Morning Loll’. Part one of this practice involves just this, waking up and lolling around in bed thinking about all we can be grateful for, including waking up! I think about where I live, the life I enjoy, family, friends and all those unknown people who make my life possible, including those who grow my food, etc. And to be grateful for my teachers, those who have generously taught and shared their wisdom with me. This is a much more fun way to start the day and gets me going on the right foot.  
 
Another way I find helpful to remind myself to be grateful is to keep a gratitude journal. This prompts me to remember be grateful during the day. More about these helpful habits in the blogs coming up.
 
Another way I find helpful to remind myself to be grateful is to keep a gratitude journal. This prompts me to remember be grateful during the day. 
 
More about gratitude and its awesome benefits next blog.
With love, appreciation and very best well wishes to us all 
Maree xx
 

I am grateful to once again take a look at gratitude; how to practice it and its amazing benefits to our well-being over the next few blogs.

Just last week I passed a woman wearing this great t-shirt, pictured above, saying 'too blessed to be stressed'. It was such a good reminder to me of how blessed I am and to be grateful for all the amazing people and things in my life. When I remember to do this there is no room for stress.  
 
Thank you are two simple words can make an enormous difference to the way we feel about ourselves and our life. As the Gratitude pill box quote above advises us - gratitude may cause shifts in perspective (I would say most certainly - in the positive direction!) May cause feeling of abundance (again, most certainly) and decreased feelings of fear and anxiety. 

There has been much research which shows that gratitude contributes to happiness and self-confidence. So why don’t we do it more? For me I think it is about forgetting and a lack of awareness around the power of gratitude and the destructive nature of taking things for granted. 
 
Some things that have helped me are understandings like…………

• Research has shown that being grateful contributes to our happiness and self confidence 
• Being grateful is a great way to overcome feeling down
• It is easy for us to be grateful when we consider our amazing lives and all those people in our lives are doing kind things for us all the time.
• We can be grateful to others who give us the opportunity to show kindness. And grateful to ourselves too for the kindness we show toward others. 
• It is not possible for us to survive if it were not for others kindness. Those who grow our food, make our roads, appliances, clothes, and cars, and teach and care for us. 
• I have a choice between focusing on what I am grateful for and what is going right in my life or choosing to focus on negativity. 
• We can’t be grateful and unhappy at the same time so choose to be grateful 
• It’s good for our mind to notice how often known, unknown or unseen people are contributing and making our lives possible and being grateful to them all.  
• We can work up to being grateful for the 'so-called' unwanted events and things in our lives. A grateful shift in perspective allows us to see the opportunities for learning and growth.

This understanding of the benefits of gratitude has helped me to establish and sustain a morning gratitude practice and remember to express 'thanks' lots. 
 
More about gratitude and its awesome benefits next blog.
With love, appreciation and very best well wishes to us all 
Maree xx

Wow we have made it to the tenth and last precept or final guideline to help us live a good life. 

Before we move onto this let's do a final review of the precepts or guidelines we have already covered related to our body, speech and mind.

3 Related to The Body 
1.  Don't kill / Protect and honour life 
2.  Don't steal / Treat other people's things with respect and practice generosity 
3.  Don't hurt others with your sexual activity / Respect and foster others' relationships 

4 Related to Speech 
4.  Don't lie / Tell the truth
5.  Don't use your words to drive a wedge between people / Speak in ways that bring people together
6.  Don't hurt people with your words / Use words that are kind and pleasing to others
7.  Don't engage in useless speech / Make your words meaningful and sincere

3 Related to the mind 
8.  Don't be envious of other peoples lives / rejoice in the little things that bring pleasure to others.
9.  Don't be happy about other people's pain or problems / Be compassionate and empathetic

So now let's get on with our final guideline related to the mind, as Lama Marut puts it.......

10.  Don't adhere to erroneous views / Adopt viewpoints that are correct 
Lama Marut reminds us that this last one is considered the worst as it makes the others possible and falsely supports them. The word erroneous means wrong or incorrect. So, erroneous or wrong views in this sense refer to .....

• thinking that there are no laws of karma - thinking that 'what goes around comes around' is untrue
• thinking that there is no need for ethics or morality 
• thinking nihilistically, with views like nothing we really do matters, and that life is meaningless 

Lama Marut says with regard to summarising these incorrect views "Nothing harmful, immoral or illegal that I do or say will have any detrimental consequences to me - as long as I don't get caught". This corrosive belief system causes us lots of negative karma or big problems, especially when we express such wrong views with certainty. 

