 August 5, 2013
Beloved Blissologist,
Are you an ecstatic pragmatic or a pragmatic ecstatic?
Which will it be?
Whether you are aware of this or not, you are a reality-producing powerhouse! The question is: “What inspires us, and more importantly, how do we inspire ourselves and others?”
As Blissologists we bliss-consciously design our destinies. How do you augment mystery and wonder in your life? How do you expand and courageously stir up the tantalizing trajectory of your dream (life)?
May we proceed from the dream outward.
This issue features an article about life at a Jungle Monastery in Thailand by Happyo. She addresses how we can access our inner bliss by carefully choosing our emotions with as much ease as picking up a spoon.
In the News:
1. Concentrated Giggles! New & Improved 1 minute Blissvideo “I’m A Beggar Too”
2. Choosing Our Emotions Is As Easy As Putting Down A Spoon
3. For the First time, Ashland’s Peace Village Festival at Wellsprings will feature A Playshop for Blissologists. Sat, August 17, 4 pm.
4. Become A Certified Blissologist in Blissful Conscious Communication @ Asha’s Private Home on Monday August 26 at 7 pm
5. Bliss Forth at Bhakti Fest in Joshua Tree, CA on September 5 – 8
6. Deva Premal, Miten & Manosh with GuruGanesha Band are on the MantraFest Tour commencing along the East Coast, September 10
7. Beloved Toltec Wisdomkeepers, Don Miguel Ruiz Jr & Sr, present “The Five Levels of Attachment” in Ashland, OR on Tuesday, September 10th at 7 pm. See Flyers Below.
Note to those Newer to Computers: Several friends have suggested that we add photos to these love letters. We always do! To see the photos in this and every issue, be sure to look to the top right of all your newsletters, then click on “Show Remote Content”.
Concentrated giggles! Here it is – the celebrated shortened 1 minute Blissvideo “I’m A Beggar Too” that you’ve been begging for! Your commentary encouraged.
Bliss Tip: Letting Go Of An Emotion Is As Easy As Putting Down A Spoon
Wat Suon Mokkh means “the garden of liberation” in the Thai language. Wat Suon Mokkh is a Buddhist jungle monastery in the middle of the trunk of Thailand, geographically-speaking, if you consider that Thai people perceive Thailand to be roughly the shape of an elephant’s head with the trunk hanging down below toward Malaysia.
Wat Suon Mokkh Jungle Monastery is indeed a garden of liberation, and not only for the wildlife and plants. This Thai jungle temple is especially liberating for human beings – intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. I first stayed at the Garden of Liberation as a teenager on a 10-day meditation retreat in 1984. By the 1990s, this jungle monastery had grown substantially, when I volunteered as Programs Coordinator and Meditation Guide at what had become a thriving international center renowned for its monthly 10-day,10-night silent meditation programs serving 150 students at a time. Being the Coordinator & Meditation Teacher is a tireless job in that I slept very little due to serving so much, yet almost never felt tired because it served me spiritually as my J.O.B. (Joy Of Being).
 How quietly exciting and deeply emotionally satisfying it is to witness hundreds of international travelers look within and embrace peaceful ways, while opening hearts and minds. Students were guided to consciously introvert – look within – complimented by contemplative studies of clarity and ethics during these intensive yet balanced 10 day programs.
The results were astonishing. Chain smokers quit smoking. Begrudging adults forgave their parents. People subjected to anger or panic attacks felt peace. The depressed started to smile from within. Some spontaneously realized they no longer required their medications. Others let go of canes or other crutches such as coffee or complaining.
Over many seasons, I witnessed hundreds of varieties of longtime physical and emotional illnesses “mysteriously” be released via spontaneous remissions. Hordes of people would arrive tired and agitated. A mere ten days later, these same people left transformed – cleansed, healed, happy, rejuvenated and in love with life again. This all seemed miraculous to me. What was most touching of all? By the end of just ten days, many of these same people would ask how they could help others to liberate themselves, hence the name, “The Garden of Liberation.”
 We would ask our guests to observe the process of the mind closely with utmost attention. The first question was:
“Does an emotion proceed a thought or a thought proceed an emotion?” Dear Reader, what do you think?
By the end the ten days of keen internal observation, most attentive students would directly observe for themselves, as surprising as it at first seems, that a thought proceeds an emotion, even if by only a micro-second. This powerful personal empirical experience leads one to realize that if we can choose one thought, we can possibly choose them all.
