This wonderful practice was sent out with several others in Atum O’Kanes most recent “Deeper Story” blog post.
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The Good Seeds Practice
As Reb.Zalman so generously shared, ”I am only the Aha’s that I integrated into my being and life. The others came and went like the weather.” Below are the four stages of integrating the good seeds insights that you long to have become a fruitful reality in you and your journey, rather than a potential that was never realized.
1. Plant the good seed deeply in the fertile soil of your heart. Spend time feeling how it touches the core and what arises in response.
2. Water the seed regularly. This is a practice that nurtures the seed as it is unfolding its potential in one. Pir Vilayat spoke of remembrance as the secret of life for we are always forgetting. Each time we water the seed we are deepening the impression of the wisdom within it upon our heart and mind.
3. Cultivate the good seed by creating conditions in your life that support its growth. Seek to remove or transform habits or circumstances that will block its full realization. As Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche advises, be very clear about what supports your spiritual path and what hinders it. Step out of ambiguity.
4. Harvest the fruits that have emerged from the good seed in you and in your life. Hazrat Inayat Khan advised one to honor the fulfillment of a calling. When we do so there is a blessing or empowerment that is given.
Good Seeds for 2022
•It must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least 10 times a day. Why does this not happen in our culture? – Mary Oliver
• Kindness is my true religion. Love, compassion and tolerance are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity would not survive. – The Dalai Lama
• Throughout society today people feel great loneliness. The only thing that will bring happiness is affection and warm heartedness. – The Dalai Lama
•If I practiced anger, bitterness, or jealousy, my smile would disappear. – The Dalai Lama
• There is a Tibetan teaching that says what causes suffering, in the general pattern of how to be with others: envy toward the above, competitiveness toward the equal, and contempt toward the lower. – The Dalai Lama
• It takes time. We are growing and learning how to be compassionate, how to be caring, how to be human. – The Dalai Lama
• God created us and said, “Go my child, you have freedom.” And God has such incredible reverence for freedom that God would much rather we went to hell than compel us to come to heaven. – Desmond Tutu
• I would usually go to my chapel if I had something that really upset me. I would lambast God. You can go to God and speak all you have, pouring it out in that fashion. – Desmond Tutu
• Righteous anger is usually not about oneself. It is about those one sees being harmed and whom one wants to help. – Desmond Tutu
• Hope is based on the firm ground of conviction. I believe with steadfast hope there can never be a situation that is utterly hopeless. – Desmond Tutu
• A question to Desmond Tutu: You have been able to maintain joy in the face of suffering. How have you been able to do that? “Well, I have certainly been helped by others. One of the good things is realizing you are not in a solitary cell. You are part of a wonderful community. That helped very greatly. You open, you blossom, really because of other people.” – Desmond Tutu
• See yourself as a playful being in a blessed universe. – Meister Eckhart
The quotes of the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu are from the book they created together, The Book Of Joy. If you have a negative view of Christianity and do not see its relevance in our time, I suggest reading In God’s Hands by Desmond Tutu.