Enjoy the match

What if you choose to enjoy the match and forget about the possibility of winning any game? What if you concentrate on experiencing fulfillment where you are and stop reaching for what always seems beyond you? Why not stop trying to be anything different than you are, stop struggling to get somewhere. Learn to let go of craving, wanting, striving.  The end of suffering comes as you stop fighting and choose to be here now.  To keep mind still energizes rather than drains you.  Trust, allow peace and joy emerge from within.

Shrink the monster

As you focus on the experience of feeling healthy, joyful and sharing that, you extend this state of being.  When you focus on difficulties, you feed them, enabling them to grow.  Every unkind thought, word or self-criticism gives the inner monster energy and power over you. Buddha calls them 'anger-eating demons.'

How would your life experience change if you treated situations or people that evoke discomfort with love and kindness?  Imagine all the difficult people you encounter, those who mistreat you or trigger negative feelings.  What do they teach? People are often unaware of what they do.  Rather than get angry, why not view everything as a wonderful opportunity to laugh and grow? Then the world laughs with, not at you. 

What if the most difficult person in life is actually you? In order to learn to live with people who push your buttons, it is first necessary to gain insight into and grow more accepting of your true essence.  Then you realize how people relate to you does not always reflect how they truly feel.  Notice what happens as you show compassion, appreciate everyone as they are.  How you see shifts with your patience and kindness. 

Remember how to stop being your own enemy. Relax. Accept who you are. Knowing the causes of being difficult enables you to recognize how to shrink the monster within. You come to reailze difficult people are projections of your own rejection. Suddenly, difficulty is a figment of your imagination. As you come to understand true self, then nothing and nobody are difficult.  Be still and the source of irritation disappears.

Rely on the path

To know your thoughts and emotions intimately enables you to weather any storm.  When you live under the influence of afflictive emotions, you forget who you are.  When you look for strength and trust outside self, you grow more afraid of illusions.  In order to free the essence of being from the mind, it is necessary to understand and transcend afflictive emotions that you permit to control you.  Awaken from the dream.

What enables you to realize new levels of awakening? How does life show you sources of pleasure also bring you insight into experience of pain and suffering?  Why does heightened awareness serve you?   

Reconnect with spontaneity

Notice the nature of soul-level spontaneity versus mind-driven motivation.  Which do you favor or ignore?  One way to deepen spiritual practice is to sense a journey to expand and serve others emerges from the innermost core. 

Take the example some people are inspired by altruism, that is the desire to serve.  Others are motivated to act based on fear or something in-between.  The world transforms through our changes in attitude, perception and behaviour.  Whether you choose to awaken to the nature of the essence of being and extent of energy flowing through you, is up to you.

Reflect on what you attend to

Wiliam James writes, "My experience is what I attend to."  Where do you focus your attention?  Notice how the mind is focused and also relaxed.  It is selectively aware. People do not always recall how to feel and engage in the simple things without hurrying. What would it take for you to be truly present at each step of the journey? Take a moment to appreciate things. Recognize the intrinsic meaning of just being.