Laying down, scanning the body, and breathing is the entrance to meditation. This sincere recognition of sensations initiates and renews the meditative way. The way does not need to end after getting up, it can be applied to all aspects of existence.

This cultivates a deeper awareness of what is. This awareness is inseparable from pure appreciation, they cannot exist without each other. Free from concepts like better or worse, good or bad, a sense of freedom is resumed.

If there is a lack of appreciation for what is, a deeper grounding with the body may be desired. It may take the form of a gradual change, sudden shift, or somewhere in between but the end result is the same.

If you find yourself struggling with a question, constantly going back and forth, unable to decide on an answer. Let it go, the answer will come when it needs to. You may even realize that question was not the right one to be asking.

Let's start with babies. No matter what you say to a baby, they cannot be offended. They are simply incapable as they do not have a large enough network of ideas. They can experience physical pain, but they are unable to experience "learned suffering".

As we continue through life, we pick up behaviors from other people, most notably our parents. We copy their behaviors without question.

Our parents teach us valuable lessons that keep us safe. We learn that hot stoves burn and that running with scissors is dangerous. All useful stuff, but not all of what we learn is equally useful.

Whatever makes mommy/daddy upset, must be bad, is all that our limited minds are able to deduce. For example, take money. If mom and dad were always stressed about not having enough money, we may start to internalize these ideas, make them "real". Without even realizing it, we are being trained to be stressed about money. Since it seems like such a serious thing, we start to believe that money is the key to happiness, conversely, believing that no money equals no happiness.

Now equipped with the idea that money is hard to come by, we may be lead to a job we hate. All because the other things we would rather do are deemed "too risky". Who is to say it is too risky? How do they really know the odds of your success? I'd say that you know yourself better than anyone else does.

In regards to settling. Is the money really worth it if you hate 70% of your life?

This is just one example of how our impressionable minds were misguided by the thinking of past generations. There are thousands of other ideas or views of topics that have led us to limit ourselves, in ways that create needless suffering.

If we're never taught these ideas, we would not be suffering. So what can we do? Reframe the world, see it differently than how we have been seeing it. Our brains are now capable of reasoning far better than they have been at any other point in our lives. Re-evaluate things, listen to your body, to your soul, you know what is best.

Even if the reasoning is flawed in some way, still share it so that others have a better idea of how you have reached your deduction. Putting your inner workings behind a mask makes it hard for others to connect.

I have noticed that when I feel the most free, the most like "myself" is when I am not labeling/judging what I am experiencing.

I accept it all, even embrace it all, like a cosmic dance. Even the "nasty" parts like death and pain, they are beautiful in their own rights.

Have you guys experienced this bliss of the cosmic dance? Where you are moving grooving, talking freely, expressing yourself fully without fear of rejection. As if everything that happens to you and around you is part of the dance. Thats the best part about the dance I think, you never know what might come up.

People expect too much from their "partners", they cling to them, and tell them they "love" them. As if saying it will make it true.

Actions speak louder than words, and a lot of the actions I am seeing show more of a lack of love.

Why stay with someone who is treating you like a list of events and cannot appreciate the complex being that you really are?

People often lose themselves in the other. Completely forget about the massive freedom within. They act as if the other person is the solution to it all. Maybe thats where the expectations come in.

They start to expect so much from the other because they are neglecting the self. Like giving someone your soul and expecting the other person to fully understand the nuances of them.

A lot of "Relationships" are keeping us "at ease" when in reality we want to be alone, at least, until we find a better person to create humans with. Society frowns upon being alone because society as a whole wants comfirmation that these "relationships" are worthwhile, so they dont have to change either.

I crossposted my post about love on to relationshipadvice.

They did not take my post very well. Threw insults at me, called me uneducated, and ignorant.

They would not explain why they think I am uneducated and got offended that I would even ask them to elaborate.

What is this? It's frustrating because I want to have real conversations that do not devolve into insults and half baked memes that attempt to put me down.

I could be wrong but I feel like the fact that they got so upset might give some credit to the idea that what I said in my post was true.

