The following is a book excerpt from  "I Will Not Die an Unlived Life" by Dawna Markova.

(The excerpt is copied with permission, I hope, and my gratitude from http://www.livinglifefully.com/flo/flobemeetingourselves.htm)

I hope it will inspire you, as it did me, to purchase the full book...

"There were a series of incidents that blew me over the threshold into this retreat.  One was something the poet David Whyte said a friend, Brother David Steindl-Rast, told him:  "The antidote to exhaustion may not be rest.  It may be wholeheartedness.  You are so exhausted because all of the things you are doing are just busyness.  There's a central core of wholeheartedness totally missing from what you're doing."  Whyte said that from that moment on everything changed for him.  He realized there were courageous conversations he had to have, because his work had become too small for him.

Listening, I became aware of the courageous conversations I needed to be having--with myself.  But how could this be possible when I couldn't even hear myself think?  In the following weeks, all around me, in the media and in corporations, I kept hearing three phrases that wouldn't leave me alone:  "the meaning void," "Time is the new poverty," and "whatever" (said with a slack jaw and a shrug of limp shoulders).

How can any of us find our way to wholeheartedness in a meaning void?  I knew that time was something we gave ourselves or didn't, and that "whatever" was the quickest way to soul leakage.  And none of us can find meaning or wholeheartedness unless we are in a void, a void of everyone else's images and information.

My grandmother used to fast once a year for twenty-four hours during the holiday of Yom Kippur.  Listening to her empty stomach growling, I asked her once why she fasted.  She didn't say anything for several moments and then she replied, "You can't grab God.  You just have to become empty.  Then God will have a space to enter."

So many of us are afraid of meeting ourselves, alone, without distraction.  We have been taught to fashion an image of who we think we are supposed to be and show that to the world.  Through fear of knowing who we really are we sidestep our own destiny, which leaves us hungry in a famine of our own making.  Each of us is here to give something that only we can offer, and when we avoid knowing ourselves, we end up living numb, passionless lives, disconnected from our soul's true purpose.  But when you have the courage to shape your life from the essence of who you are, you ignite, becoming truly alive.  This requires letting go of everything that is inauthentic.  But how can you even know your truth unless you slow down, in your own quiet company?  When the inner walls to your soul are graffitied with advertisements, commercials, and the opinions of everyone who has ever known and labeled you, turning inward requires nothing less than a major clean-up.

Traveling from the known to the unknown requires crossing an abyss of emptiness.  We first experience disorientation and confusion.  Then, if we are willing to cross the abyss in curious and playful wonder, we enter an expansive and untamed country that has its own rhythm.  Time melts and thoughts become stories, music, poems, images, ideas.  This is the intelligence of the heart, but by that I don't mean just the seat of our emotions.  I mean a vast range of receptive and connective abilities, intuition, innovation, wisdom, creativity, sensitivity, the aesthetic, qualitative and meaning making.  It is here that we uncover our purpose and passion.

The future exists only in our imaginations.  It is a collective story waiting for our voices to express.  That can only happen when you and I are willing to enter the emptiness, listening in the silence until we can understand how to create a future we can befriend.

I am wondering now, dear reader, about you.  What are the courageous conversations you need to have with yourself, and how do you need to have them?"

"The Buddhist Path to Simplicity" by Christine Feldman

(Excerpt copied, with permission, I hope and my gratitude from http://www.livinglifefully.com/flo/flobebeginnersmind.htm)

This excerpt will, hopefully, inspire you to purchase the full book as it did me...

"A young woman returning from work was involved in a car accident that left her with severe head injuries.  After several days in a coma, she awoke in hospital only to discover that she didn't know who she was.  Not only had she forgotten herself but also everything and everyone in her life.  Her initial panic was eased by the doctors' reassurance that her memory was likely to return.  As the days passed in the hospital, she was much comforted by the visits from many kind people who spent time with her, who seemed to know who she was.  There was one elderly man who spent hours by her bedside, sometimes reading to her, sometimes telling her stories of her life, and often just sitting quietly with her.  In the comfort offered by his undemanding presence, she could share the anxieties and fears so alive in her heart.

Her memory began to return, vague fragments and images triggering greater and greater detail, until her life and story were once again accessible to her.  The recovery of her memory was not only a recovery of herself but also of everyone in her life.

The kind, understanding man she had been so reassured by was her father, whom she shared a troubled history with.  To their amazement they discovered that her recovery enabled them to pick up their arguments at the very point they had left them before her accident.

Soon they found themselves fighting familiar battles and all the old stories were recycled.  The peaceful, intimate moments they had shared during her crisis became distant memories, lost in the intensity of their frustration, impatience, and struggle with each other.  Once in a while they would look at each other and remember those blessed moments when no history stood between them.

