A Crystal Primer

Posted on July 7, 2016 by marcia

Now That I Have My Crystals, What Do I Do With Them?

In5D July 5, 2016

HOW DO I CHOOSE A CRYSTAL

There will be times when you need to purchase a crystal, and given the great abundance of healing stones now available, it can be useful to have a system for choosing your crystals. You do not need to know the exact properties of every stone in order to buy one, although this may help.

Below is a list of possible ways you could go about choosing a crystal. Remember, just because a crystal is beautiful, and the nicest one of a bunch, doesn’t mean that it is the best crystal for you. It is more important to be receptive and allow yourself to be drawn to a stone that will have meaning for you.

CHOOSING BY “FIRST SIGHT”

Often when you first see a range of crystals, one stone will catch your eye, and continue to draw your attention. This is likely to be a stone that will be beneficial to you. At this point you may like to trust your intuition and purchase the crystal.

However, if you are overwhelmed by choice, or are unsure of what crystal it was that first grabbed you, try standing quietly for a few moments with your eyes closed, and remember the reason that you needed to purchase a crystal. When you open your eyes choose the crystal you feel most drawn to. This will be the stone for you.

SENSING CRYSTALS

One of the suggested methods of buying a crystal requires that you look at a crystal and see if it “vibrates” with you. All crystals vibrate at their own frequency and some people are sensitive enough to feel these vibrations. Holding or placing your hand on a large piece of clear quartz crystal is a good way to develop your sensitivity to these vibrations. Sometimes a quartz may give off a regular pulse of energy; you may feel others as being very cold in your hand, or even warm. Some crystals may produce a tingling sensation on your skin. Generally a crystal that will be beneficial to you will feel right to you even though you may not be able to describe the sensations it creates. Look through a large number of them until you find just the right one. This works fine as long as you wide variety to select from.

USING A PENDULUM

This is a simple way to seek answers from your subconscious mind. You can hold a pendulum over the top of a crystal and ask “will this crystal be beneficial to me?”. Another way to use the pendulum, if you are considering a large choice of crystals, is to pass it over the top, and look for any circular motion in the pendulum above a particular crystal. If you do find the pendulum reacting over a particular stone, hold it over the stone directly, and ask a question.

RECEIVING A CRYSTAL

Crystals given as a gift are a precious experience, and as you start to use crystals more, you may begin to find crystals, or rather, they find you! It is not uncommon for these crystals to be just what you need at that given moment. It is also not uncommon to lose crystals, and although this can be upsetting when your favourite goes missing, it is usually an indication that the crystal has served its purpose in that situation and is no longer required. This is particularly so with “Record Keepers” and “Window” crystals.

BUYING WHAT’S AVAILABLE TO YOU

Another method to purchase a crystal is buying whatever crystal that is available to you. You may also get one as a gift. In either of these cases, you will be “bonding” with the crystal and that provides the “tuning” of the crystal to your “vibration“. So it isn’t all that critical that you find the “perfect” crystal when buying one.

INTERNET BUYING

When choosing a crystal from an internet site it is not possible to touch the crystal, so you need to take your intuition one stage further. Browse through the pictures and note which most appeals to you. You may find yourself excited by the picture of a particular crystal, with a powerful urge to touch and feel it and a sense of frustration that you cannot. If you feel that you very much want that crystal to be a part of your life, it is likely that on some level it has something to offer you.

WHAT IF I’M NOT DRAWN TO A CRYSTAL

Don’t worry. As with all purchases relating to spiritual growth intent is crucial, and you may need to acknowledge that the time isn’t right. If nothing strongly appeals to you, accept that the time is not right and come back on another day when perhaps a crystal will plead with you to take it home. Beware of buying crystals purely because that is what you set out to do as this could result in a collection of crystals unsuited to your needs and lacking meaning.

A FINAL WORD

Expect the Unexpected – I often set out to buy a specific crystal and end up purchasing something completely different. Be prepared to have your unconscious lead you to a different crystal. The unconscious or higher self doesn’t get involved with life’s day-to-day clutter and thus can get straight down to the business of selecting the most appropriate crystal for you. This is why the best approach to choosing a crystal is to quieten your mind and simply do what feels right.

Clearing Your Crystals

Crystals can collect various forms of energy from emotions, thought, touch, and many other sources. When other people handle your crystal, they leave their energy imprint on the crystal. This isn’t “bad” however, in order to make your crystal truly yours, we suggest that you remove the stored vibration. This is known as clearing the crystal.

