Is Your Prosperity Consciousness Tuned Up? Here's a brief abundance quiz

This was a flyer provided by Paige, a spiritual teacher and reader who presented this information around June 2009 in Scottsdale AZ, at a PeaceOfTheUniverse.com. This is a charming little new age bookstore in the plaza tucked away, behind the northwest corner of Shea and Scottsdale Road. She taught a class that I attended, and here are some of the gems of insight I took away with me from the class:

"Rivers of Gold" Prosperity and Abundance

"At this moment, the seeds of a perfect destiny lie dormant within you. Release their potential and live a life more wondrous than any dream." -- Deepak Chopra

Questions to ask yourself:
1. Abundance - what is it?
2. How will you know you're there?
3. What is the form of what you want?
4. What is its essence?

The univers is a mirror. To visualize this, consider shouting things out across an echoing canyon. You get back what you shout of to the Universe.

Activities you can do to jump-start your success:
1. Before you go to bed at night, think of 5 things about the day that you truly appreciated (Tony Robbins).
2. Breathe in an angel (Faith).
3. Find your "happy place" (Faith).
4. Practice the Holon of Ascension (Tom Kenyon).
5. Flip it (Lynn Grabhorn).
6. "Warm Fuzzies" (imagine success as if it is already yours).

Shakespeare Arts Fest Itinerary Aug 20-23, 2009

Ashland, OR. I accompanied my friend and mentor Dr. Stanley Krippner to an annual excursion here. Thousands flock here every summer to enjoy some of the finest plays featuring a talented cast. For instance, Anthony Heald played leading roles in several of the plays we watched.

Aug 20, 2009. The Music Man
Aug 21, 2009. Equivocation
Aug 21, 2009. Henry VIII
Aug 22, 2009. All's Well That Ends Well
Aug 22, 2009. Don Quixote
Aug 23, 2009. Paradise Lost

It was a marathon indeed. I left Ashland fully satisfied that my appetites for fine theater were sated for another year.

Are Your Dreams Haunted by the Real Estate Roller Coaster Ride? (New York Times Reprint)

Excerpt from The New York Times link here

August 27, 2009

The House of Your Dreams

By SARAH KERSHAW

AMERICANS aren’t just living the real estate collapse. They’re dreaming it.

Foreclosure, eviction and an uncertain real estate market are providing material for disturbing dreams and nightmares about home, which has an especially powerful place in the psyche, psychologists say, symbolizing safety, comfort, identity and — to the Freudians — mother.

At a time of collective angst and fear of economic insecurity, psychologists say more patients are recounting stressful dreams that revolve around the theme of home. Fear of homelessness, they say, is one of the most primal feelings on the emotional spectrum. A deep sense of disillusionment, betrayal and mistrust resulting from the mortgage and banking crises is also pervasive.

“People are trying to make sense of this big unknowable, overwhelming, insecure world,” said Henry M. Seiden, a psychologist in New York who published a paper in April, “On the Longing for Home,” in the journal Psychoanalytic Psychology, arguing that the concept of home has not drawn enough focus from academics in the field, beyond the classic Freudian interpretations.

While some people ignore the messages in their dreams, others look to them for guidance.

Susanna Cohen, 31, a nurse practitioner and midwife in Salt Lake City, was feeling spooked by the mortgage crisis and began having disturbing dreams in May, while contemplating buying her first home. Many were about people forced to live in places they didn’t want to live.

“I had heightened anxiety because of everything that’s happened,” Ms. Cohen said. “Was this an appropriate investment for me to be making at this point? Am I going to look back in five years and find out that I’m in a similar situation as all these other people who have had their houses foreclosed? And I didn’t know if I wanted to be part of a system that is so morally corrupt.”

After deciding to make a bid last month, she was torn over what to offer for the house, a two-bedroom brick bungalow listed at $250,000. She said she felt some obligation to make a bid that was fair to the seller, but she feared overbidding, and wished she had some way of finding out about the seller’s finances.

