The Lotus Still Blooms Read Online Free PDF

and the Buddhists have a term for this, “viparyasa,” which translates as “upsidedown way.”
    Often we are caught in upside-down thinking. Our greatest challenge is that we don’t recognize it as being upside down. We think we are right. We think our perceptions and thoughts are accurate. They are not. Medieval man thought the world was flat, but it did not make it flat. We could say they had wrong view and wrong thought.
    Here are some suggestions for ways to prevent upside-down thinking, or wrong thought:
    1. Associate with like-minded friends and acquaintances. When this is not possible, say because of a negative work environment, know there is always something you can do. My friend Shirley, a teacher, would find herself becoming greatly troubled by the critical, judgmental, victim-like conversation in the teachers’ lunchroom. Years ago she took control and began to have lunch alone in her classroom. Daily she would begin her lunch period with a fifteen- to twenty-minute meditation. Then silently and mindfully she would enjoy her lunch, followed by ten to fifteen minutes of inspirational reading. After her mindful lunch, she felt refreshed and renewed and ready for her afternoon students.
    2. Faithfully keep a daily spiritual practice, centering yourself in true thoughts frequently throughout the day. Do this by keeping spiritual reading material handy and referring to it often. Take a soul break by entering into your inner spirit for three to five minutes.
    3. Keep an affirmation or mantra handy to repeat, especially when you are being pulled into a judgmental or fearful situation. Use mala beads and repeat a set of ten two or three times a day using your mantra.
     
These practices are supportive in keeping you on track daily. Think of it as a spiritual diet. Feeding your soul is equally as important as feeding your body.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “We become what we think about all day long.” Be ever mindful of what your thoughts beneath your thoughts might be. Think in accord with that which is spiritually true, good, kind, helpful, loving.
    In order to have Right Thinking we must have it in the foundation of Right View. Our minds must be constantly trained and every thought mindfully witnessed in order to move into Right View.
     
All that I am is the result of all that I have thought.
     
— THE DHAMMAPADA
    Our thinking is constantly creating our reality. The easiest way to observe your past thinking is to look at what is present in your life today. Whatever it may be is a certain indicator of where your thinking has been.
     
Buddhism has a special gift for helping people calm their minds.
     
—HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA
     
In Buddhism there are three practices that instruct us in Right Thought that are very helpful in creating a calm mind:
    First: There is a practice to frequently ask yourself, “Are you sure?” Are you sure your thinking about a person or a situation is accurate? Or is it just a story you are telling yourself? This humorous story illustrates the point.
    After several years of observing him do it, a woman in my congregation asked me why it was my husband, David, left the 9 A.M. service immediately preceding the offering. For years she had thought he left at that moment as some sort of cosmic act not to be in the sanctuary when the tithes and offerings were being given and received. Her thinking told her something to the effect that he did not feel it was appropriate for the minister’s husband to be in the room during that part of the service. In actuality he always left the service at that point to go to another part of the building to be on time to facilitate a Course in Miracles study group. Her perception was essentially a story she had made up.
    When she revealed to me what her self-talk story had convinced her was true, I burst out laughing. I dropped my usually unflappable platform, ministerial persona and laughed heartily. It was slightly embarrassing. She had been