It is a good idea to clear your crystal when you first get it, after you use it for any healing work, or whenever you feel that the crystal lacks light, luster, and energy.

Sea Salt Method

(Please note: many feel this method is too harsh. They prefer some of the other, more gentle methods listed below.)

Bury the crystal in sea salt overnight, preferably in a ceramic or glass container. You can purchase sea salt in most health food stores and in some supermarkets. You may also put your crystal in a container of water and sea salt. Use your intuition to determine how much salt you need and how long you want to leave the crystal in the solution (usually one to three days). Wash all salt off the crystals after clearing them. (We recommend filtered water for this.)

Smudging

A wonderful Native American method of clearing is to burn cedar and sage leaves and pass your crystal through the smoke. Cedar and sage may be purchased in most shops that specialize in herbs. You can also use a smudge stick, which combines cedar, sage, and often other herbs. This method is excellent for clearing your crystal as well as yourself and your environment. We prefer it for clearing jewelry.

Breath

Hold the crystal in your dominant hand, or if it is large, in both your hands. Focus your thoughts on the crystal with the intention that it will become free of all negative energy. As you hold this thought, inhale through your nose and exhale forcefully through your mouth. Your breath carries your intention to clear your crystal.

Remember to use your intuition to determine when your crystal needs clearing. Whenever you sense a decrease in its energy, a cloudiness or stickiness, it’s time to clear.

Charging

To charge a crystal is to revitalize it. Think of what kind of energy you want to store in your crystal. We have tried charging our crystals with many different energies.

Use your imagination and experiment by putting your crystal in direct sunlight or moonlight, on a large crystal cluster, under a pyramid, buried in the snow, or in the earth.

Type of Energy Where (or When) to Place

Cleansing, purifying stream
Vitality, energy sea at high tide
Restful, relaxing sea at low tide
Optimism, hope new moon
Abundance, love full moon
Introspection dark of moon
Harvesting dreams fall equinox
Rebirth, renewal winter solstice
Growth spring equinox
Passion, joy summer solstice

Working With Crystals: Passive Use of Crystal

Even if all you do with your crystal is keep it near you, you will begin to notice subtle changes in yourself. Crystals amplify and balance even the most subtle mental energy. Just having crystals in your environment can improve the quality of your life.

Active Use of Crystal

When we consciously work with crystal we can accomplish anything that the mind can imagine. Crystals have been helpful in improving memory, helping plants to grow, healing animals, contacting spirit guides, and in communicating with the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms.

One particularly powerful way to work with crystals is through the use of affirmations.

Affirmations

Affirmations are one of the most powerful methods we can use to change the quality of our lives and to create the things we want. An affirmation is a declaration or a thought which creates a desired result. To affirm means to make firm.” What we think or believe about ourselves and the world becomes our reality.

Pay attention to your affirmations, not only to avoid rote-like repetitions, but to actually hear what you’re saying. Joyce once realized that her affirmation, “I have an unlimited number of valuable ideas” had turned into “I have an unlimited number of limiting ideas.” This was a valuable, if depressing, discovery.

We have been giving ourselves affirmations all our lives – only we weren’t aware of it. Anything we say or think to ourselves is an affirmation. Anything anyone else says to us is an affirmation if we accept it and believe it. When we’re not aware of the process and the power of that which we think and believe about ourselves and our world we affirm a lot of things which don’t serve us well.

We are all carrying around basic core beliefs. Some of them are non-supportive things that we learned early in childhood from parents, teachers and friends.

Some unconscious affirmations:

If I look at food I gain weight
Life is nothing but suffering
The universe is against me
I am doomed to die without ever having been appreciated
Metaphysics works for everyone but me

Discovering Negative Beliefs

Becoming aware of these unconscious affirmations is the first step to dissolving them. Be conscious of your negative thoughts. One way to do this is to create a positive affirmations for example, “Abundance comes to me easily.” Your helpful mind will quickly come up with a list of reasons why this isn’t going to happen.

It never did before.
Some people aren’t meant to have money.
Why should I get my hopes up?

Another way is take the situation you want to change, and list the benefits of the negative situation. The benefits of not being prosperous might be:

No one will ever ask you for money.
You’ll never have to worry about suddenly losing your fortune.
You won’t have to feel guilty that others have less.

Whatever your issue is find out what its benefits are. Be careful not to censor yourself in the process, i.e., don’t tell yourself, “If I had a lot of money and someone needed help I’d be a terrible person not to give it to them.” Self-condemnation will not encourage your beliefs to surface; honesty will.

