Imagine

Imagine…. “Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.” –John Lennon

 

Imagine… “One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.”   ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés

 

Imagine…. “People want to lead peaceful lives. The terrorists are short-sighted, and this is one of the causes of rampant suicide bombings. We cannot solve this problem only through prayers. I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place.

We need a systematic approach to foster humanistic values, of oneness and harmony. If we start doing it now, there is hope that this century will be different from the previous one. It is in everybody’s interest. So let us work for peace within our families and society, and not expect help from God, Buddha or the governments.”  –His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Interview on recent bombings in Paris

 

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” –Nelson Mandela

 

Imagine…..“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”  ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

Imagine . . . “There are at least two ways to understand what it means to have our hearts broken open. One is to imagine the heart broken open into shards and scattered about–a feeling most of us know, and a fate we would like to avoid. The other is to imagine the heart broken open into a new capacity–a process that is not without pain but one that many of us would welcome. As I stand in the tragic gap between reality and possibility, this small, tight fist of a thing called my heart can break open into a greater capacity to hold more of my own and the world’s suffering and joy, despair and hope.”  –Parker J Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness

Imagine . . . “Fortunately, experience shows us that inherent in each risk is the possibility of even more than you imagined from the present vantage point. At the very least, the risk leads to an experience that naturally generates more possibilities and movement in your life. If the meaning of life were to get down to one kernel, one absolute, this would be—choose more dares. –Julie Tallard Johnson  –Taken from The Zero Point Agreement: How To Be Who You Already Are

Imagine This

Take a moment now and close your eyes. Take a deep breath and rest your awareness in the physical sensation of your breath. Just watch your breath as it moves in and out of the body. Notice the physical sensations of your body breathing and sitting. Don’t add any spin to it; just notice the sensations of sitting and breathing. From this place of calm, imagine that you are a drop in the ocean. Everything around you and in you is the ocean. Breathe and imagine (don’t force anything). Notice how as the drop you are part of the whole, belonging intimately to the whole, while at the same time a unique drop within the ocean. Breathe and imagine the physical sensation of this oceanic quality surrounding you and inside of you. This is what is meant to live life from your side. You are part of the whole but uniquely so. You can only contribute to the whole from your side, from your place in the ocean.

 

 I often use this brief meditation when I feel agitated by circumstances. I take a moment from the demands to breathe and imagine how I am this drop; how I am the ocean.