Category Archives: Focus

A Fine Way To Live: Buddha with Zoe

Snowy owl
A fine way to live

Conversations with Zoe and Buddha: A Fine Way to Live

Buddha: We’ve spoken before about right use of mind.

Your mind directs your being. Towards what? Towards whatever it is concerned or focused upon. There may be no method in this. In life, behaving this way would be considered folly. A life of perpetual meandering. Now some people do behave this way. This is considered to be an undesirable or even mentally ill state of being. Unless you wish life to give you more meandering like experiences, focus yourself. Start with your mind: what do you wish to achieve? How will you achieve? Then be. And as you be, act upon your plan. This is a fine way to live in this, your world.

© Zoe 2015

Work: Jesus with Zoe

Working, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/working-jesus-with-zoe/
Working

Conversations with Jesus and Zoe: Work

Jesus: It is often asked of me why do I need to do this work?  Why can’t it be easy?  Better?  Different!

Work provides a focus for time.  It provides challenges, thrills, highs and lows.  It means productivity and ultimately civilisation as you understand it.

If everyone let go of work your worlds would become chaos.  Without focus, discipline and effort humans do not aspire to greatness.

So work is a way of striving for something better, brighter and bigger than you have.

This does not mean that I condone workaholism or results based efforts.  No.  I merely bring understanding on the importance of focus, effort, discipline.  So why not work?

More importantly learn to love your work.  Try this for one week – consciously engaging and positively expecting good things to happen.  Focus, effort and discipline can lift you to higher and greater things so do not dampen these talents with negative thinking towards your boss, job or colleagues.

Once you are striving for greater states it will become easier to meet me.  And this ultimately is my work for you.

With love.

© Zoe 2015

Resist Nothing: Buddha with Zoe

Resist Nothing, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/resist-nothing/ ‎
Resist nothing

Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: Resist Nothing. 

Buddha: Let me explain what this means.

For mind and mastery to be complete there needs to be a full understanding of the nature of mind; the workings of mind and the ability from that therefore to direct mind.  “Resist nothing” does not refer to earthly pleasures or deliberately indulging in squalid, dirty, self gratification states.  However, the fear that that is where the mind could take one, means that one resists certain thoughts, urges and in the resistance, one becomes unable to see what is real.  In other words the fear of what might be real creates resistance so that reality is never quite achieved albeit heavily sought by the individual.

Your mind takes you in a myriad of directions always towards the same point though: truth, honor, trust, faith, strength.  Yet this is not the experience of mind that people have.  Indeed for most mind is perpetual thinking, perpetual thoughts that take you in a myriad of directions.  When one approaches a type of thought that one identifies as ‘bad’, such as what we have already spoken about- thoughts of squalor, deprivation, etc,- one immediately sensors those thoughts. Yet where do these thoughts come from?  Why would you sensor one and not all thought? For if we were to be fully present we would be aware of the nature of our thoughts.

I will try to keep this clear on this occasion.  Mind is strength, faith, focus, union with spirit.  It is a gateway to the essence, to the soul, to God, and the God experience.  The road to this is paved and littered with thought.  These thoughts are like leaves fallen from the trees in autumn and how we choose to respond to our journey, whilst in body, is often to become distracted by the thoughts that are on the path: to the point that we become concerned only with the nature of the leaves and the nature of do we like the leaves.  And we have forgotten that the purpose of the path is to bring us to union, union with ourselves in the arms of God.  Therefore resist no leaf.  As you are dedicated to following your path- the path to you, the path to union with God – falsehood comes only from focusing and identifying and creating relationships with thought forms.  Therefore resist nothing.  Accept all and continue on your journey where we will await you.

© Zoe 2015

Breath: Buddha with Zoe

Breath, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/breath/
Breath

Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: Breath

 

Buddha: Reluctance to pursue that which is of most importance is a trait that almost all in humanity are blinded by.

Anyone who has ever achieved anything has focused and taken away their reluctance and what they achieved in is what they considered important.  Priority is the breath: the priority is understanding that today you are alive no matter what is happening in the world around you or in your own mind: here you are.

