Another Finger

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Don’t cheat yourself. Learn to enjoy every moment. Learn to be present in the now. If you can make these slight shifts in your mental attitudes you will regret nothing. You will have lived life to its fullest. The quality of your life will meet exactly the quality of your attention now. If you choose to rush through, that’s what you’ll get. If you choose to be annoyed, that’s what you’ll get. If you choose to hate, dislike, distrust, that’s what you’ll get. The energy with which you choose to live your life is the energy you’re putting out into the world and the world will respond in kind. Like finds like. Catch yourself when you get caught up in poor attitudes, reframe the situation and do what you need to do with gratitude, compassion and love. Learn what life has to teach. This is how to lift yourself and everything around you. This is the real revolution. But only you can make the choice, one moment at a time. 

In the words of the late great Ram Dass, “Be here now.”

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Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
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 I have been asked to record a few guided meditations from some of you who listen, so here is the first of them. This is a meditation from Noah Levine's Refuge Recovery World Services' (RRWS) program. I highly recommend the book; Refuge Recovery: A Buddhist Path to Recovery From Addiction to anyone struggling with addictive behaviors of any kind. Thanks to my good friend who lent his copy to me. I'm forever grateful. 

From the back the book:

"Refuge Recovery is a Buddhist-oriented, nontheistic recovery program that does not ask anyone to believe anything, only to trust the process and do the hard work of recovery. In fact, no previous experience or knowledge of Buddhism is required.  Recovery is possible, and this book provides a systematic approach to treating and recovering from all forms of addictions. When sincerely practiced, the program will ensure a full recovery from addiction and a lifelong sense of well-being and happiness."

NOAH LEVINE, M.A., has been using Buddhist practices to recover from addiction since 1988. He is the founding teacher of Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society. Visit the author online at www.refugerecovery.org

Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
Email: [email protected]
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We know little to nothing about all of what is going on around us at any given moment. It is natural for us to want to make sense of the world, just spend some time with a curious child and you’ll see this natural tendency. Our desire for knowledge may take us further from the Eternal Tao, that which cannot be named. Perhaps this is because we begin to divide and categorize and label everything we see. We then create self and other, believing that we are separate.

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Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/another-finger/id1526096210

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cMYCxrGf3brRjQvj6SBvJ?si=Cle2fGlwQkqXr5GpXsN6Xg

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCQfLN0PW4J8KkFr86y8lifA

Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
Email: [email protected]
Social Media: Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr @Sh4rkH4ts

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Meditation is itself a practice in doing not doing. While it is true that meditation is an action which we perform, what we are really doing is absolutely nothing. This action of non-action can be difficult for many people to accept, especially in the west, where we have a difficult time just sitting and doing nothing.

Free month of Waking Up: https://dynamic.wakingup.com/shareOpenAccess/d5251a

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/another-finger/id1526096210

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cMYCxrGf3brRjQvj6SBvJ?si=Cle2fGlwQkqXr5GpXsN6Xg

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCQfLN0PW4J8KkFr86y8lifA

Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
Email: [email protected]
Social Media: Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr @Sh4rkH4ts

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Free month of Waking Up: https://dynamic.wakingup.com/shareOpenAccess/d5251a

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/another-finger/id1526096210

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cMYCxrGf3brRjQvj6SBvJ?si=Cle2fGlwQkqXr5GpXsN6Xg

YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCQfLN0PW4J8KkFr86y8lifA

Alan Watts has an analogy to life, or of living life rather, to that of dancing or playing music. He jokingly and rhetorically points out that the purpose of music is not the end of a composition. If it were, he says, the best composers would be the ones who played the fastest, who arrived at the end the quickest. We don’t go to a concert to see one final crescendo, one final crashing note. We enjoy the play of the music as it goes along. Likewise when we dance, the purpose is not to arrive at some specified point on the floor. The point of dancing is to dance. Life therefore is a playing of the music, the dancing the dance, and there is no point on the dance floor upon which we are supposed to arrive.

Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
Email: [email protected]
Social Media: Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr @Sh4rkH4ts

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Today I wanted to point out some of the basic insights we might gain from meditation. Mainly the insight of impermanence. When we pay close enough attention, we can see that all things come and go, and we are not exempt from this truth. Our interests, our stuff, the weather, our feelings, even our knowledge and fears. Everything is subject to change. In reality this is what makes life enjoyable and interesting. There is simply nothing that impermanence doesn’t touch. Some might say that impermanence is the only permanent truth. So how can meditation help us to see this and live our lives accordingly? 

https://www.anotherfinger.com

Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
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I ended the last episode with the famous quote of MLK “I choose Love, for Hate is too great a burden to bear.”  I feel it is a good time, being Valentine’s Day and all, to explore this quote and  talk about love, though somewhat indirectly. Love is a transforming, healing, and generous skill which has the power to transform our lives and the lives of those around us, though it is often hard to love freely and openly. We all know this, so what is it that keeps us from loving? Though I rarely speak in absolutes, I agree with Alan Watts when he says “We must love”.

Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
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With the passing of yet another great leader and teacher, one may ask: Where are the greats of today? Is it our inability to pay attention long enough to anything worthwhile that is keeping greatness from emerging? Put another way, have we, because of our current inattentive habits, forced the great minds and rhetoricians to stuff their wisdom inside a fortune cookie or a tweet? Can we find within us the capacity for nuance? What can we do to expand our capacity for understanding?

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In honor of our beloved teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, please consider donating to his monastery.
Also, read The Art of Living.

Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
Email: [email protected]
Social Media: Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr @Sh4rkH4ts

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At times we can be like children obsessing over the latest toy, forgetting every toy which has preceded it, forgetting that this toy will surely go the way of every other past toy; that is fun for a time, until it breaks, wears down, or more often than not, we lose interest and another toy enters our consciousness and promises to finally make us happy. It is quite okay to seek, and to find and to enjoy the things of this world. What is more important is that we ask ourselves “what is the motivational force behind our seeking and wanting?”.

www.anotherfinger.com

Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
Email: [email protected]
Social Media: Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr @Sh4rkH4ts

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It is the time of year for giving. Let's give well.

http://givewell.org

http://plumvillage.app

https://www.anotherfinger.com

Cover Art: Rory Jenkins  
Email: [email protected]
Social Media: Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr @Sh4rkH4ts