The karmic consequences of holding these harmful wrong views include ......

• the tendency to be attracted to such beliefs in the future.
• we find ourselves associating and living with those who also hold these erroneous views - those who think that wrong is right and it is ok to harm and there will be no consequences.
• we find that it is difficult to think clearly 
• we feel we are stupid

Lama Marut tells us that some texts also tell us the karmic consequences of this misdeed is self destructive tendencies. Steadfastly holding to such incorrect views leads us to further delusion and ignorance and its associated with further suffering and harm. 

So when we talk about adopting viewpoints that are correct we are referring to adopting the karmic causality worldview. This is the true understanding of how things truly work, presented in both the Eastern and Western traditions. 'What goes around comes around'. So by practicing kind, wise acts, words and thoughts to ourselves and others we are creating the causes for a world and others we perceive to be safe, kind and welcoming. 

As I always say, and remind myself, I find the best way to use these guidelines is to remember to check in with my wise intuitive self before I act, speak or think. With respect to my thoughts, when I am aware of my internal dialog and thoughts I can check in with my wise self to replace any untrue, erroneous, critical, unkind or ignorant thoughts (like not believing in karma) with wise, true, positive, compassionate, kind encouraging ones. As I always say, this is a work in progress.

I look forward to taking a look at gratitude and its amazing benefits to our well being over the next few blogs.

With love, appreciation and very best well wishes to us all 
Maree xx
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​M23B Be Compassionate and Empathetic when other’s Suffer Part 2. 
It can be tricky sometimes not to be pleased when someone we know, particularly someone we find difficult or has harmed us has some misfortune. As humans we have all felt feelings of ill-will. This is totally normal and certainly not a reason to give ourselves a hard time. Remembering our 5 forces practice helps. Understanding that ill-will can cause these problems for us and get in the way of us expressing empathy and compassion allows us to become aware of how destructive ill-will can be and how to work skilfully to change our behaviour and develop empathy and compassion.

Let's take the example of feeling ill-will toward someone who has stolen from us, wanting them to come to some harm. When we are aware of the ill-will pop into our mind with its associated thoughts, we can do our best to accept and observe it (rather than trying to suppress it or let it run wild) take and breath and tune into our wise selves for a more helpful way to think. Wise, compassionate truths like, ‘I'm not sure what is happening in his life to drive him to steal, I hope he gets the support and help he needs.'

Now I understand this is a very high bar to reach and it takes some practice to turn that tendency for ill-will into compassion, but it is our own best interest to do so. I find it helps for starters to just wish I could feel compassion for them, when I am not able to. Thank you, Hilary for this reminder many years ago, it is a great rung up on the compassion ladder. 

Compassion and empathy are the antidotes for ill-will. it's about feeling empathy and compassion for, not taking perverted pleasure in the suffering of others. The karmic results of cultivating compassion and empathy are that we can feel trust in and friendliness and support from others. 

When it comes to understanding empathy and compassion Brene Brown offers us lots of helpful advice. She tells us ’Empathy is a strange and powerful thing. There is no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It's simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment emotionally connecting and communicating that incredibly healing message of 'You're not alone.'' This quote offers us a way to practice empathy, all we need to do is to listen without judgment and be there to connect and communicate that we are there with them. 

Compassion involves the ability to be able to stand in another shoes Pema Chodron reminds us that compassionate action has to start with ourselves. She says 'if we are willing to stand fully in our own shoes and never give up on ourselves, then we will be able to put ourselves in the shoes of others and never give up on them'. 

This ability to put ourselves in our own and other's shoes is necessary for compassion. If we are able to bring understanding of what it is like for others who harm, to really stand in their shoes, instead of judge them and wish them ill-will. We do not know what has gone on or is going on for them. And sadly, karma will play out for them, we do not need to be the judge, just the compassionate witness. This of course does not mean we do not stick up for ourselves and others to prevent harm. 

​M22B Be Compassionate and Empathetic when Other’s Suffer Part 1. 
We are up to the ninth precept or ninth guideline to help us live a good life. As, we said we have covered our three guidelines related to the body, the four related to our speech and now we are up to the second to the three related to our mind.  Again, Lama Marut puts this second one related to our mind very clearly.......... 