Then she had a dream that she saw the seller’s mortgage statement and that he owed $80,000 on the house. She woke up, she said, thinking that her bid, which she did not want to disclose, was fair, and so she made the offer.

As the negotiations continued, she had several more vivid dreams, some reassuring her that her hunches were leading her down the right path and others involving danger, fear and what she interpreted as cautionary messages.

The night after she made the bid, she dreamed she was sitting on the porch of the house eating ice cream with a friend, when they decided they wanted root beer floats. They walked over to a nearby supermarket and, as she was standing at the vending machine, an aggressive and threatening man approached. Another man appeared to save her, but he ended up stabbing her in the arm with a hypodermic needle, and she slowly slumped to the ground.

She made eye contact with a passer-by and called for help, and then woke up. She was left with the feeling that, like the men in her dream, all the players involved in her real estate deal — the agents and the seller — were out for themselves, and she wasn’t protecting herself.

“I’m not shy about the fact that I let my dreams influence my behavior,” Ms. Cohen said. “The times in my life that I have discounted a dream because I felt, ‘Oh, that’s just a dream,’ it comes back to bite me. But that’s sort of my internal struggle: trying to figure out which of these dreams do I allow myself to believe in.”

The day after her dream about being stabbed with a needle, she heard from her real estate agent that there was another offer on the house. She wrote a letter to the seller expressing her appreciation for the house and its history, promising to maintain its original details and charm.

He countered with the same offer the other bidder had made, $230,000, and she accepted, but then he decided to go with the other buyer anyway, and she was crushed.

In the end, she said, it was not her dreams, but the people involved in the negotiations that led her astray. After she decided on a bid, the broker delayed the meeting where she was going to make the offer by several days, Ms. Cohen said. During that time, the owner held an open house, inviting the other bidders into the picture.

Still, “It is an inanimate object after all,” she said. “So I will recover.”

WHILE many ancient cultures have used dreams as guideposts, the practice has not been as common in modern times. But a surprising study published last March found that more people see dreams as informative than had previously been believed.

The study, “When Dreaming Is Believing: The (Motivated) Interpretation of Dreams,” by Michael I. Norton and Carey K. Morewedge, researchers from Harvard and Carnegie Mellon, involved a survey of 1,000 people in the United States, South Korea and India, including engineering students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who, the researchers suspected, would be less likely to give weight to their dreams.

They found that most of the participants believed their dreams contained more meaningful information about the world than similar thoughts they had while awake. And, generally, the dreams people had confirmed their beliefs and biases about the subjects of their dreams.

The study was done amid a long-running debate between scientists and dream psychologists about whether dreams are a result of the brain sputtering out random impulses, anxieties and data, or are meaningful barometers of emotion and a source of insight into real-life conflicts.

Paul Thomas, 47, who sells motorcycles at a Harley Davidson dealership in Stamford, Conn., said he had a series of dreams that helped him decide what to do about his housing situation.

In 2006, he and his wife moved from Stamford to Brooklyn, where he took a job in the restaurant business, and she found one in banking. Soon, they got into a legal battle with their landlord over problems in their apartment building, including lack of heat, water leaks and the building’s legal status. The court ruled in their favor, asking them to pay one month’s rent and leave by the end of 2007, but they were not out by the deadline and were evicted.

The city marshal showed up at 7:30 one morning, giving them 15 minutes to move out all their belongings. While they stayed at a neighbor’s house, Mr. Thomas said, he dreamed that he was begging outside a coffee shop in Union Square, holding a bucket and a sign that said he was homeless. “I’ve never been homeless in my life,” he said. “This feeling in my dream was such panic and such hopelessness.”

They found another apartment in the same neighborhood, but two months later, a court officer appeared on a Saturday morning with a notice of foreclosure on the building intended for the landlord, who lived at another address. They moved again, only to discover that their new landlord was constructing what appeared to be an illegal apartment in the basement, and was working on the gas and electricity lines. They complained and a nasty confrontation ensued.