Work on each belief, identifying the emotion connected to it. Would you give money to people who needed it? Do you feel ungenerous? Are you afraid of acquiring money, only to lose it? Is this fear part of your life? Does guilt have a lot to do with how you relate to other people?

We strongly recommend the use of flower essences for deeply-held emotions.

The Three Aspects of Affirmations

When we consciously create affirmations we choose words which exactly express the reality we desire to create.

Another important aspect is the visual image we create to accompany the words. If we want to create a vacation in Hawaii we visualize palm trees, beaches, blue skies, warmth, etc. (It can be very helpful to look at the pictures in a travel brochure, and some people like to make a “wishboard” with an arrangement of photographs which represent whatever they’re creating).

A third (and perhaps most important) aspect is to create the way we feel when our special dream comes true. For a Hawaiian vacation you may feel relaxed or excited and stimulated to be in a new place. If you’re with someone you love you may feel increased closeness or a heightened sense of romance. If you have difficulty in visualizing or feeling the reality of your affirmation go back to the section on discovering negative beliefs.

Programming Your Crystal

Your thoughts, visualizations, and feelings have an energetic charge; when you program a crystal to assist you in manifesting your desires and dreams you put that energetic charge into your crystal.

Although quartz crystals are usually the preferred crystals for programming, we’ve used many others: citrine for abundance, rose quartz for a situation which calls for love, aquamarine or turquoise for creativity, aventurine for physical health.

Below is one method of programming.

Exercise

Hold the crystal in both hands and gaze into it, making contact with the crystal.
Start breathing with deep long breaths, inhaling through your nose and exhaling forcefully through your mouth.
Concentrate on what you want to program into the crystal„ a new job, good health, a better relationship, etc. As you inhale, see a visual image of what you want; imagine how it feels to have it, and repeat an affirmation to yourself.
With each exhale send your desire into the crystal.
Your intention has now been programmed into the crystal. This vibration is stored in the crystal until you clear it and replace it with a new intention.

Written Affirmations

One of the most powerful methods of programming that we’ve discovered is to write your intention on a piece of paper and, after using the above method, place your crystal on the written note and leave it there. We did this when we were searching for the perfect spot for Crystal Gardens. We placed a programmed quartz cluster on a map of Greenwich Village along with a note requesting the size and rent we wanted. It worked!

Basic Meditation

We prefer to meditate with crystals and describe this further along in the article. For those who are unfamiliar with principles and practices of meditation, though, we provide a basic introduction.

Meditation gives us a chance to relax, and to heal our bodies. It provides periods of mental stillness, an opportunity to silence the mundane chatter which so often fills our minds, time and space for us to focus our thoughts, to concentrate on the solving of a problem, to visualize the accomplishment of a particular goal.

As we become more skilled at quieting our busy minds, we discover that meditation helps to focus our attention on the here and now. When we give ourselves the gift of time in which we are neither regretting the past nor worrying about the future, we are able to appreciate the present.

Seth, the entity channeled by the late Jane Roberts, often said that he had only one rule for changing one’s life. That was: The point of power is in the present. When we concentrate on the present, we experience our aliveness, the strength of the energy which flows through us. We learn to recognize that energy as power, the raw material with which we create ourselves and our worlds.

(Very) Active Meditation

Some forms of exercise, such as hatha yoga and tai chi ch’uan, which consist of particular patterns of movement, are recognized as forms of meditation. We believe that any form of physical activity can be meditational. The key is to be totally focused on what you’re doing.

When you’re exercising concentrate on the smooth, easy movement of your muscles, your breathing. If you swim, be aware of the feeling of the water. In hiking or walking, focus on the ground beneath your feet.

Sometimes, while swimming or walking, we silently repeat affirmations. To do this, repeat each affirmation three or more times, focusing on the instructions you’re giving your mind, visualizing that you are prosperous, or thin, or loved. We recommend physical exercise not only for its own meditative values, but because it discharges excess energy, the kind that creates worries and anxieties which can prevent us from being relaxed and at peace when we want to practice passive meditation.

(Not Very) Passive Meditation

Passive meditation generally involves sitting or lying down. Create a time during which you’ll be undisturbed. Take the phone off the hook. Go into a room where you’ll be alone. Create this as a special time for yourself.

You may want to start off with a guided meditation tape. This will help direct your mind into appropriate channels. You can also direct passive meditation by silently repeating affirmations. When you feel comfortable with these forms of meditation you can begin to guide your meditations.