Moreover, If we can guide our thoughts, we can thereby guide our emotions, and therefore, choose our moods and life experiences. In this way, we can be the authors, as in authorities, of our own lives.
Wisdom follows that if we can learn this skill of carefully choosing our thoughts, then we can freely and easily choose our emotions. We can choose thoughts that will lead us to feel grateful, glad, wonder-filled, joyful, loving and happy most all of the time. Then, rather than being slaves to unproductive thoughts and debilitating emotions, we are free to let our thoughts and emotions serve us as well as benefit those around us.
The next question is: How can we get into the driver seat that is behind our thoughts to direct from a high perspective? It at first seems that we may be subjected to whatever thoughts we think.
However, with closer inspection we may realize that, with Blissipline, many thoughts, the dreary vast majority, habitual reactions, those negative, repetitive and useless – can be joyfully transmuted into inspirational internal words of wisdom. Hence, the birth of ‘The Bliss Book’ Bliss Conscious Communication followed by Blissology University and this Bliss U News.
 At the “Garden of Liberation” monastery in Thailand we share our meals communally. At Wat Suon Mokkh, each of us picks up a spoon and a large bowl for every meal. When the meal is done, we wash the spoon and bowl, then put them back in the communal dish racks. Emotions are akin to spoons: once it serves us, we can put them back.
Through meditation – slowing down the thought streams and keenly observing- it possible to watch how emotions are like communal spoons, that nobody actually owns them. We are free to pick up an emotion, then after it serves us, to wash it and put it back in the communal bowl.
If we suddenly find that we have unconsciously picked up a spoon of let’s say, jealousy, envy, anger, or apathy, we are free – if we are conscious enough – to put it back in order to more carefully choose another more beneficent emotion.
One of the greatest gifts of meditating is seeing how rapidly thoughts and accompanying emotions come and go, akin small white clouds racing swiftly across a blue sky. This is natural and healthy. However, when clouds of emotions linger to wallow in the sky of our minds for days or weeks at a time, then they can harden and appear to be attributes of an individual. This is only an illusion.
 There is no such thing as a “worried woman” or, for example, an “angry man”. It is just that the man picked up a spoon of anger and is carrying it around with him. From the outside it may look funny to see someone carrying an emotional spoon around with him wherever he goes. From the inside, he thinks he is attached to the emotion, and does not think to drop it until someone mentions that he can.
This is simply called “unskillful” in Buddhism. When a person is more skillful in choosing uplifting thoughts, then tendencies for depression, disappointment, rage, greed, sloth and torpor are greatly reduced because they are replaced with grateful, healthy, creative, calm, happy and even blissful emotions.
Out amidst the coconut trees in our wall-less temple, I often shared this similarity between spoons and emotions with many students as well as monks, who to my knowledge, continue to share this simple, liberating revelation about emotions.
In the Orient, the intrinsic relationship between thoughts and emotions has been a relatively common understanding for centuries and it is therefore not taught, but individually observed in meditation.
In the Occident, however, this observation has only recently been re-discovered by leading researchers who today advocate an eclectic array of techniques. These include, of course, positive thinking and modern mantras (for example “I am healthy, kind and strong wonder of creation”), as well as the importance of mastering forgiveness and letting go, via for example, Honoponopono, in addition to looking for whatsoever is good, since whatever we focus upon expands. Thus, the benefits are amplified when we write down, sing out and affirm not only goals and aspirations, but also what we are grateful for in this moment.
 After a decade of exploration and implementation as the first self proclaimed “Adventure Anthropologist”, the world’s first interactive, playful, university text book on Bliss Conscious Communication was born. This dynamic co-creative fill-in-the-blanks, thought-provoking book is the first to explore hundreds of “The Blissiplines” which raise our conversational kundalini, commencing with the conversations within one’s own mind. Consequently, nearly one hundred “Playshops For Blissologists” have emerged across the USA. The playshops in turn the catalyzed the founding of Blissology University, the first institute devoted to researching blissful thinking, speaking and acting that together make blissful lifestyles possible.
We bliss forth more often when we choose our thoughts, words and other actions sagaciously. Likewise, when we are finished with an emotion, we can choose – if we are conscious enough – to wash it with forgiveness and put it back in order to make room for sweet, loving, compassionate, fabulous, enthusiastic, kind, serene, fun, glad, magnificent and awe-inspiring emotions that are also sitting in the communal bowl waiting for us to pick them up.