At this point, Mr. Thomas had a nightmare that was both frightening and highly entertaining. In the dream, he was looking out a window of the apartment, which was surrounded by cartoon and movie villains — Yosemite Sam, the Penguin and the Riddler from Batman — with guns, and was shooting at them through the window.

When they started advancing toward the house, he ran upstairs, where his wife was waiting with his “troops” — the cast of “Sex and the City,” and Cat Woman from the 1960’s TV show “Batman,” who was, he said, “always on the edge of good and evil,” but in the dream was a force for good. The dream made him laugh, but it also “reinforced the fact that I knew I had to get out of there,” he said. “My dream mind was telling me if you don’t get out of there, you are going to be shot at, at some point. The landlord was boiling mad.”

They returned to Stamford and are now looking for a house to buy.

In recent years, the field of dream psychology has begun giving more credence to the dreamer’s interpretation, rather than the analyst’s. According to Ellen Y. Siegelman, a Jungian psychoanalyst in Berkeley, Calif., patients in therapy often find that dreams of home, in particular, offer a way to chart their progress.

“I’ve seen people in therapy go from dreams at the beginning of houses falling down, needing to be propped up or in disrepair,” Dr. Siegelman said. “If you follow the sequence in dreams, quite often at the end, there are dreams of houses fixed up, new light and extra rooms. That’s an interesting marker of where somebody is psychologically.”

MANY psychologists caution against taking dreams about houses too literally.

“Things are not necessarily what they seem to be,” said Gemma Marangoni Ainslie, a neo-Freudian psychoanalyst in Austin, Tex., who, like many other therapists, sees recurring dreams as clues about personal struggles and ongoing conflicts.

For nearly 15 years, Cara Letofsky, 45, a housing policy aide to Mayor R. T. Rybak of Minneapolis, had a recurring dream that she was moving into a new apartment with her college roommates. After all the roommates had chosen their rooms, they suddenly discovered an extra one, something that caused a feeling of anxiety and loss of control, because order was disrupted — what would they do with the extra room?

No matter what her living situation, the dreams continued: when she was living in New York, getting a master’s degree, when she was single, when she moved to Minneapolis, got married, bought a house with her husband and had children, now 6 and 9.

Finally, a few years ago, when she and her husband completed a renovation, adding a guest room and a storage room and expanding the kitchen and master bedroom, the dreams stopped.

“I was still seeking this place that was home to me,” she said. “I was still seeking the emotional security of a physical space. Even though I had one, it didn’t have the marker of being mine until the house was finished.”

The fear of intrusions like burglaries can also produce vivid dreams, psychologists say.

Pamela Mink, 46, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, had recurring dreams about calling 911 after someone had broken into the house she rented there. In some of the dreams, she said, the 911 operators were speaking languages she could not understand; in one, she was swearing at the operator, who told her that if she kept cursing she would get no help.

Dr. Mink had other recurring dreams that were less obvious in their symbolism — most notably, one about her father burying bodies in the garden, which she began having when she was a child. In the dreams, she said, she never knew whom he was burying, and never asked.

She said she has not discussed the dreams, which are more mysterious than scary, with a therapist. But around the time of her father’s death, in 1996, she had the final version of the dream, perhaps resolving a conflict or revealing something she did not know about her father, but certainly solving a mystery played out in her unconscious.

Around this time, in her waking life, she said, she asked her father a lot of questions because he was dying, and in the last dream, she tried to get him to tell her whom he was burying.

In the dream, there was a coffin laid on a large, thick sheet of ice. At first, her father refused to tell her who was inside, saying only that it was someone famous. Then, after swearing her to secrecy, he agreed to tell her, revealing it was Frank Lloyd Wright.

