Beyond making A Living - Your Life's Mission

Beyond Making A living - Your Life's Mission
 

~ Your life's mission goes beyond making a living. It's deeper, stronger and more compelling than a day-to-day grind.

~ Your life's mission is your burning desire to make a difference.

~ A life's mission isn't only a career. It can be a hobby, a vocation or a pastime. Your mission in life is manifested when you nurture and foster the special talents that make you unique and special.

~ A true life's mission never dies, no matter the challenges or setbacks. When you're living a life's mission you have a burning desire that won't allow you to give up. A mission is like a dream that doesn't go away, it keeps coming back to remind you again and again.

~ A life's mission comes from the soul. It's emotional and spiritual. You know in your heart that it's right.

~ Your life's mission is a part of your value and belief system. For example, if you believe your mission is to help people, you will be miserable doing anything that contradicts that core belief.

~ Living your life's mission is fun. You owe it to yourself to make your life enjoyable. Life shouldn't be a struggle. If it is, you're battling something inside. Your values and beliefs are in conflict with what you're doing with, or in, your life.

Desiring Success

Success means investing time, energy and money into motivating yourself to reach your full potential and live out your life's mission. Your desire for success must be compelling!

Success can mean different things to different people. Success is not only measured by money or material possessions; it is an inner knowing, peace and self-satisfaction.

How do you develop the passion and desire to succeed?

1. Convince yourself that you can and will succeed. It's easier and safer to tell yourself that you can't do something than risk failure. The only failure is not trying at all. Success is a choice.

2. Consciously focus on what you want. Make workable and rewarding goals for yourself. When you accomplish a goal or task, reward yourself. Acknowledge all the achievements.

3. Take one day at a time. It'll only feel overwhelming when you lose sight of all the baby steps you'll need to take before reaching a major goal. The majority of successes aren't achieved by leaps and bounds, but in working your plan one step at a time.

4. Stretch yourself, but don't break. Aim high enough to motivate and excite, but not so high that you become paralyzed with fear. Stretch yourself enough so you're constantly growing and experiencing new things.

Leave your mind open and receptive to all the possibilities.

Passion, desire and enthusiasm are essential for lasting success. If you don't have a well thought out purpose for all of your excitement, it becomes a waste of valuable energy.

 

Your Life's mission is a the glue holding your desire, enthusiasm , energy and

pwesistence in place

Meditation Posture

When we practise meditation we need to have a comfortable seat and a good posture.

When we practise meditation we need to have a comfortable seat and a good posture. The most important feature of the posture is to keep our back straight. To help us do this, if we are sitting on a cushion we make sure that the back of the cushion is slightly higher than the front, inclining our pelvis slightly forward. It is not necessary at first to sit cross-legged, but it is a good idea to become accustomed to sitting in the posture of Buddha Vairochana. If we cannot hold this posture we should sit in one which is as close to this as possible while remaining comfortable.

The seven features of Vairochana's posture are:

(1) The legs are crossed in the vajra posture. This helps to reduce thoughts and feelings of desirous attachment.
(2) The right hand is placed in the left hand, palms upwards, with the tips of the thumbs slightly raised and gently touching. The hands are held about four fingers' width below the navel. This helps us to develop good concentration. The right hand symbolizes method and the left hand symbolizes wisdom – the two together symbolize the union of method and wisdom. The two thumbs at the level of the navel symbolize the blazing of inner fire.
(3) The back is straight but not tense. This helps us to develop and maintain a clear mind, and it allows the subtle energy winds to flow freely.
(4) The lips and teeth are held as usual, but the tongue touches against the back of the upper teeth. This prevents excessive salivation while also preventing our mouth from becoming too dry.
(5) The head is tipped a little forward with the chin slightly tucked in so that the eyes are cast down. This helps prevent mental excitement.
(6) The eyes are neither wide open nor completely closed, but remain half open and gaze down along the line of the nose. If the eyes are wide open we are likely to develop mental excitement and if they are closed we are likely to develop mental sinking.
(7) The shoulders are level and the elbows are held slightly away from the sides to let air circulate.

If we want to colour our mind with a virtuous motivation we need to clear away all our negative thoughts and distractions.

A further feature of Vairochana's posture is the preliminary breathing meditation, which prepares our mind for developing a good motivation. When we sit down to meditate our mind is usually full of disturbing thoughts, and we cannot immediately convert such a state of mind into the virtuous one we need as our motivation. A negative, disturbed state of mind is like pitch-black cloth. We cannot dye pitch-black cloth any other colour unless we first remove all the black dye and make the cloth white again. In the same way, if we want to colour our mind with a virtuous motivation we need to clear away all our negative thoughts and distractions. We can accomplish this temporarily by practising breathing meditation.

Breathing Meditation

When we have settled down comfortably on our meditation seat we begin by becoming aware of the thoughts and distractions that are arising in our mind. Then we gently turn our attention to our breath, letting its rhythm remain normal. As we breathe out we imagine that we are breathing away all disturbing thoughts and distractions in the form of black smoke that vanishes in space. As we breathe in we imagine that we are breathing in all the blessings and inspiration of the holy beings in the form of white light that enters our body and absorbs into our heart. We maintain this visualization single-pointedly with each inhalation and exhalation for twenty-one rounds, or until our mind has become peaceful and alert. If we concentrate on our breathing in this way, negative thoughts and distractions will temporarily disappear because we cannot concentrate on more than one object at a time. At the conclusion of our breathing meditation we should think `Now I have received the blessings and inspiration of all the holy beings.' At this stage our mind is like a clean white cloth which we can now colour with a virtuous motivation such as compassion or bodhichitta.