Breath: know that there is nothing to fear in the breathe and very rarely is there anything to fear in the present moment.

Work on this today and I will be with you.

© Zoe 2015

All Is Impermanent: Buddha with Zoe

All Is Impermanent, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/all-is-impermanent/ ‎
All is Impermanent

Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: All Is Impermanent

Buddha: Begin now to look at the world the way we see it.  This world is of temporary form- always shifting, always moving out, shifting each of your every lives.  This world that you live in is bigger, bolder and greater than the individual life that you currently inhabit.

With this knowledge learn to respect the earth.  Learn to keep the earth’s greatness in your mind and with every choice that you make be aware of consequence.  I say this to each and every one of you.Yet do not become fixed on the permanence of damage or sustainability or even on life itself.

Think of yourself as in transit. You are always moving from one form into another.  Birth, life stages, days, places that you visit- always moving in and out of form.  Not just within the lifetime of the soul but within the lifetime even of the day.  One moment is always different from the next, yet you remain.  So treat your host with respect and dignity, your host the earth. You are traveling through this lifetime and leave it well.

Begin to recognize that there are those that have gone before you who knew and understood this and worked to leave no footprint of themselves upon the earth. Take a step towards this. This will do two things: Firstly this will give the respect to the earth that it deserves. Secondly this will begin to train you in the nature of your reality right now as you sit and read these words. This moment, whilst real now, will be gone in a moment from now. Take from it what you need. Recognize the impermanence of all and become still and settled within that. Great is the suffering of the many who try and fix points through time, through desire.

Whilst great things can be achieved within a lifetime, within a year, within a month, a week, a day, all is just single moments threaded together. All is impermanent.

I taught to think of moments, of actions, of words spoken to others, of thoughts, all of these as beads on string. Each bead represents that thought, that moment, that desire, that action. This will be the legacy that the soul will carry forth from you. You will with you a string of beads and on that string will be your decisions whether you have been conscious of them or not. This is what you will take to what id beyond form. I taught that this is all that is important- a string of beads- and that isn’t even real in form but metaphysical.

Today I will teach you to value the impact of your life, your choices. Delve into your thoughts, your desires to help you become aware of the impact of your life and your choices, conscious or not.

Life is different today. Different in the fact that impact is greater, desire is greater, restlessness and suffering is greater and this happens at a time when many of you have more of that which is in form. Therefore switch your focus from your daytime job to give you things, material forms, and instead focus on your inner world. This is your real job and it matters not what you do in the world of form. What matters is how. Bring conscious awareness into your life, into your moment and learn to keep the focus on your internal world. learn to become aware of when you become out of yourself and learn to hold the moments where you are inside. Inside your body, inside your life, inside what you are doing- this is where you meet the present. This is where you are doing you inner work.

And this is all for today.

© Zoe 2015

Look Within: Buddha with Zoe

Look within, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/method-of-madness/ ‎
Look within

Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: In Times of Fear and Uncertainty Look Within

 

Buddha: We are living in a time of collective madness.  We are living in societies and civilizations, not all but most, where people are living with a collective consciousness below that of hysteria.  The threat is believed to come from every angle: from economic downturn, from terrorists, from immigrants, from racial minorities.

Within this context many of you will become uncomfortable, unable to function to the best of your abilities and unable to accept this way of being for yourself, for your community, for your country anymore.

When these times arise there is only one place to look that is not in defensive strategies, that is not in armament either of weapon or money.  The time to look is the time to look inside and to learn to become one with what you find there in. There is nothing to be frightened or fearful of inside of yourself.  There is nothing inside you that, with focus and dedication, cannot be turned into gold.  So during this time look inside without fear. There will be great reticence initially at doing this for what is hidden has been hidden for good reason or so the mind has told you.  But it is illusion as I repeat there is nothing that is within any human alive that cannot be turned into gold, that cannot be turned into the seeker and even the finder of better states of being.