She asked him repeatedly why he was burying the architect in their garden, and then said, “Wait a minute, is this because you think your property value will go up?” Her father gave her a knowing smile, and she glanced up at her bedroom and saw a Chinese man in a red silk robe staring at them.

“There was something very ceremonial about the whole thing, and the property value thing was weird,” she said. “My dad wasn’t a financial mogul, he was a college professor,” a psychologist who ran a sleep lab.

The dream ended as she and her siblings sang Simon and Garfunkel’s “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright,” while her father worked in the garden.

Ashland Oregon: The New "Athens" of a cultural renaissance?

20-24 July 2009, Ashland Oregon. This was my third annual pilgrimage to Ashland where I accompany my dear friend and colleague Dr. Stanley Krippner to enjoy theater shows at during the Shakespeare Arts Festival.

In between shows I spend time at what is regarded as one of the finest organic health-food co-ops in the country. A fresh salad and fresh food bar, excellent wine and cheese selection, fresh organic fruits some of the tastiest and most affordable ever-- a pint of organic strawberries $1.98, organic adriatic figs $2.98, dehydrated mangos $1.09 for a package. Also hard to find foods, such as raw organic cacao butter $19.00. Organic peaches that burst in your mouth.

At the co-op the people were especially friendly to talk to. I struck up conversations almost instantly at the similng people. Ran into Tavis who was living in Ashland up from Scottsdale, to Kiwina, a kava kava distributor from Hawaii who freely offered the opportunity for us to sample his beverage, during a ceremony he spontaneously arranged outside. It was probably the best I have ever had: mango kava, and put me in a euphoric state for the rest of the day.

I love how I can easily walk within minutes to virtually any part of the city, from the show, to the hotel, to the co-op, to Lithia Park.

After the co-op I would walk a few blocks to the sprawling cool green Lithia park, which cuts right into the downtown Plaza. It has miles of park literally, a central swath of cut green grass with plenty of shade trees. All within hearing distance of a tranquil bubbling creek. On that Sunday, couples, families, and kids would laze around and lay or sit down on the grass. Kids would play and laugh. Life felt so good and simple to me. I even saw three deer within a hundred feet from where I was sitting and meditating, blissing out under a tree.

Ashland is nestled in one of the wonders of the world, one of the most biodiverse, agriculturally sustainable areas on the planet. As Jean Houston once told me, at the peak of the Golden Age, Athens contained 20,000 citizens. Ashland has a similar population.

In general I find the people spiritually progressive, friendly, financially wise and culturally savvy. Many are interested in outdoor activities, farming, and creating a new sustainable future. My kind of people.

Stan has plenty of friends as well, some who live in Asland, others who drive in from other parts of Oregon to spend time with him and visit over meals.

This was the third year in a row I had the privilege of visiting Jean Houston at her home. She lives in the last property designed by the late genius Buckminster Fuller. I am almost speechless with admiration for her life's work in her presence. Recently a talented housemate Connie shares the huge home with Jean. Jean and Connie's latest project is a master's level certification program about "The Necessary Human" for the artistry of social transformation.

I have spoken and met many luminary individuals who have been influenced by Jean Houston's work. Edgar Mitchell, the lunar astronaut, mentioned attending her workshop the possible human. So did Bill Schmukler, an 82-year old psychotherapist who ran a 40-day retreat that I participated in. Apparently Deepak and Jean know each other well; I met Deepak Chopra around 1993, when as a founder of the Mind-Body Medicine Study Group I co-sponsored and promoted his appearance at Duke University.

I have also begun collaborating on a marketing joint-venture with Peter Schultz, a highly successful marketer and newsletter publisher on options trading. He has tens of thousands of paid newsletter subscribers. Recently he expanded his business model to now feature other authors and experts. For this venture he has appointed me as his expert in credit and real estate.

