Board of Education and Primary Election Day is May 10, 2022
May 10th is the only election day for the Board of Education. You can vote for three Board of Education Candidates.
Interview with Jennifer Krouse-Republican for County Commissioner-Shepherdstown District
View all of the Board of Education and Primary Election Candidate Interviews
Cheon Seong Gyeong 194
What kind of person is a wise person? He is the first to understand and recognize the global era and the time of hope. The wise person is the one who can bear the responsibility of being the first to recognize it, analyze it, criticize it, and take action. In this way, he takes possession of it. Although he comes as an individual, when the Messiah appears on earth, he is not just an individual. He is the fruit of faith, hope, and love that the whole world desires. This is his value. All the paths of history are connected to this fruit. In other words; past, present and future are all connected to it. Furthermore, all individuals, families, tribes, peoples, nations and the world are connected, and both heaven and earth are connected to it. (13-142, 1964.01.01)
Cheon Seong Gyeong 1098
People today do not know what it means to die. It is not a sorrowful occasion. You should see it as a transition from a lower dimensional world to a higher dimensional world, through the bridge of love. That is why the Unification Church does not call it death but Seunghwa. It is ascending to a higher dimension. This is only possible through love. (137-316, 1986.1.5)
Meditation
MEDITATION CLEANSES THE MIND OF ALL OBSTRUCTIONS and opens the door to Ultimate Reality that lies within. The various techniques of meditation all have in common the restricting of the body and sense stimuli, controlling the mind’s wandering thoughts and feelings, and finally attaining a pure state of stillness where the true Self-nature can reveal itself.
While most of our scriptural sources on meditation describe its practice in the Eastern religion, meditation is also widespread in Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Mystics, monastics, Sufis and Kabbalists all developed meditative techniques to raise practitioners to a higher state of communion with the Spirit of God. Silent meditation is often employed as preparation for prayer, as a time of quiet when the mind is calmed and clarified and its spiritual senses heightened before communing with God. Father Moon values meditation in this context. He sometimes calls it “prayer,” but what he means is a meditative, stilling technique that is an element of effective prayer.
The topic of meditation is vast, and one can practice it for a lifetime without getting to the end of it. Some aspects presented here include: quieting one’s thoughts, focusing on the breath, developing intense concentration, the discipline of “mindfulness” of one’s body, feelings, and thoughts, visualization of a divine image, and the shamanistic quest for a supernatural vision.
- One-Pointed Concentration
Concentration is unafflicted one-pointedness.
Nagarjuna, Precious Garland 437 (Buddhism)
Within the lotus of the heart He dwells, where the nerves meet like the spokes of a wheel at its hub. Meditate on Him as OM. Easily may you cross the sea of darkness.
Mundaka Upanishad 2.2.6 (Hinduism)
Can you keep the unquiet physical soul from straying, hold fast to the Unity, and never quit it?
Can you, when concentrating your breath, make it soft like that of a little child?
Can you wipe and cleanse your vision of the Mystery till all is without blur?
Tao Te Ching 10 (Taoism)
On one occasion a certain monk was seated not far from the Buddha in cross-legged posture, holding his body upright, enduring pain that was the fruit born of former action, pain racking, sharp, and bitter; but he was mindful, composed, and uncomplaining. Seeing the monk so seated and so employed, the Buddha gave this utterance:
For the monk who has left behind all karma,
And shaken off the dust aforetime gathered,
Who stands fast without thought of “I” or “mine”—
For such there is no need to talk to people.
Udana 20, Nanda sutta (Buddhism)
Arouse your entire body with its three hundred and sixty bones and joints and its eighty-four thousand pores of skin; summon up a spirit of great doubt and concentrate on the word “mu” [nothingness]. Carry it continually day and night. Do not form a nihilistic conception of vacancy, or a relative conception of “has” or “has not.” It will be just as if you swallowed a red-hot iron ball, which you cannot spit out even if you try. All the illusory ideas and delusive thoughts accumulated up to the present will be exterminated, and when the time comes, internal and external will be spontaneously united. You will know this, but for yourself only, like a dumb man who has had a dream. Then all of a sudden an explosive conversion will occur, and you will astonish the heavens and shake the earth.
Mumonkan 1 (Buddhism)
As long as I am seated in this meditation, I shall patiently suffer all calamities that might befall me, be they caused by an animal, a human being or a god.
I renounce, for the duration of this meditation, my body, all food, and all passions. Attachment, aversion, fear, sorrow, joy, anxiety, self-pity… all these I abandon with body, mind, and speech. I further renounce all delight and all repulsion of a sexual nature.
Whether it is life or death, whether gain or loss, whether defeat or victory, whether meeting or separation, whether friend or enemy, whether pleasure or pain, I have equanimity towards all.
In [attaining] knowledge, insight, and proper conduct, [the cause] is invariably nothing but my own soul. Similarly, my soul is cause for both the influx of karmas and the stopping of that influx.
One and eternal is my soul, characterized by intuition and knowledge; all other states that I undergo are external to me, for they are formed by associations. Because of these associations my soul has suffered the chains of misery; therefore I renounce with body, mind, and speech, all relationships based on such associations.
Thus have I attained to equanimity and to my own self-nature. May this state of equanimity be with me until I attain salvation.
Samayika Patha (Jainism)
Teachings of Rev. Sun Myung Moon
There is a reason why people on the path to enlightenment go off to meditate in the mountains. We cultivate external determination based on our internal determination—the confidence that we will not deviate from our course no matter what obstacles we encounter. We must have the conviction that even if we fall to the bottom, we will support our minds and bodies. Without this conviction, there is no way we can run the race, or even enter the stadium. Each of us is a racer who is competing in some event; therefore we should train ourselves with unchanging conviction in order to reach the goal. The attitude of a devout believer—the attitude of a person walking the path to enlightenment—is like that of a racer competing in a race. You must have this attitude. Whether awake or asleep, you should have a burning desire to accomplish your goal. (7:135, August 9, 1959)