Happiness is Harmony

Happiness is living in Harmony with Nature.

Autumn is a time for gathering after the activies of Spring and Summer and to reflect again on life and to ask is the joy in the journey and not in the invitable destination.

‘Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.’ - Mahatma Gandhi

Meditation at its core is the training, or the directing, or the focus of attention in a deliberateway. And in our human incarnation, it is the human capacity to open to perspectives larger than the ordinary consciousness or the small, separate sense of self.

There are traditional components of Mindfulness:

A receptive spacious, kind, non-judging awareness of the present.

An active appropriate response to the present situation.

‘It never hurts to see the good in another they often act the better because of it’ –

Nelson Mandela

In a way the purpose of community development and all the skillful means and practices is to move beyond the knowledge and skills and attitude to actually have a felt sense or knowing belief that we are already part of a community and that it is present and embodied in what we think and say and do in harmony with our felt sense of community. Community, as the word implies, is a communication with consciousness that is the awareness that everything in existence is connected somehow. So our communities of practice, our plans and strategies are not in the future, nor are they a destination they  are more so a dissolving or awareness of the barriers we have created that separate us from ourselves and to see what is within ourselves and within our means to respond appropriately to the present situation.

So when we let go of all the striving and fear of not having or being enough just as we are that we create the kind of synergy between the ongoing conscious community practices and Skillful means we’ve cultivated to help community flourish that we undo the cultural conditioning that sees life only in terms of its market value we serve  and so instead of becoming burnt out by the speed and busyness and discord of our society.

‘It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’ – J. krishnamurti

The best-adjusted person in modern society-- this is the person who's not dead and not

alive, just numb, a zombie. If you're dead, you're not able to work for the society. But if

you're fully alive, you're constantly saying no to many of the unhealthy processes of society:

the racism, the polluted environment, the arms race, drinking unsafe water, eating

carcinogenic foods.

Thus, it is in the interest of modern society to promote those things that take the edge off,

that keep us busy with our fixes, that keep us slightly numbed out and zombie-like. In this

way, our entire modern consumer society itself functions as an addict. Take that in for a

moment. – Jack Kornfield

The market model promotes the globalisation of addiction in our society, and it is the focus of community, arts and well-being through mindfulness practices that we come into concord and recognise the beauty of life with ease rather disease and care for ourselves and the world we live in.