Mantras purify us and lift us to a higher state of awareness… Chanting also has significant effect on our bodies and minds. Like everything in this universe, our body is made up of vibrating energy.
Fasting in the monastic community is considered an ascetic practice, a “dhutanga” practice. Dhutanga means “to shake up” or “invigoration”. The Buddha, as is well known, emphasized moderation, the Middle Way that avoids extremes, in all things. Fasting is an additional method that one can take up, with supervision, for a time.
When you chant the Name, it actually moves through your whole being - purifying you, bestowing grace, and making you sacred…Chanting breaks down the barriers between you and your own heart.
Good is that which elevates the mind and evil is that which degrades the mind. Social virtue and vice are temporal entities; they have nothing to do with your relationship with the Supreme.
You may control a mad elephant; You may shut the mouth of the bear and the tiger; Ride the lion and play with the cobra; By alchemy you may earn your livelihood; You may wander through the universe incognito; Make vassals of the gods; be ever youthful; You may walk on water and live in fire; But control of the mind is better and more difficult.
What parents inculcate in the child is permanently there because childhood is the most impressionable time of life.
When we see everything in life as a game, we will be equally joyous when falling as we are when rising. If we can fully understand this – if we can see life as swinging on a swing – we will never fall apart when failure comes our way.
Do not take this material world so seriously because it is always changing. Something terrible that you take so seriously today is going to change tomorrow.
The present moment is indeed a ‘present’ from the Divine… Life as it is happening now, learn to appreciate it, rejoice in it.