We like to listen to meditation music (which can be any kind of music which makes you feel relaxed and calm) on a mp3-type device. This is especially helpful when garbage is being collected, fire engines are blaring, or strangers have entered your life by having a fight outside your window.

Concentrate on your breathing, following each inhale and exhale, feeling energy flowing from your feet to your head and back. Do this for as long as you can. If you find yourself wondering whether you’ve paid the rent, or thinking about what you’ll have to eat when you’re finished meditating, let those thoughts drift away.

It may help for you to imagine that you have a feather duster with which to brush them out of your mind. You’ll find that your ability to meditate improves with practice. In passive meditation, you’re developing psychic and mental muscles. As you learn to silence distracting thoughts, you’ll begin to receive messages from your intuitive mind: new ideas, creative solutions to problems.

You may want to ask specific questions of your intuitive mind. Don’t worry if the answer doesn’t come right away. It may occur to you a few minutes or a few days later.

Crystal Concentration

We have noticed that the quality of our meditations improved immeasurably when we started making crystals part of our meditation. Crystals help to focus our energy, and thus our thoughts. They raise our vibrations and energy level and help to turn our attention from everyday concerns to our greater purposes in being alive.

The simplest way to introduce crystals into your meditation is to hold a clear quartz in one or both of your hands. To receive light and energy, hold the quartz with point facing you. To project your wishes into the universe (as when you’re repeating affirmations), face the points away from you.

Chakra Balancing

For stress reduction and overall energizing, place quartz points (they may be very small) at the base of the spine, just above the pubic bone, on the navel, heart, throat, 3rd eye (between the eyebrows), and at the top of your head.

These seven chakra points can be further activated by slowly rotating a quartz point over them. If you find that, despite your best efforts, you’re still worrying when you want to be meditating, place an amethyst on the third eye. If you’re feeling extremely depressed or spaced out, hold a smoky quartz. Before long you’ll discover that you intuitively know what stones you want to be with on a particular day.

We believe that your intuition will generally be opened if you begin the practice of daily meditation. It is a discipline, and there will be times when you’d rather read the newspaper or call a friend, or do anything in the world except meditate. Persevere. You’ll be glad you did.

Chakras, Color & Gemstones

There is no homogeneous system for classification of the chakras, either by body location or by color. We have found that the system used by Katrina Raphaell, author of Crystal Enlightenment, Crystal Healing, and The Crystalline Transmission gives us the best results.

After working with crystals and the ideas presented in this article, you may notice that you are developing a new consciousness, a new belief system which stretches the limits in which you were living before. There is a new inner freedom in which anything becomes possible as long it is in harmony with your deep heart’s core. This is the gift crystals give us.

from: http://in5d.com/now-that-i-have-my-crystals-what-do-i-do-with-them/

Mindfulness Practice

Posted on January 21, 2016 by marcia

Thich Nhat Hanh on The Practice of Mindfulness

by Thich Nhat Hanh| October 26, 2015

“Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in.” It is such a simple practice, but it can transform your life. The great meditation master Thich Nhat Hanh teaches five mindfulness exercises to help you live with happiness and joy.

Our true home is not in the past. Our true home is not in the future. Our true home is in the here and the now. Life is available only in the here and the now, and it is our true home.

Mindfulness is the energy that helps us recognize the conditions of happiness that are already present in our lives. You don’t have to wait ten years to experience this happiness. It is present in every moment of your daily life. There are those of us who are alive but don’t know it. But when you breathe in, and you are aware of your in-breath, you touch the miracle of being alive. That is why mindfulness is a source of happiness and joy.

Most people are forgetful; they are not really there a lot of the time. Their mind is caught in their worries, their fears, their anger, and their regrets, and they are not mindful of being there. That state of being is called forgetfulness—you are there but you are not there. You are caught in the past or in the future. You are not there in the present moment, living your life deeply. That is forgetfulness.

The opposite of forgetfulness is mindfulness. Mindfulness is when you are truly there, mind and body together. You breathe in and out mindfully, you bring your mind back to your body, and you are there. When your mind is there with your body, you are established in the present moment. Then you can recognize the many conditions of happiness that are in you and around you, and happiness just comes naturally.

Mindfulness practice should be enjoyable, not work or effort. Do you have to make an effort to breath in? You don’t need to make an effort. To breathe in, you just breathe in. Suppose you are with a group of people contemplating a beautiful sunset. Do you have to make an effort to enjoy the beautiful sunset? No, you don’t have to make any effort. You just enjoy it.

