Make your practice a joyful experience

Quotes from the book "Glimpse after Glimpse" by Sogyal Rinpoche, a tibetan master.

"There are many ways of making the approach to meditation as joyful as possible. You can find the music that most exalts you and use it to open your heart and mind. You can collect pieces of poetry, or quotations or lines of teachings that over the years have moved you, and keep them always in hand to elevate your spirit. I have always loved Tibetan thangka paintings and derive strenght from their beauty. You too can find reproductions of painting that arouse a sense of sacredness and hang them on the walls of your room.

Listen to a cassette tape of a teaching by a great master, or a sacred chant. You can make of the place where you meditate a simple paradise, with one flower, one stick of incense, one candle, one photograph of an enlightened master, or one statue of a deity or a buddha. You can transform the most ordinary of rooms int an intimate sacred space, an environment where everyday tou go to meet with your true self with all the joy and happy ceremony of one old friend greeting another."

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"When I teach meditation, I often begin by saying "Bring your mind home. And release, And relax."

To bring your mind home means to bring the mind into the state of Calm Abiding through the practice of mindfulness. In its deepest sense, to bring your mind home is to turn your mind inward and rest in the nature of the mind. This itself is the highest meditation.

To release means to release the mind from its prison of grasping, since you recognise that all pain and fear and distress arise from the craving of the grasping mind. On a deeper level, the realization and confidence that arise from your growing understanding of the nature of the mind inspire the profound and natural generosity that enables you to release all grasping from your heart, letting it free itself to melt away in the inspiration of meditation.

To relax means to be spacious and to relax the mind of its tension. More deeply, you relax into the true nature of your mind, the state of Rigpa. It is like pouring a handful of sand on to a flat surface, and each grain settles of its own accord. This is how you relax into your true nature, letting all thoughts and emotions naturally subside and dissolve into the state of the nature of the mind."

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My Own experience :-

The first thing I do in the morning when i wake up is take the keys and get ahead towards the temple to fetch flowers. It has been a beautiful experience, making an offering before I start my kriyas. Lighting up a deepam, placing the flowers in the bowl of water so that the flowers can stay fresh for whole day long, lighting up the incense sticks, leaving the place spellbound by the aroma of Sathsang. I always cherish this feeling of sacredness. The only question is that Can we carry this sacredness with us for whole day long? Can we maintain the silence within the disturbance of the noise in the marketplace?