To kick off this project, Peter arranged to have a local internet-tv studio film him interviewing me about my products for selling your home quickly and building your credit. This studio is called DenizenTV.com

A Visit to Sacred Land to reconnect with ancient wisdom in modern times

Yreka, CA. Kalpull Kiej Juju (Deer Mountain Center). From left to right, Stefan Kasian, Jean Houston, Stanley Krippner, and Tata OmeAkaEhekatl Eric Gonzalez, MA (Tata Eric).

Friday August 21, 2009. We visited this special land, approximately 1800 acres donated to this Guatemalan healer and tribe. It is located in Rogue valley, with its own water supply and lush rolling hills.

Eric leads gatherings pilgrimages ceremonies throughout the world to facilitate healing and spiritual growth.

Time did not permit us to participate in the beautiful peyote ceremony that was planned for us, but we did get an opportunity to receive a beautiful blessing on the higher land, a short drive up from the house.

I was touched by the hospitality of Eric and his family, who offered a generous banquet of food upon our arrival, and gave us a gift of a handmade bag with sage, copal, and Guatemalan coffee. In exchange I gave Eric a book written by another wise "elder" who I esteem highly: Bernando LaPallo, born 1901. It is a book about his life.

This would be a beautiful land to participate in a ceremony and reconnect with this special tribe. For more information please visit www.earthpeopleunited.com

Do You Know About the Hidden Dangers in Your Food? "Food, Inc." The movie holds nothing back

August 5, 2009. I picked up BigDaddy, my 107 year old health bug and drove together to watch Food, Inc. open up at the Harkins Theater, in Scottsdale, Arizona. A yoga teacher Shanti, My raw-foodie friend Emma, and her boyfriend Adam joined us.

The movie covered the devastating effects of mass producing food has on our food quality. In the name of efficiency, most forms of meat are overprocessed. Scenes of the horrific conditions chickens, cows, and steer endured: from being hormonally and antibiotically-injected so chickens are virtually blind and almost cannot walk--which promotes allergies in those who eat them; to cattle and cows being fed corn instead of wheat--which led to an e. coli infection which killed a young boy Kevin within a month; to animals wallowing in their own feces, which promotes disease and bacteria. The conditions the workers toil under is also miserable; unsafe unsanitary conditions that aliens labor under, and they are constantly at risk of being deported.

The horror of this young boy Kevin dying from renal failure as a result of eating beef contaminated with e. coli is unforgivable when congress, lawmakers, and even the meat packaging companies refused to acknowledge the death or make any corrections or adjustments to their process. The law attempting to instill higher meat processing standards is called "Kevin's Law".

The movie contrasts this corporatized meat production with a natural farmer, who raises chickens and livestock under open air and with fresh hormone free organic feed. Although he states the health department tried to shut him down, the bacteria rating of the meat under his conditions was 3, compared to the meat produced under the mass-production facility, which was a hundred times higher.

Unfortunately, these processed foods are also much cheaper, which encourages consumers to purchase them instead. Also families on low incomes cannot afford higher quality organic foods. These foods that contain preservatives, including salt, sugar, etc. are highly addictive, and lead to obesity. Obesity, and diabetes in the U.S. have reached epidemic proportions because of the incredible amounts of sugar poured into processed food.

Worse yet, the FDA is in bed with the biggest food packagers and producers, which have now begun monopolizing the food production and distribution chain. For example, the movie cited several examples of attorneys who worked as executives for these companies also serve high level positions for the FDA. This leads to self-serving laws and policies that protect these companies at the expense of the consumers, and even farmers.

One tragic example of companies monopolizing the food chain is Monsanto, the food giant who is attempting to patent Genetically Modified (GMO)-soybeans which do not produce seed for future generations. Any farmer caught growing these Monsanto plants without permission is subject to copyright infringement and prosecution. Even a farmer who grows his own soybean crop could have an adjacent GMO crop contaminate his.

Despite the gloomy snapshot of the food supply, the promising news is that consumers are starting to vote with their wallets. This is impacting the buying decisions of big suppliers, including Wal-Mart. For example, Wal-Mart is now carrying many organic food labels to meet the consumer demand.