The same thing is true with your breath. Allow your breath to take place. Become aware of it and enjoy it. Effortlessness. Enjoyment. The same thing is true with walking mindfully. Every step you take is enjoyable. Every step helps you to touch the wonders of life, in yourself and around you. Every step is peace. Every step is joy. That is possible.

During the time you are practicing mindfulness, you stop talking—not only the talking outside, but the talking inside. The talking inside is the thinking, the mental discourse that goes on and on and on inside. Real silence is the cessation of talking—of both the mouth and of the mind. This is not the kind of silence that oppresses us. It is a very elegant kind of silence, a very powerful kind of silence. It is the silence that heals and nourishes us.

Mindfulness gives birth to joy and happiness. Another source of happiness is concentration. The energy of mindfulness carries within it the energy of concentration. When you are aware of something, such as a flower, and can maintain that awareness, we say that you are concentrated on the flower. When your mindfulness becomes powerful, your concentration becomes powerful, and when you are fully concentrated, you have a chance to make a breakthrough, to achieve insight. If you meditate on a cloud, you can get insight into the nature of the cloud. Or you can meditate on a pebble, and if you have enough mindfulness and concentration, you can see into the nature of the pebble. You can meditate on a person, and if you have enough mindfulness and concentration, you can make a breakthrough and understand the nature of that person. You can meditate on yourself, or your anger, or your fear, or your joy, or your peace.

Anything can be the object of your meditation, and with the powerful energy of concentration, you can make a breakthrough and develop insight. It’s like a magnifying glass concentrating the light of the sun. If you put the point of concentrated light on a piece of paper, it will burn. Similarly, when your mindfulness and concentration are powerful, your insight will liberate you from fear, anger, and despair, and bring you true joy, true peace, and true happiness.

When you contemplate the big, full sunrise, the more mindful and concentrated you are, the more the beauty of the sunrise is revealed to you. Suppose you are offered a cup of tea, very fragrant, very good tea. If your mind is distracted, you cannot really enjoy the tea. You have to be mindful of the tea, you have to be concentrated on it, so the tea can reveal its fragrance and wonder to you. That is why mindfulness and concentration are such sources of happiness. That’s why a good practitioner knows how to create a moment of joy, a feeling of happiness, at any time of the day.

First Mindfulness Exercise: Mindful Breathing

The first exercise is very simple, but the power, the result, can be very great. The exercise is simply to identify the in-breath as in-breath and the out-breath as the out-breath. When you breathe in, you know that this is your in-breath. When you breathe out, you are mindful that this is your out-breath.

Just recognize: this is an in-breath, this is an out-breath. Very simple, very easy. In order to recognize your in-breath as in-breath, you have to bring your mind home to yourself. What is recognizing your in-breath is your mind, and the object of your mind—the object of your mindfulness—is the in-breath. Mindfulness is always mindful of something. When you drink your tea mindfully, it’s called mindfulness of drinking. When you walk mindfully, it’s called mindfulness of walking. And when you breathe mindfully, that is mindfulness of breathing.

So the object of your mindfulness is your breath, and you just focus your attention on it. Breathing in, this is my in-breath. Breathing out, this is my out-breath. When you do that, the mental discourse will stop. You don’t think anymore. You don’t have to make an effort to stop your thinking; you bring your attention to your in-breath and the mental discourse just stops. That is the miracle of the practice. You don’t think of the past anymore. You don’t think of the future. You don’t think of your projects, because you are focusing your attention, your mindfulness, on your breath.

It gets even better. You can enjoy your in-breath. The practice can be pleasant, joyful. Someone who is dead cannot take any more in-breaths. But you are alive. You are breathing in, and while breathing in, you know that you are alive. The in-breath can be a celebration of the fact that you are alive, so it can be very joyful. When you are joyful and happy, you don’t feel that you have to make any effort at all. I am alive; I am breathing in. To be still alive is a miracle. The greatest of all miracles is to be alive, and when you breathe in, you touch that miracle. Therefore, your breathing can be a celebration of life.

An in-breath may take three, four, five seconds, it depends. That’s time to be alive, time to enjoy your breath. You don’t have to interfere with your breathing. If your in-breath is short, allow it to be short. If your out-breath is long, let it to be long. Don’t try to force it. The practice is simple recognition of the in-breath and the out-breath. That is good enough. It will have a powerful effect.

