This document discusses 10 threads or insights from Kathleen Dowling Singh's book "The Grace in Aging". The threads discuss concepts like engaging in denial and defensiveness out of anxiety and fear, recognizing the ego as an unreliable refuge, practicing generosity and harmlessness, using gifts like intention and joy to find wonder, living without blame, and pruning unmindfulness to allow for new growth. Applying spiritual insights clarifies and embodies them, creating new habits. The commitment to awakening is to continually return to that commitment.

1. The Enchanted Loom
Teasing sturdy threads from
neuroscience masterworks

2. Teasing 10 threads
from Kathleen
Dowling Singh’s …

3. Thread 1:
The Grace in Aging speaks to those who
have been stirred in this lifetime by the
wish to awaken,
to live in more
sane, more kind,
and more peace-
ful minds, to live
in a more deeply-
sensed connection
to the sacred.
(pg. 2)

4. Thread 2:
Most of the time, we engage in denial,
defensiveness, and contractive reactivity.
These habits are ones of tightening
and limiting.
They simmer
in the low-
level anxiety
of the self.
(pg. 22)

5. Thread 3:
In spiritual practice the ego comes to be
recognized with no more denial, as an
unreliable refuge. It is delusional of us to
think of ego as a hiding place.
(pg. 58)

6. Thread 4:
For all the men and women of our genera-
tion who were coaxed to grab it all for our-
selves because we’re worth it, the generosity
of harmlessness is a new star on the horizon.
(pg. 108)

7. Thread 5:
Intention. Attention. Ease. Joy. Curiosity.
We line them up as a child would line up
presents. These
are our presents.
When we begin
using these gifts
wisely, we end
up with the
fresh immaculate
wonder of a child.
(pg. 73)

8. Thread 6:
With The Grace of Aging we can begin
living in “the bliss of blamelessness.”
(pg. 86)

9. Thread 7:
The eight worldly concerns, the traps that
keep us enmeshed in reactivity, are loss &
gain, pleasure &
pain, fame &
shame, praise
& blame. These
are eight good
places to begin
looking for grace.
(pg. 116)

10. Thread 8:
It’s time to do some
pruning. We prune in
accordance with wis-
dom and intention.
Pruning unmindful-
ness, mindfulness
grows. Pruning, we
keep what is essential.
We allow for new
growth. We allow
for beauty.(pg. 118)

11. Thread 9:
Unused insights, unused gifts of spirit and
spiritual practice, dissipate. They’re often
elusive, subtle flashes
to begin with. Apply-
ing them clarifies them,
allows us to embody
our realizations. Apply-
ing them, we create new
neural pathways, new
habits.
(pg. 196)

12. Thread 10:
The commitment to awaken is simply to
return to the commitment to awaken
over and over (and over).
(pg. 207)

13. Image Credits:
Title Page: http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/23193-personality-traits-brain-scans
Slide 3 - http://www.sundancekidonline.com/tag/indras-net/
Slide 12 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMQLnhUJ0DE
Slide 2 - http://excellencereporter.com/2015/07/15/kathleen-dowling-singh-on-the-meaning-of-life/
Slide 6 - http://creativlee.blogspot.com/2007/12/illustration-friday-horizon.html
Slide 5 - http://bit.ly/1oZdMnD
Slide 11 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/Dissipate-95087577
Slide 10 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/Growth-106494518
Slide 14 - http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/23193-personality-traits-brain-scans
Slide 9 - http://www.deviantart.com/art/Petal-116036737
Slide 8 - http://reawakeninghearts.com/tag/twin-flame-recognition/page/2/
Slide 7 - https://authorbeckyjohnen.wordpress.com/tag/wonder/
Slide 4 - http://www.babble.com/kid/uptight-parents-are-uptight-wild-kids-are-wild/

14. Mark Brady, PhD
TheEnchantedLoom@gmail.com
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