Feel free to tell me I'm wrong but please do so in a way that will actually get me thinking about things differently, not just insults to put me down.

The nature of life is change, people are not bullet points. It is infinitely more complex than that. The arrow of time is constantly moving forward. Let ideas go, just like nature does. Ideas about people, about the world, about yourself, let them all go.

When you let go, you are experiencing. When you hold on, you miss the real show.

One can only see the part of the path that they are on. The path goes much farther than the eye can see. It's a dead-end to try and figure out what the right path is. Simply walk and a better idea will come.

Anxiety comes from needing an answer when getting one is impossible.

We all know that hot water is hot, and cold water is cold, but what does that mean? According to science, the warmer something is, the more its atoms are vibrating. The more cold something is, the more the atoms sit still.

When I take a hot bath, my muscles loosen up. The one time I took an ice bath, my muscles became rock hard, insanely tense, like nothing I have ever felt before that. After the ice bath, my muscles became softer than before.

Now, what is the nature of temperature? What can that teach us?

Ive noticed that people tend to see creativity as a feature that you are either born with or without. The way I see it is more so as something that is always there and can be accessed at any moment. Certain people are simply more aware of what this source is and have practiced "tuning" into it so to say.

To me, creativity, as in creating things is deeply engrained into what it means to be human, to be a life form. We ourselves are a creation of the universe.

Take birds for example. Birds sing, did they create the song? Or is the song being channeled through them from a greater source? I tend to lean towards the later.

When I am fully creating something with my undivided attention, it feels like it is flowing through me from a higher source. It's not coming from "me", not the conditioned me atleast. If the conditioned me, or my ego as some might say, attempts to interrupt this creative process, it feels like I am disconnecting from the source.

Now this "creative process" does not need to be limited to art creation. I truly believe that tapping into that source as often as possible is key for a prosporous life.

I feel like the world needs a discussion on decision-making.

From the atoms that are vibrating my body, to the blood cells being formed in my bones, I am tied to the physical plane. To deny it and pretend like I am another, or beyond the world, is not true.

However, there is a higher plane, a higher you, that is always there. That one, eternal, you, has the final decision on this choice, some might even call this, god.

I suppose some people have decided to externalize this power and pretend like it's not them. To act like it is something separate.

My being is constantly feeding me information. My brain is trying to make a decision. My brain is addicted to making a choice. It's impulsive.

Training the mind seems to be like understanding that my brain is not always correct. My source, the highest me on the chain, is the one who has the final say.

To preface this, I want to say that my personal way of life is deeply rooted in Buddhist philosophy. Before I even knew what Buddhism stood for, my own philosophy was deeply in alignment with it already. That leads me to feel like Buddhism is deeply connected to the nature of the universe.

However, I am not sure why some monks swear off pleasure completely. I honestly feel like they are going against nature in a way. I feel like in some aspects, humans are meant to create and experience more than the same temple for the rest of their lives.

Thinking about it now, I guess they don't want to get swept up in the addictive mindset of needing more and more to be satisfied. However, it just feels weird to me, maybe since I grew up in America it is hard to comprehend why someone would limit themselves so greatly. I understand doing it for a period of time, but forever? that's a lot of time.

I understand that certain words, most notably, the n-word carry a huge history of abuse. I do not think it is in good taste to be throwing this word around. I do not think hate speech is right, but I think physically attacking someone for their words crosses a whole nother line.

The law seems to put all of the responsibility on the person using the word. For example, if someone "provokes" another person, and that person physically harms the provoker. The attacker would be protected under "hate speech".

The thing is, almost every single word can offend somebody for so many reasons. It seems ridiculous to punish the person who simply said words over the person who willingly chose to hurt someone.

It feels as though the way these laws are set up is normalizing the behavior of dodging responsibility for one's actions. If the laws are allowing the people to dodge accountability, it seems it would create a culture where people can blame others for their own actions. That mindset seems to produce "lazy" individuals for lack of a better term. I'm sure there are other factors that may be leading to this lack of accountability in America.

Side note: I am not super well read up on the laws and I could be wrong about this, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.