Second Mindfulness Exercise: Concentration

The second exercise is that while you breathe in, you follow your in-breath from the beginning to the end. If your in-breath lasts three or four seconds, then your mindfulness also lasts three or four seconds. Breathing in, I follow my in-breath all the way through. Breathing out, I follow my out-breath all the way through. From the beginning of my out-breath to the end of my out-breath, my mind is always with it. Therefore, mindfulness becomes uninterrupted, and the quality of your concentration is improved.

So the second exercise is to follow your in-breath and your out-breath all the way through. Whether they are short or long, it doesn’t matter. What is important is that you follow your in-breath from the beginning to the end. Your awareness is sustained. There is no interruption. Suppose you are breathing in, and then you think, “Oh, I forgot to turn off the light in my room.” There is an interruption. Just stick to your in-breath all the way through. Then you cultivate your mindfulness and your concentration. You become your in-breath. You become your out-breath. If you continue like that, your breathing will naturally become deeper and slower, more harmonious and peaceful. You don’t have to make any effort—it happens naturally.

Third Mindfulness Exercise: Awareness of Your Body

The third exercise is to become aware of your body as you are breathing. “Breathing in, I am aware of my whole body.” This takes it one step further.

In the first exercise, you became aware of your in-breath and your out-breath. Because you have now generated the energy of mindfulness through mindful breathing, you can use that energy to recognize your body.

“Breathing in, I am aware of my body. Breathing out, I am aware of my body.” I know my body is there. This brings the mind wholly back to the body. Mind and body become one reality. When your mind is with your body, you are well-established in the here and the now. You are fully alive. You can be in touch with the wonders of life that are available in yourself and around you.

This exercise is simple, but the effect of the oneness of body and mind is very great. In our daily lives, we are seldom in that situation. Our body is there but our mind is elsewhere. Our mind may be caught in the past or in the future, in regrets, sorrow, fear, or uncertainty, and so our mind is not there. Someone may be present in the house, but he’s not really there, his mind is not there. His mind is with the future, with his projects, and he’s not there for his children or his spouse. Maybe you could say to him, “Anybody home?” and help him bring his mind back to his body.

So the third exercise is to become aware of your body. “Breathing in, I’m aware of my body.” When you practice mindful breathing, the quality of your in-breath and out-breath will be improved. There is more peace and harmony in your breathing, and if you continue to practice like that, the peace and the harmony will penetrate into the body, and the body will profit.

Fourth Mindfulness Exercise: Releasing Tension

The next exercise is to release the tension in the body. When you are truly aware of your body, you notice there is some tension and pain in your body, some stress. The tension and pain have been accumulating for a long time and our bodies suffer, but our mind is not there to help release it. Therefore, it is very important to learn how to release the tension in the body.

In a sitting, lying, or standing position, it’s always possible to release the tension. You can practice total relaxation, deep relaxation, in a sitting or lying position. While you are driving your car, you might notice the tension in your body. You are eager to arrive and you don’t enjoy the time you spend driving. When you come to a red light, you are eager for the red light to become a green light so that you can continue. But the red light can be a signal. It can be a reminder that there is tension in you, the stress of wanting to arrive as quickly as possible. If you recognize that, you can make use of the red light. You can sit back and relax—take the ten seconds the light is red to practice mindful breathing and release the tension in the body.

So next time you’re stopped at a red light, you might like to sit back and practice the fourth exercise: “Breathing in, I’m aware of my body. Breathing out, I release the tension in my body.” Peace is possible at that moment, and it can be practiced many times a day—in the workplace, while you are driving, while you are cooking, while you are doing the dishes, while you are watering the vegetable garden. It is always possible to practice releasing the tension in yourself.

Walking Meditation

When you practice mindful breathing you simply allow your in breath to take place. You become aware of it and enjoy it. Effortlessness. The same thing is true with mindful walking. Every step is enjoyable. Every step helps you touch the wonders of life. Every step is joy. That is possible.

You don’t have to make any effort during walking meditation, because it is enjoyable. You are there, body and mind together. You are fully alive, fully present in the here and the now. With every step, you touch the wonders of life that are in you and around you. When you walk like that, every step brings healing. Every step brings peace and joy, because every step is a miracle.

The real miracle is not to fly or walk on fire. The real miracle is to walk on the Earth, and you can perform that miracle at any time. Just bring your mind home to your body, become alive, and perform the miracle of walking on Earth.

from: http://www.lionsroar.com/mindful-living-thich-nhat-hanh-on-the-practice-of-mindfulness-march-2010/