I have been asked, “Why look within? Why will looking within and becoming at peace with what one finds be a strategy in uncertain times such as these?”

You are connected to the collective mind, to the consciousness of humanity.  For the consciousness to change be the change.  If enough people in uncertain times become stable and solid and stalwart then peace will be able to return.  Think of a life or death situation that is being faced by a group of people.  If there is one that is able to find the peace, the strength, the courage to stay in the moment and to deal with what is happening, that one is able to impact the hysteria of the many; not always successfully but impact would be made.

Now think if there were two or three or four, the odds are getting better aren’t they.  So in uncertain times when one is concerned with ones material future switch to ones interior future and begin the work.  By creating stillness, by allowing the system to harmonize, you will not only make more logical and grounded steps you will also impact the collective of everyone around you.

This is all for today.

© Zoe 2015

How To Breathe an Exercise: Buddha with Zoe

Teaching You How To Breath, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/teaching-you-how-to-breathe/
Breathe

Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: Teaching the World to Breathe

Buddha: Zoë, let’s teach the world to breathe.

Readers, close your eyes and take a deep breathe and another and another.  Now, opening your eyes, what were you aware of when you breathed?  One nostril is always more dominant at any one time than another.  Which nostril of yours had the best free flow of air in and out of the body? If you cannot answer this question, shut your eyes once more and take a couple of deep breathes again and see if you can feel which one is which.

If you haven’t been able to sense this may I ask you to close off one nostril and breathe in and breathe out, then close off the other nostril and breathe in and breathe out and your answer will be apparent.

Now I wish you to focus on the breath, taking a strong breath and with this strong breath we wish you to focus on strengthening the body: breathing in and out.  Now picture me in your minds eye in front of you and breathe strengthening, breathe and focus on me.  If your mind wanders, which I expect it will, bring it back to me and the strengthening breath and focus on this.  Focus on this for a long as it takes until your mind wanders, then focus on it once more, do this three or four times.  For some of you this may be a second for some of you this may be a minute.  Regardless repeat this process three times and lets get you breathing strength and vitality into your bodies.  Enjoy this process and know that I will be with you.

This is the end of today’s lesson.

© Zoe 2015

Mind is Strength, Faith, Focus, Union with Spirit: Buddha with Zoe

Mind Is, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/mind-is/ ‎
Mind is

 

Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: Mind is Strength, Faith, Focus, Union with Spirit

Buddha: Zoë, you have been hearing my words in your head, ‘resist nothing, resist nothing’ and so on. Let me explain what this means.

For mind and mastery to be complete there needs to be a full understanding of the nature of mind, the workings of mind and the ability from that therefore to direct mind. “Resist nothing” does not refer to earthly pleasures or deliberately indulging in squalid, dirty, self gratification states. However, the fear that that is where the mind could take one, means that one resists certain thoughts, urges and in the resistance, one becomes unable to see what is real. In other words, the fear of what might be real creates resistance so that reality is never quite achieved albeit heavily sought by the individual.

Your mind takes you in a myriad of directions always towards the same point though: truth, honour, trust, faith, strength. Yet this is not the experience of mind that people have. For most, ‘mind’ equates perpetual thinking; perpetual thoughts that take you in a myriad of directions. When one approaches a type of thought that one identifies as ‘bad’, such as what we have already spoken about, one immediately censors those thoughts.

Yet where do these thoughts come from? Why would you censor one and not all thought?

If we were fully present we would be aware of the nature of our thoughts and the thinking process.

I will try to keep this clear and simple on this occasion.

Mind is strength, faith, focus, union with spirit. It is a gateway to the essence, to the soul, to God, and the God experience. The road to this union is paved and littered with thought. These thoughts are like leaves fallen from the trees in autumn. How do we choose to respond to our journey whilst in body? It is often to become distracted by the thoughts that are on the path to the point that we become concerned only with the nature of the leaves and the nature of do we like the leaves. And we have forgotten that the purpose of the path is to bring us to union: union with ourselves in the arms of God. Therefore, resist no leaf. As you are dedicated to following your path, the path to you, the path to union with God, falsehood comes only from focusing and identifying and creating relationships with thought forms. Therefore, resist nothing. Accept all and continue on your journey where we will await you.