Don't be happy about other people's pain or problems / Be compassionate and empathetic

Last blog we looked at the first guideline related to the mind - Don't be envious of the people's lives / Rejoice in the little things that bring pleasure to others. So, this second one is like the opposite of the first. They both relate to ill-will, however are different in their expression of ill-will. 

As I always say and remind myself, I find the best way to use these guidelines is to remember to check in with my wise intuitive self before I act, speak or think. With respect to my thoughts, when I am aware of my internal dialog and thoughts, I can check in with my wise self to replace any untrue critical, unkind or ignorant thoughts (like ill-will) with wise, true, positive, compassionate, kind encouraging ones. As I always say, this is a work in progress.

So now let's return to the second of our guidelines related to thought. 

Don't be happy about other people's pain or problems / Be compassionate and empathetic

This is all about when we........

• are happy when someone else has some misfortune 
• wish that others experience difficulties
• want our enemy to suffer and are happy about it 
• pleased when someone we are in competition with fails 
• amused by watching, listening to or reading about others' suffering
• taking interest in others misfortune, like gawking at car accidents

So, let's take some time to understand and be aware of why ill-will is not only an ignorant way to think but will bring us future problems. Remembering this wisdom means that when we are aware of ignorant ways of acting speaking and thinking we can then choose to tune in for some wisdom and act, speak and think from there. Wisdom like practicing compassion and empathy instead of ill-will. 

Lama Marut outlines clearly the karmic effects that come from ill-will. He tells us it develops a 'personality which is dominated by anger, sadistic tendencies or interestingly enough paranoia'. That doesn't sound a nice way to be or live! Because we have wished others harm, harm and a fear of harm comes to us. What comes around, goes around. We’ll talk more about this in part 2.

We are up to our fourth and final misdeed related to speech. Lama Marut puts this very clearly.......... 

Don't engage in useless speech / Make your words meaningful and sincere. 
 
As I always say I try to remember to check in with my wise self before I speak for speech which is truthful, inclusive, kind and meaningful. I also try to be aware of my internal speech and check in with my wise self to replace any untrue critical, unkind thoughts with positive kind encouraging ones. As I always say, this is a work in progress.

Meaningless, idle or useless speech includes......

• Speech which is a meaningless discussion or debate with others about things you really don't understand that much about. This could include debating about politics or sport when not in a position to understand or know much about it. Certainly for me it would be meaningless for me to attempt to discuss AFL football or politics.  
• Speaking for the sake of speaking. Chatting about things that are not of meaningful or relevance to others. Like chatting on endlessly about food or any other interest or experience you may have had with someone who is not at all interested. This wastes the precious time of ourselves and others.
• Gossipy. This involves idle gossipy talk about others. It is often more common for us to gossip about other's problems, rather than talk about the good stuff that is happening. Talking about someone's good qualities and rejoicing in their good fortune is to be encouraged. It is important to be aware of the temptation to gossip, as it is destructive to our own ability to communicate and be heard and respected.
• Saying we will do something and not following through on doing it. Lama Marut uses the example of saying 'we must catch up soon' when we have no intention of doing so. By doing this we are hearing ourselves say something which is not in line with what we are thinking. We hear ourselves talking rubbish and then we come to think of ourselves as rubbish. 

The karmic (what goes around comes around) consequence of meaningless speech is that no one pays any attention to what we say. If we have engaged in meaningless speech, others will see our speech as meaningless. Because you have not valued your own speech in the past others will not value it either. 

Lama Marut tells us that there is an even worse consequence to meaningless speech. Because you have heard yourself talking rubbish (meaningless speech which is not respectful, or promises you have no intention of following through on) you will have the perception of yourself as having no value or worth in general. He tells us lack of confidence, depression and low self-esteem come from meaningless speech. 

On the positive side of things there are positive karmic consequence for making our words meaningful and sincere, and making our actions match our words by doing what we said we would. By hearing ourselves speak meaningfully we are creating the perception of ourselves as sincere, someone who says what they say they will and respectful. We will feel good about ourselves and others will respect, listen and value our speech contributions.  

With love, appreciation and very best well wishes to us all 
Maree xx
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