A Quote by Natalie Goldberg
Whether you're keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it's the same thing. What's important is you're having a relationship with your mind.
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Millions of people are joined in the knowledge that writing brings insight and calm in the same way that prayer, meditation, or a long walk in the woods does. They have discovered that writing allows the racing mind to move at the pace of pen and paper or the pace of typing on the waiting screen - that journal writing is a spiritual practice.
Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in your life as you sometimes think. When you re-read your journal you find out that your latest discovery is something you already found out five years ago. Still, it is true that one penetrates deeper and deeper into the same ideas and the same experiences.
Your subconscious mind is trying to help you all the time. That's why I keep a journal - not for chatter but for mostly the images that flow into the mind or little ideas. I keep a running journal, and I have all of my life, so it's like your gold mine when you start writing.
I didn't have to keep a bloody journal. It's terribly boring keeping a journal anyway. I hate it. You spend more time writing down life instead of living it.
Mind without agitation is meditation. Mind in the present moment is meditation. Mind that has no hesitation, no anticipation is meditation. Mind that has come back home, to the source, is meditation. Mind that becomes no mind is meditation.
For me, writing is a way of thinking. I write in a journal a lot. I'm a very impatient person, so writing and meditation allow me to slow down and watch my mind; they are containers that keep me in place, hold me still.
Keeping a journal of what's going on in your life is a good way to help you distill what's important and what's not.
The most important relationship is the mind's relationship with itself. In other words, the ultimate - and, really, the only - relationship you have is the relationship with your own thoughts.
Meditation is not a matter of trying to stop thinking or make your mind go blank but rather to realize when your attention is wandering and to simply let go of the thoughts and begin again. It is a way of changing our relationship to our thoughts, so we're not so consumed by them, with no sense of space. Having a newly spacious relationship to our thoughts brings both peace and freedom.
Chanting Hare Krishna is really the same sort of thing as meditation, but I think it has a quicker effect. I mean, even if you put your beads down, you can still say the mantra or sing it without actually keeping track on your beads.
Don't settle for something that's not great. Don't feel like having a relationship that is not serving your needs is more important than having a relationship with yourself.
Meditation is not of the body, not of the mind, not of the soul. Meditation simply means your body, your mind, your soul, all functioning in such a harmony, in such wholeness, humming so beautifully... that they are in a melody, they are one. Your whole being - body, mind, soul - is involved in meditation.
Preaching and writing - it's the same. Whether I'm writing to speak or writing to be read in a book, it's the same thing.
Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenor of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal?
There is a common misunderstanding that during meditation the mind should never engage in processing thoughts. It is okay in meditation for the mind to move into many different directions, while at the same time attempting to return to a centered, relaxed state of mind.
I always try meditation. Meditation means always keeping one mind, not-moving mind.
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