© Zoe 2015

The Great Peace: Buddha with Zoe

The Great Peace, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/the-great-peace/ ‎
The great peace

Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: The Great Peace

Buddha: We are moving to a time where earth will be as one. A great peace will descend from on high, from on low and this peace will arise in those who are awake and those who are seeking to become awake. We are looking to help this process and this will indeed be speeded up. Speeded up by you, readers, as you choose to open yourselves to change, to love, to peace and work in your own lives to become centered. So for each of you who choose a centred life, one by one, you help choose peace, a new age. And we all thank you for this. There will come a time when there is a significant number walking the earth that will be able to pull us into their hearts. The mechanisms of this are with those who are seeking peace, seeking a different way of being. A harmonious one, a loving one, a joyful one and those that are taking the action to create a centered existence. So for all of you who wish to see the change be the change. These are words well known amongst several of you. Center your lives: not by changing what you do, but merely by focusing on how you do it. The new earth will not come about by the world becoming poets and philosophers. It will come about as each individual in their day to day lives awakens, makes choices and takes action to become the change, become the peace.

© Zoe 2015

Being Centered: Buddha with Zoe

Being Centered, https://conversationswithjesusandbuddha.com/being-centered/
Being centered

 

Conversation with Buddha and Zoe: Being Centered

 Buddha: We wish to speak to you today about extremes. Because extremes move in different ways from a perceived central point, are they any different? No. To clarify, if one is looking to get fit, becoming a couch potato could be extreme, exercising for five hours a day could be perceived as extreme. Are they any different? While the behaviors of a couch potato person and someone who is exercising five hours a day may seem radically different, extremes are extremes.

People who move into extreme behaviors are cut off from their center, so, although we are speaking about extremes, we are actually speaking about those who are devoid of center.

At Wimbledon, the most prestigious court is center court. I like this! One of the best thing or compliments that can be given to a person is that they are centered. Would you trust someone more or less if you described them as centered? Would it be easier to love someone more or less if they were centered?

Humans were designed to be centered yet many spend their lives rushing around in extremes. What do I mean? I mean that ‘centered’ means feeling strong, feeling safe and sound within your own being. How many people actually spend time practicing this within their day-to-day activities? Equally, as there are so few people who practice feeling centered, there are also fewer people who exist in their center; center is all there is.

I ask that all readers find their center. How do you know where your center is? It’s the mind state that makes you feel ‘centered’. I try not to play with words. Sometimes I resist the opportunities to play with minds other times I don’t. The irony is that it is the mind that takes one out of ones center! But let’s not toy here.

To get into your center stop, breathe. You can still do all that you need to do in your day-to-day activities. You can go to work, be at work, come home from work, cook, sleep: centered. You can wake up the children, feed the children, take the children to school, get on with your daily chores, collect the children, feed the children, feed yourself: being centered. Or you can become un-centered and end up in extremes whereby you are in a rush to get to work, rush to complete your work, rush to get home, rush to cook, rush to get to bed. Similarly you can become lost in the chores or lose you own center by focusing on the children’s centers. Are the children fine, are the children fed, are the children ready are the children this, are the children that? These are extremes. I will speak about child rearing at a different time for now it is suffice to say if you are lucky enough to be raising children physically, then be aware- as they say on the airlines, fit your own oxygen mask before you fit that of the child’s. In this case center yourself. A centered parent will raise centered children: simple as that.

So this is your message today from the center to the center, saying find your center. How do you do that? Stop, breathe, be present. Once you have this go about your day to day activities and you will be successful. Success follows center. Spend a minute now thinking about how mundane tasks feel when you’re centered and how mundane tasks feel when you’re not. Similarly think about a big event. How does a big event feel when you’re centered and how does a big event feel when you’re not.

This exercise itself should conclude the importance to you of being centered at all times.

© Zoe 2015