What you think, you become.

What you feel, you attract.

What you imagine, you create.

– Buddha

Namaste dear ones – We keep moving through life. Powering, limping, soaring, staggering, crawling, leaping, sliding, dancing, clawing, stumbling, running, pushing, blasting, racing, sitting…and BEing. Wow! It can get pretty intense – especially with the relentless swirl of thoughts, responsibilities, appointments, duties, jobs, commitments, and promises.

To add more to that plate can be maddening. There needs to be another way to move through this existence with greater grace & greater ease. And I believe I’ve found one. As the Buddha said, “All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we create the world.” As meditators we learn to control and direct our thoughts. And a powerful set of tools that I have cultivated can help in this process.

Our meditation is the pattern interrupt – the space BETWEEN our thoughts – that allows us to BE present and flow stillness & silence into the world. If we can embed a thought flow into us either before or right after we meditate, we will start to move in the true direction of our dreams – or as Martha Beck calls it, “our north star.”

Here’s how it works. Right before or right after I meditate – (I change it up depending how I’m feeling each day), I plant a series of thoughts called sutras into my consciousness. Sutra is pronounced soo-tra and literally means a thread or line that holds things together and is derived from the Sanskrit root siv-, meaning to sew. Essentially, I have crafted my own set of personal heart-opening sutras from the myriad translations of the Buddha, Osho, the New Testament, Thich Nhất Hạnh, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Pema Chodron, & St. Francis of Assisi and merged them with my interpretations of various books of the Upanishads. And I use these sutras, each morning, in a process that is akin to planting intentions like seeds in the fertile soil that rests within. By implementing this pre- or post-meditation ritual over the past few years, I have learned to make more conscious, nourishing choices in my life. I refer to this set of meditation tools as the Five Secrets of the SweetSpot. They provide me with an evolving foundation for reflection, growth, love, and deeper understanding.

Each morning, after I have sat in stillness and silence for about 30 minutes, I drift my awareness to five personal expressions of the universe. For example, this morning it was:

• Patience,
• Acceptance,
• Defenselessness,
• Compassion, and
• Abundance.

As the last moment of my meditation drifts away, I repeat each word like a sutra over and over and over for about a minute and then drift to the next. Sometimes I find myself in thought and then I’ll gently drift back to the sutra and begin repeating it again. Sometimes I get lost among the sutras. That’s okay. It’s sort of fun. When it happens, I’ll smile and start again with whichever sutra appears first in my mind.

I have found that repeating these sutras after coming out of stillness and silence is a gentle process that eases my transition from a state of restful awareness into more active awareness. One powerful, tangible result is that these affirmations ripple through my awareness all day long and the practice has helped me to be a more conscious choice maker. I also believe that placing my attention each day on five principles that will help me grow will lead to a better life for me and everyone I touch. Whatever happens, it’s five minutes of connection to principles that I honor as core to a life of happiness.

Each of these secrets also provides the foundation for a healthy and evolutionary meditation practice. And at the deepest level, they connect me to more universal aspects of myself so that I can more fully experience life outside of meditation.

In their most essential way, the Five Secrets of the SweetSpot express the qualities I would like more of in my life. Of course the qualities I desire shift and evolve as I transform – but some aspects are timeless & universal.

I plant those seeds, let them go, and then move into my day. Try it today before or right after your meditation.
And don’t forget to join me on Thursday at 11a PST/2p EST on hayhouseradio.com, where we will take it deeper and I will share more Secrets of the SweetSpot. Keep it real & keep meditating.

I’ll see you in the gap! Peace. –d