Here's what you can do:

1. Read and understand your food labels. Limit purchasing foods that contain sugar and preservatives.
2. Insist on purchasing organic foods whenever possible.
3. If you do purchase meat, insist on cage-free, organic, and hormone free whenever possible.
4. Write to your local representative and demand full disclosure of GMO-enhanced foods. In the same way that tobacco and cigarette labels now state the health risks as a result of pressure from public outcry, so can food producers eventually disclose food that is GMO.
5. Watch Food Inc and share it with your loved ones.

The New Warrior Men's Training Adventure (NWTA)

June 1998 I had relocated from Durham, NC to Blue Bell, PA, a northern suburb of Philadelphia. Around September 1998, when I was getting out of my parked car at 22nd/Pine, a man pointed a gun in my face and held me hostage for several hours. I managed to escape a few hours later within inches of my life.

Naturally, I felt traumatized by the experience. A friend, Dr. Joe Klemas, of Norristown, PA, had recommended I attend the New Warrior Training Adventure (NWTA) to help me work through this experience and improve my relationships overall. After attending a preview, I accepted.

This turned out to be an intense 3-days retreat led by men and held only for men. It has its roots in the lost ritual of male initiation, a more common practice among indigenous cultures, in which men acknowledge other men's growth through a rite of passage. Also, the retreat was based loosely in Carl Jung's concept of archetypes: king, warrior, lover, and magician. This retreat was geared to help men to get in touch with these four archetypes with an intent to lead more constructive lives. The book, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, by Robert Moore and Dougles Gillette, beautifully describes these concepts and how men can use this awareness to improve their lives.

We were also taught lessons including: accountability, integrity, and clear communicate--we discussed topics and problems that were rarely discussed among other men, including our own fathers. Men were also shown the concept of "shadow," the repressed energy that we often are not aware of, that is often acted out in a destructive manner. We were asked to keep the specific processes and protocols confidential to preserve the power of the experience for others who may experience it in the future. I left in high spirits and with improved skills and appreciation for what it means to be a man.

To follow up and incorporate these experiences, we held weekly integration groups, I-Groups, in which we practices these new skills, practiced communication, etc. I stayed with this program for several months.

I did a brief search about NWTA and came up with criticisms about the weekend. Some consider it a cult because of the confidentiality and the nature of the processes. Others found the experience to be highly traumatic because some of the processes were designed to deliberately provoke painful experiences and uncomfortable emotions. They complained that the workshop was not properly staffed by licensed psychotherapists; had the aforementioned been fully disclosed they would have had second thoughts about participating. In an especially poignant criticism, one family claims that the NWTA experience was linked to their son's suicide a week or two later; their son struggled with cocaine addiction for years prior to this experience.

Despite these criticisms, I consider the experience a beneficial one. It wasn't always easy during the retreat, but I did not consider it harmful in any way. However, any man who participates will be provoked and challenged to face his demons and shadows, which is as challenging as fighting any war. My one caution: is that if someone has any severe medical or psychological issues, to consult with a competent professional before proceeding. However, these risks are disclosed upfront prior to one's participation.

For more information: The Mankind Project

The equivalent to this experience exists for women, called The Woman Within.

The 5 Mindfulness Trainings: Your North Star to a Happy and Peaceful Life

On or around October 1999 I had the privilege of attending a week-long workshop with Diane, my significant other at the timed. It was led by the beloved Zen Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hahn. This workshop was called "The Art of Mindful Living," and he was accompanied by the Monks and Nuns of Plum Village, a peaceful community in France that practices this way of life. This was held at Omega Institute, in Rhinebeck, New York.

