Good Morning,

The mind in its natural clear state is always fundamentally open. We tend to cloud our own natural inherent clarity with doubt, hesitation, fear, anxiety, and all kinds of self protective habitual patterns. We can regain the natural radiant clarity of our minds by exploring and reversing some of these patterns. Just as we tend to our gardens, we can cultivate openness and clarity while noting and dissolving the habits that obscure it in the first place.

This may all sound like simple advice, but how many of us openly face the scenarios and dramas our minds create? How many of us recognize the fact that our minds feed us false information, create dramas, and experience feelings that serve no real purpose? Now how many of us would like to have the intelligence and insight to recognize these moments and the courage and willingness to deal with them as they arise?

Believe it or not, in some ways we have trained ourselves to possess the qualities that cause us the most harm. These can include being self centered, uptight, jealous, or short tempered. Remember all states of being ARE LEARNED. We may not know when, how, or why we learned doubt ourselves. . . but we DID learn it. The good news is that we can also train and teach ourselves to be expansive, open, generous, and patient.

Our thoughts are not as solid as we make them out to be. They actually come and go in a somewhat random and haphazard fashion. We have a tendency to repeat certain patterns because they become familiar. It is entirely possible to step out of these patterns altogether and through mindfulness develop more positive habits that benefit ourselves and others.

We create our world and our society everyday in our collective minds. It is there that we create the societies that we live in and laws that govern them. It is with our minds that we raise our children and regulate our world. There is always talk of wanting to change the world, to make a better place for ourselves and others.

We can do so. . .all we need to do is change our minds.

Peace and Love, Jim