calmmindedmomma:

The natural state of the mind is to be silent, empty, open. It exists without intention! If you think you need to practise silence, find silence, keep silence, then you have misunderstood. All this, the whole universe, is happening in Silence! It is not about running to find some silence. It is to recognise the Silence which cannot be disturbed wherever you find yourself, whatever the circumstances, however loud the noise. Reactions of any nature do not exist. It is not a behaviour or an enforcement - you and the Silence are the same.

- Mooji

(via aspiritualwarrior)

aspiritualwarrior:

“In a real sense, self-inquiry is a spiritually induced form of wintertime. It’s not about looking for a right answer so much as stripping away and letting you see what is not necessary, what you can do without, what you are without your leaves. In human beings, we do not call these leaves. We call them ideas, concepts, attachments, and conditioning. All of this forms your identity. Wouldn’t it be terrible if the trees outside identified themselves by their leaves? These are very flimsy things to be attached to.”

— Adyashanti

zenwords:

“Gentleness is powerful. When we use gentle and loving speech, we are able to transform all the anger, fear, resentment, and suspicion in our communication. The whole intention of loving speech is to understand the other person and to be understood.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh (via zenwords)

non-secure:

(via vonmuller)

aspiritualwarrior:

You are still looking for someone to free you. You are still looking for a secret mantra or a secret esoteric teaching that no one knows. You are looking for the person who can give you something that you think you do not have. And you go searching all over the world. You’ll never find it because it doesn’t exist.

You have been that yourself all along. That has been you. And we go searching for happiness, we go searching for realisation, we go searching for the right mate. We’re always searching, looking, trying to find something that will bring us greater happiness, greater joy and greater peace. It cannot be done.

It appears sometimes as if it is happening like this. For you will find the right mate, the right guru, the right book, the right environment and so forth. It will appear as if you found these things. How long do they last before you become disillusioned again? Before you become used to conditions; where you are living, the guru, the mate you take for granted. When you’ve been with a person a long time and you continue searching and keep looking, you’re looking in vain.

Try to remember this: You are the one. You are the one you’ve been searching for all these years. You are the one.

~ Robert Adams

queen-quotes:

(via bodyactualize)

thepoetoaster:

“They do not teach you this in school. They do not show you the beauty of existing, they do not show you the wonder of the Earth, they do not show you the unity that human beings are. They show you who is better, who is worse. They show you what they need to show you in order for their system to survive. They do not show you love.”

— (via wanduring)

aspiritualwarrior:

“It takes some training to equate complete letting go with comfort. But in fact, ‘nothing to hold on to’ is the root of happiness. There’s a sense of freedom when we accept that we’re not in control.”

— Pema Chödrön

darlingtonbubbles:

Deaf/Hispanic/Vietnamese Wedding Experience

So! Yesterday I attended/worked a Deaf/Hispanic/Vietnamese Wedding. This was such an amazing experience I felt I had to share.

Now, I want to start off with saying the only community I’m involved in is the Deaf community. I was there as a friend of the Deaf couple and worked as an English speaking Deaf Interpreter. If anything mentioned brings offense to any of the listed communities please let me know and I can remove/change it.

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It’s nearly impossible for me to explain everything that happened at this extremely unique wedding. So, for the sake of time I’ll list the key points.

• The couple getting married are both Deaf.
• The groom is originally from Mexico.
• The bride is originally from Vietnam.
• Neither of the couples family can speak English.

There were quite a few things I didn’t expect that greatly surprised and excited me.

• When there is a Hispanic wedding EVERYONE in the Hispanic community comes to party.
• When there is a Vietnamese wedding EVERYONE comes to pay there respects (and also party).

This made for a wedding reception of 650+ people. The party was held in our towns convention center, had a team of parking people, a team of security guards, and then there was us. And by us I mean the only four English speaking, hearing people, that also know ASL, who knew what was going on.

There were maybe only 25-30 of the Deaf community there. We had all attended the ceremony and we were considered the mvps after the couples parents. The lead interpreter in our community was the head planner for this wedding and the couples right hand woman. You can imagine how stretched thin she was..which leads me to some other key points about this wedding.

• Everything had to be translated into FOUR different languages.
• This means a scentence was said in Spanish (Spanish was the majority), then translated into English, then translated into Sign Lanuage, and then to Vietnamese.
• This also meant a team of interpreters had to follow the bride and groom around constantly.

Yeah, it was chaos. It was also amazing to watch and I’m so glad I was able to witness this once in a life time experience.

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Now! For some fun things that happened during the wedding and some fun facts!

• The groom signed the song Marry Me to his wife during the ceremony and cried the whole time.
• The flower girl had a dress triple the width of herself and couldn’t fit through the door (she was 4).
• The bride had 5 (yes 5) different dresses. One of which was traditional Vietnamese.
• The cake was traditional tres leches cake with fruit.
• The food was made by both the Hispanic and Vietnamese communities and was brought by different families throughout the night.
• The band was a Mariachi band complete with accordion and bedazzled blue suits. There was also a fog machine and colored lights.
• Deaf people do dance and listen to music. It just has to be loud enough for them to feel it. I felt very sorry for those who weren’t warned and didn’t bring earplugs.
• There were many traditional Hispanic dances preformed. Including one where the bride and groom held the veil in a bridge and all the men and then all the women line up and dance under and around it.
• The couple had a photo of themselves with white matting around it for everyone to sign. It was interesting to me that everyone in the Hispanic community signed it “Familia (last name)”.
• There was one point in the night when all the Deaf simultaneously took off their cochlear implants. (Because of how loud it got.)
• There were so many presents it took three trucks to carry them all (this was also my job at 12:30 AM). And the couples last present was an all expense payed trip to Disney.

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If you stuck around to read through this whole thing, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe even learned something! This was definitely an experience I’ll never forget.