The purpose of the retreat was to give attendees a full experience of "The Art of Mindful Living". For example, retreat consisted of breakfast, lunch, and dinner lovingly prepared by the staff, and the attendees would sit down next to monks and nuns and enjoy their food mindfully, in loving silence and a present-moment appreciation. In other words, we would eat it as if it were our last meal. We also participated dharma talks, in which we all sat in a large hall and practiced meditation and relaxation, led by Thai, or other monks or nuns. The children also were separated for a section in which they experienced a mindful community and sang songs..."Where is buddha?" "No coming, no going..." One especially fond memory I had was watching Thich Nhat Hahn lead a mindful walk through a meadow, holding childrens' hands. When it began to rain, his mindful walk turned into a mindful run. Lauren, Diane's youngest daughter, held his hand and remarked: "His hands have the power to make peace."

The essence of mindfulness is to live and be completely in the present, with full awareness. One way to bring yourself into the present with mindfulness is to focus on your breath. Also ask yourself a question about a random part of your body: what am I feeling behind my knees? In this busy rushed culture, we often do not take time to smell the roses, let alone focus on our body.

But another benefit of mindfulness is that by becoming fully present, you begin to free yourself of habits and behavior patterns that may not serve you. You can rise up and beyond habitual thought patterns, get out of your mind, and thereby experience truly original thoughts and creative inspirations. Beyond the cognitive benefits, there are many studies about how regularly practiced mindfulness meditation can enhance relaxation, decrease anxiety, and assist in dealing with chronic pain.

Towards the conclusion of the retreat, we were offered the opportunity to accept formally the mindfulness trainings and accept Thai as our teacher. These mindfulness trainings consisted of 5 precepts, or practices of awareness. They were committments, not commandments, a "North Star" as Thai called it, to guide us and protect us in life. They were based on the awareness that certain behaviors cause suffering, and based on this awareness we can make different choices:

The Five Wonderful Mindfulness Trainings

(formerly "The Five Wonderful Precepts")

The Five Wonderful Mindfulness Trainings below are Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat's Hanh's translation of the 5 basic precepts as taught by the Buddha Shakyamuni. The Buddha offered these precepts to both his ordained and lay followers so that they could have clear guidelines to lead mindful and joyful lives on the path to awakening. Thich Nhat Hanh has updated the precepts so that they are beautifully appropriate and relevant in today's society. In his book entitled "For a Future to be Possible", Thich Nhat Hanh describes in detail how the Five Wonderful Mindfulness Trainings can be used by anyone in today's world to create a more harmonious and peaceful life.)

The First Mindfulness Training:

Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I vow to cultivate compassion and learn ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, and in my way of life.
Thich Nhat Hanh has a commentary on the 1st Precept.

The Second Mindfulness Training:

Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing and oppression, I vow to cultivate loving kindness and learn ways to work for the well being of people, animals, plants and minerals. I vow to practice generosity by sharing my time, energy and material resources with those who are in real need. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others. I will respect the property of others, but I will prevent others from profiting from human suffering or the suffering of other species on Earth.
Thich Nhat Hanh has a commentary on the 2nd Precept.

The Third Mindfulness Training:

Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I vow to cultivate responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families and society. I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment. To preserve the happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments and the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct.
Thich Nhat Hanh has a commentary on the 3rd Precept.

The Fourth Mindfulness Training:

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of their suffering. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I vow to learn to speak truthfully, with words that inspire self-confidence, joy and hope. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure. I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord, or that can cause the family or community to break. I will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts, however small.
Thich Nhat Hanh has a commentary on the 4th Precept.

The Fifth Mindfulness Training:

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I vow to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking and consuming. I vow to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society." (Reference: "http://www.dharmamemphis.com/buddhism/five_wonderful_mindfulness_train.htm")

These are the basics for a peaceful and happy life. During an ordination ceremony, I formally accepted to practice these trainings, and also received a spiritual name from Thich Nhat Hahn. As part of the teacher-student contract, Thai requested that we read aloud or practice these trainings at least every 90 days. I recommend anyone study and formally consider adopting these principles as a way of life.