Author: The Narrow Path

Narrow is the path and few enters it gates. ❤️🙏🏻

You Are a Miracle

You are a miracle

Many stars had to die for you to exist

Millions of your ancestors had to meet for you to smile

Many minerals, plants and animals had to die for you to be alive

The miracle of life is all around and within us at every moment

To touch the miracle of life is to touch the divinity of everything at once

A single cell becomes a human being

A single mustard seed sprouts into a massive tree

Housing many birds and other life forms

The practice of mindfulness is to get in touch with the miracle of life

Too often fear, hatred and greed keep us from this nourishing energy of love

If we can feel this spiritually

There is no fear or anguish

Only pure love and joy

With Aloha,

Johnny

The Awakening of the Buddha

The awakening of the Buddha was that he saw Buddha nature in everything

In Buddhist philosophy, Buddha-nature is the potential for all sentient beings to become a Buddha or the fact that all beings already have a pure buddha-essence within.

So the Buddha awakened to the ultimate reality of the universe

That every being is born with and has Buddha nature

Even if they are deeply lost in fear, greed, and hatred

Even if someone is violent

Even criminals, beggars, and addicts

All have the essence of Buddha nature

All are holy and are in the image of God

With this awakening we can help heal this world of much suffering

We can see every being as holy and our brother or sister

We can vow to reduce their suffering and look at them through the lens of compassion

With aloha,

Johnny

Nirvana

We may celebrate our birthday as the day we were born but that’s not entirely true.

We came into this world at the creation of this universe

The matter in our body originated in that one eventful moment

Everything and everyone came from the same source

Whoever is reading this is my brother or sister

We even have non-human ancestors connecting us to other animals

So we truly are like stars dancing in the night sky

But through confusion, distracted and addiction we lose sight of our inner Buddha nature

To feel the oneness of everything emotionally is to feel Nirvana

It is our birthright to discover this ultimate reality

But we must learn to get our mind still through deep meditation

Anyone can become enlightened through their actions if they are dedicated to the middle path

With Aloha,

Johnny

Can we Look Deeply?


Can we look deeply?
Deeper than skin color, gender, religion or nationality.
If we look deep enough we will see the brother & sisterhood of all living beings.
With this inside we can see our commonality and not our differences.

May we have the courage within us to not to resort to greed, hatred and fear.
With this courage true peace is possible.

It is easy to hate and much more difficult to love.
If we look deeply into the eyes of our enemy, we will see their pain.

Those who harm others suffer deeply inside.
We must develop this type of compassion for those who harm others.
It’s the only way towards true peace.
With this simple philosophy of brother and sister hood we can heal the entire world.

True peace is only possible if we can see the other side as not our enemy but a brother or sister.

With aloha,

Johnny

The Ultimate Reality

What a blessing it is to be alive!!

You might know me as Johnny Hoffman, as some separate person but I am much more than that.

Look deeper and you will see the ultimate reality of me.

I am my ancestors

I am the soil

I am a cloud

I am the sun

For without these I would not exist

So whenever you feel lost or alone just know you are not separate from the universe.

You and I are made up of our ancestors, stars, soil, clouds, and rivers. Without them we would not exist. This is the ultimate reality of things.

You are my brother or sister

To feel this at a deep level is to awaken to our Buddha nature and help others who still suffer

So when someone looks at a cloud 100 years from now they may see me again 🙏🏼☁️

With aloha,

Johnny

Returning to our Buddha Nature

The baby sees life through the lens of love

They see everything as a miracle

Curious about everything and everyone

They touch the divine each day without resistance

They touch the deepest reality

Greed, hatred and fear haven’t harmed them yet

Their mind practices non discrimination

They have their Buddha nature intact

So for us to enter the Kingdom of God

For us to experience Nirvana

We must return to our original mind

The original mind is the infinitely compassionate mind

This original mind can touch reality deeply

Forgive instantly & love unconditionally

It can experience true joy out of the ordinary

But for us to preserve the original compassionate mind, we need a higher Self to guide the inner child and protect it from the greed, hatred and fear in the world

So we need someone like Jesus to preserve our Buddha nature

Our original mind is the mind of Jesus

The mind of a Buddha

My life’s purpose is to “Live Buddha, live Christ”.

With Aloha,

Johnny

Walking Away Peacefully in the Night

Alcohol scarred my childhood

I have lost close friends to it

Alcohol has slowly consumed many of my family and friends

I even had close calls with alcohol overdose in my university years

Yet I will not judge or hate alcohol

I knew 7 years ago that one day I would walk away from alcohol and the destruction it cases

Today I will choose to walk away peacefully in the night

With aloha

Johnny

The Miracle of Life

The Miracle of life

Is a seed of mustard

With water, soil, and sun

This tiny seed grows into a large tree

Giving food and shelter to many birds and insects

There are many miracles around us each day

Yet we can’t seem to them

With mindfulness we can see that a cloud is a miracle

It transforms into rain or snow

Giving us life through water and food

We are a miracle

From one cell to a trillion

We can only grasp this if we are still

Not distracted

Not striving

Living in the moment

Jesus spoke of the mustard seed

Just by being still we can see the Kingdom of God right now and it’s many miracles

With Aloha

Johnny

The Hurt Child Within

Behind every broken man or woman

Is a hurt child

Crying for help

This child needs our love

It needs tender care

This child needs our compassion

To heal from the deep pain it feels inside

We must remember this when encountering others

Behind every criminal or addict, is a hurt child

The most violent and destructive people are the most wounded

It is easy to show compassion to the vulnerable but it’s much harder to show it our enemies

But to preserve the deep compassion in our hearts we must show understanding to those who harms others

They suffer deeply

We don’t condone harmful behavior

But we don’t need our judgement or more punishment

They need our deep love and compassion

With aloha,

Johnny Hoffman

Liberation from Fear, Hatred, and Greed

The Buddha and Jesus lived a message of love, compassion and forgiveness. Their message was a way out of unnecessary suffering caused by the egos destructive nature. The ego is run by fear, hatred, and greed. I imagine the ego has a group of hurt, lonely, angry, sensitive, and greedy children inside our inner family. Those with strong addictions have hurt children running the show but most of society is being ran by parentified children frozen in trauma. Some become narcissistic, some cold emotionless, and some develop addictions but they are all responses to trauma. Jesus and the Buddha taught a way out of the ego and into the inner Self that heals all these wounded children. It forgives them, loves them, and holds them tenderly like a mother to a crying infant. We first must surrender to the battle in our mind. This is the first major step in our transformation. We admit we are powerless and need help from others. The ego wants to do life on its own, never wanting help from others out of fear and arrogance. We think we are Gods until we surrender fully to our suffering. We need a higher power to help guide us now because we realize the ego always takes us to complete destruction and suffering. Our will never leads to happiness, we need something bigger than ourselves to believe in. You don’t have to call it God, you can call it mother nature, the Universe, etc. It doesn’t matter what we call the mysterious force that created me and keeps the universe together but we have to be grateful for it. This is key to our transformation and resurrection into a more kind peaceful joyful person. Keep surrendering each day and the God of your understanding will fill you up with pure joy, you won’t need drugs, casual sex or consumption to fill the hole inside you anymore. This world needs more of us to wake up to our unnecessary suffering and delusional thinking that we are an all knowing God. Pleasure seeking isn’t the way towards true happiness. Practicing self love, compassion and forgiveness is the way. Shine that light into the darkness of your soul. The darkness of hatred, greed and fear.

With aloha,

Johnny