Tragedy and amnesia are not recommended ways to cultivate a beginner's mind.  Yet the beginner's mind is a pivotal key to unlocking the peace of simplicity.  It is the simple clarity of the beginner's mind that enables us to enter each moment, relationship, and encounter free of prejudice and history.  The cultivation of the beginner's mind is what frees us to greet every moment in our life with an openhearted welcome, to see ourselves, other people, and all of life anew; to be able to make new beginnings.

We collect, store, and accumulate so much weight in this life.  The thousands of thoughts, ideas, and plans we have are imprinted on our minds.  We have engaged in countless conversations and have replayed many of them over and over again.  We have moved from one experience to another, one encounter to another, and we think about them all.  Information and knowledge has been gathered, digested, and stored, and we carry all of this with us.  This input forms our story, the story we have about people, ourselves, and the world.  Experiencing the chaos and turbulence of the saturated mind and heart, forgetfulness may look like a blessing.  Yet our innate capacity to receive the world, a source of both complexity and of compassion, will always be with us.

The beginner's mind has a simple vocabulary founded upon questioning and the willingness to learn.  There are Zen meditative traditions that rest upon bringing one simple question into each moment:  "What is this?"  Whatever arises in our hearts, minds, and bodies is greeted with a probing investigation.  What is this thought, this body, this experience, this feeling, this interaction, this moment?  It is a question intended to dissolve all assumptions, images, opinions, and familiarity.  It is a question that brings a welcoming presence into each moment; a question that perceives neither obstacles nor enemies; a question that appreciates the rich seam of learning offered in every encounter and moment.  It is an "every moment" practice, in which our capacity to listen and attend unconditionally is treasured as the means of transformation.

The expert's mind has a different vocabulary, expressing a devotion to "knowing" deeper than the devotion to freedom.  The expert's mind is the mind entangled with its history, accumulated opinions and judgments, and past experience.  The most frequently occurring word in the mind of the expert is "again."  What a long story the word "again" can carry.  We can sense the shutters of our heart closing as we whisper to ourselves, "This thought, this feeling, this pain, this person again."  The intrusion of the past with all its comparisons, weariness, aversion, or boredom has the power to create a powerful disconnection in that moment.  The word "again" carries with it the voice of knowing, fixing, and dismissing, and with its appearance we say farewell to mystery, to wonder, to openness, and to learning.  Whenever we are not touched deeply by the moment we say farewell to the beginner's mind.  An ancient teacher reminds us, "There is great enlightenment where there is great wonder. . . ."

How much of the knowledge, information, and strategies of our story serve us well?  In our life story we experience hurt, pain, fear and rejection, at times caused by others, at others self-inflicted.  Understanding what causes sorrow, pain, and devastation translates into discriminating wisdom, and we do not knowingly expose ourselves to these conditions.  We are all asked to make wise choices in our lives--choices rooted in understanding rather than fear.

The Buddha used the analogy of a raft.  Walking beside a great river, the bank we are standing on is dangerous and frightening and the other bank is safe.  We collect branches and foliage to build a raft to transport us to the other shore.  Having made the journey safely, supposing we picked up the raft and carried it on our head wherever we went.  Would we be using the raft wisely?  The obvious answer is "No."  A reasonable person would know how useful the raft has been, but wisdom would be to leave the raft behind and walk on unencumbered."

This is the poem I read in class last night...

“I am” conciousness
by Jessica Cerine (?)

I am without beginning or ending.

I am eternal.

I am free to experience life in any way I choose.

My consciousness is not bound by time or space.

Like the universe itself, I am limitless.

I am a part of a vast, unified wholeness.

I am free from all concerns about the past.

I am free from all concerns about the future.

My life is in perfect order, and it unfolds according to a perfect plan.

I do not strive to attain the things that I desire; I simply allow them to flow to me.

I release my grip on life.

I am calm in the knowledge that all my needs are taken care of.

I am open to all of life’s experiences.

As the moments of my life come and go, I am at peace.

I do not judge these moments.
I welcome them.
I observe them.
I accept them all.

If problems arise, I do not resist them.
I observe them with a calm, open mind, for I know that they will resolve in time…
And I have all the time in the world.

In the quiet spaces between my thoughts, inspiration comes to me.

All becomes clear.

My life transforms in magical and unexpected ways.

Obstacles that once seemed impassable, now seem insignificant.

I rise effortlessly above all challenges, to a place of serenity and knowing.

My path forward is becoming clearer and clearer.

Every day, in every way, my life becomes more and more harmonious.

I trust in the natural flow of life.

I resist nothing, I yearn for nothing.

I gratefully receive all that comes my way.

My consciousness is not bound by time or space.

Like the universe itself, I am limitless.

I am a part of a vast, unified wholeness.