Celebrated Budding Blissologist, Let’s Activate the Miraculous…
With Love,
Happy O
ps. A modified edition of this article is featured in the autumn 2013 edition of Hippocrates Institute’s quarterly magazine, Healing Our World.
 For the next five weeks, we are home sweet home in Ashland, Oregon, considered by many to be the USA’s loveliest little town.
Ashland is a geographical and architectural delight, a large village of Cultural Creatives whose 11,000 inhabitants offer an astonishingly-rich cultural smorgasbord of theatre, music, poetry, eco-science, organic crops and an innovative solutions to small-town challenges. Ashland is on par with such American peace-culture gems as Asheville, Sedona, Aspen, Boulder, Shasta and Telluride. Friendly deer, including fawns, roam freely and fearlessly in the gorgeous town park, as they do in such heavenly havens where hunting is taboo. This peace-loving city decision instills a friendly serenity between the many deer, ducks, bees, butterflies, humans and other animals who share the city park.
 Ashland is also spiritual haven for an array of inspirational authors, including these delightful friends with whom we are celebrating life’s abundance in August: the renowned spiritual mentor Gangaji; the iconoclastic intellectual inspiration, Jean Houston; teachers of authentic living and best-selling authors, Linda Francis and Gary Zukav; and Asha Deliverance, our amazing Ashland hostess, the founder of Pacific Domes.
When we are touched by Nature and loving friends, confidence and bliss are inspired, one’s material needs are few, with motives pure as mountain streams.
Bounteous Natural Blissings To You!
Happyo
Bliss U News
Is Peace Village Festival And Wellness Fair of Ashland, Oregon’s “Most Loved Community Event”? We think so! Come join us August 16 – 18 as friendly folks converge from around the nation to celebrate peace and wellness by playing amazing music, sharing scrumptious foods, communing at empowering playshops, including a PlayShop To Certify Blissologists on Saturday at 4 pm in the Community Room. In addition, scintillate your senses with artistic offerings at an expansive assortment of beauteous booths in the verdant parklike ambience of Oregon’s Jackson Wells Springs Resort. www.PeaceVillageFestival.org
For the first time in Ashland’s illustrious history, Blissology University is awarding Degrees of Bliss! Become a CBB, Certified Budding Blissologist, in the comfort of one of Ashland’s loveliest homes in a private salon-like ambiance with an exuberant mix of local luminaries!
Join the nation’s premier devotional gathering of kirtan, yoga and more at Bhakti Fest, “the Spiritual Woodstock of the New Millennium”, September 5th – 8th in Joshua Tree, California!
Click here for $100 discount. Use promotional code <happy100> when purchasing your ticket at www.bhaktifest.com. Offer good on regular 4-day festival pass only, not valid with any other discounts. Offer expires 8/9/13.
The Delightful Deva Premal Is Better Than Ever, On Tour Across America This Autumn with Miten, Manose, Maneesh and The Guru Ganesha Band.
The World’s Most Beloved Toltec Wisdom Keepers, don Miguel Ruiz Jr & Sr, will light up Ashland,Oregon with Love on Tues, Sept 10th, 7 – 9 pm. This is also a benefit for Aggie Baker-Pilgrim & the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers.
Click here for $15 advance tickets.
RAISING THE BLISS BAR. How to transmute less-than-excellent interactions into harmonious, kind-hearted, mirth-loving, giggle-rich conversations? Bliss Conscious Communication is the original that inspired today’s budding Bliss Movement, including the creation of BlissologyUniversity.com. This Bliss Book is guaranteed to ameliorate your relationship with Life and other loved ones.
$20 + $5 nationwide shipping
Certificates of Bliss come in an eclectic array of frame-friendly options for graduates of both Bliss Conscious Communication Playshops for Budding Blissologists as well as for Beginner Godzillionaires. We believe that everyone deserves a degree of bliss.
Bliss U News is a monthly bliss-blast with a rainbow spectrum of possibilities to enhance ever more peace, compassion, sympathetic joy, harmony and bliss in our everyday lives.
BlissologyUniversity.com is the first university to explore blissful lifestyles and the causes of bliss including what Happy coined as “The Blissiplines”, which catalyzed today’s budding Blissology movement. May this enrich relationships and uplift perceptions so that everyone who wishes may live a joyous Godzillionaire lifestyle.
May you bliss forth with an august August!
Love,
Your Loyal Blissologist,
HappyO
Founder:
www.BlissologyUniversity.com
www.HappyOasis.com
www.RawSpiritFest.com
www.WildVegetarianAdventures.com
928.308.2146
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