Self Improvement for daily Life

Me and Shane are currently on a meditation retreat here in New York. (New York may not sound the most obvious of places for a meditation retreat, but, it does work!). Hopefully, whilst we are here, we may put together a video post so you can see who we actually are.

Recently, I wrote a piece on meditation for The Change Blog. It is based on my own experiences of meditation.

BTW: It was nice to see an article on meditation getting picked up by the Digg community.

Photo by Ranjit, Sri Chinmoy Centre

We all make mistakes, and if you’re sensitive you can feel pretty bad about them. It’s not a pleasant experience but we need to try and make the best of even difficult situations. When you make mistakes and your whole world turns upside down, these are some strategies to cope.

Don’t Be Burdened with Guilt.

In a previous post, we looked at how to avoid being overburdened with guilt. Guilt is not a helpful emotion, it just aggravates the feeling of despondency. We should also avoid being embarrassed. Just look at a few politicians; a few mistakes don’t stop them being pubic figures.

The art of Apology.

Some mistakes we can apologise for. We don’t need to lose self-respect, we need to just apologise calmly and sincerely. It requires a certain strength to apologise and admit mistakes, but, it is a necessary step to moving forward.

Don’t Dwell on Mistake Too much

The mind can magnify a relatively small mistake and make it feel of tremendous importance. Don’t keep going through the problem in your mind, wishing you had done things differently. If we think about problems too much it can give them an undeserved importance and we become overburdened with them.

Don’t Try to Justify It.

Sometimes we give a mistake too much importance and significance; but, at other times we try to ignore it or justify it to ourselves. When we try to justify a mistake and the mind tries to blame it on other people, this is not good. Making mistakes is not the end of the world, but, we do need to learn from them. If we just try to distort reality then we will not be able to learn and move forward from the mistake.

• Be careful, the mind can be very good at justifying wrong actions and mistakes, but, when we start doing this we will just continue to make future mistakes.

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We’ve all heard it before from well-meaning people - that focusing on our own self-improvement is an intrinsically selfish act. That it ignores all the people out there less fortunate than ourselves we should be helping. That it is basically an exercise in narcissism.

Let me say it right from the start - there is absolutely not even a grain of truth in this. And here are three very powerful reasons why:

Reason 1: You have to have it in order to give it

If we do not have inner awareness, or reached a state of inner contentment, then the so-called help we offer to the world will be driven by our need for self-approval and self-validation. We become more concerned about gaining approval for what we have done than about the people we are helping. We may have the outer resources necessary to help others, but we do not have the inner resources to do the job wisely, and with the proper amount of concern and detachement.

The journey of self-improvement gives you those inner resources. It brings to the fore new talents and capacities you never knew you had, and these capacities give you a greater sense of self-confidence as you go out into the world. Continue reading →

When we launch into the field of self improvement and spirituality, we tend to have lots of enthusiasm, inspiration and eagerness. But, this initial eagerness often wanes and we can find ourselves struggling for motivation and inspiration.

These are some practical ways to regain our motivation.

Spend Time With Those Who Are Motivated

We are easily influenced by people around us. If we spend time with motivated and focused people, their energy will imperceptibly rub off on us. If we want to improve our running, we need to seek the company of other runners. If we want to maintain a regular meditation practice we should meditate with others once a week. When we see others making progress, we feel that we too can make the same progress. There is a saying ‘Birds of a feather flock together’ If we spend time with like minded people they will definitely inspire and motivate ourselves.

Remember Our Early Enthusiasm

If we have been practising something for several years, it can become routine. What we need to do is remember our initial enthusiasm. Remember what is was like to discover the simple act of meditation. It is also helpful to keep a journal of memorable experiences. Remembering these good experiences will help them to feel more real in the present moment. The problem is that we can soon forget the good experiences, but, focus on present difficulties. We may need to use our imagination to remember past experiences, but, in imagination we help make it become a reality again.

Teaching Others.

I have been practising meditation for 10  years and I find one of the best ways to maintain motivation for meditation is just talking about meditation to other people. When giving meditation classes, I don’t know how much others get from it, but, I know it’s good for me! I guess the important thing is that it reminds you of the essentials. Also by meeting beginners you gain some of their new interest and enthusiasm

Keep Life Simple.

In our modern life, we are very good at adding unnecessary complications. The problem is that there are so many different things to distract and pull our attention away. The more distractions we face, the more difficult it is to remain motivated, especially when it is our own practice of meditation / self improvement.

The most worthwhile things in life require patience, persistence and quiet determination. Self improvement is a life long process, it is not about instant self gratification. The problem comes when our attention becomes absorbed in innumerable outer activities - watching TV, focusing on work, reading newspapers. These activities don’t give any great inspiration, but, they are easy to do. What happens is that if our energies are dissipated on these passive activities our inner drive and motivation starts to fade. We cannot be a jack of all trades and master of everything. To maintain motivation for challenging activities, we need to retain a focus and be able to limit the distractions which try to pull us away.

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Inca Gateway - Peru

• Staying Detached in the middle of a storm
• The Infectious Power of Enthusiasm
• Learning to live in the heart
• Wisdom of Zen Haiku Masters
• What Makes a good leader?
• A Simple Meditation exercise
• Overcoming Guilt
• Changing Yourself by Accepting yourself
• Best of June

Photo by: Unmesh Swanson, Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries

External links

• Moments of Silence - 500 Faces of the Buddha - video at Sri Chinmoy TV
• Congratulations to all the finishers of the 3100 Mile Race
• A light hearted look at - people you might work with

Sometimes we get a subtle kind of thrill by indulging in jealous thoughts of other people, thinking that what goes on in the confines of our minds can’t really harm anyone. But for people who are consciously trying to better themselves and grow into their highest potential, indulging in jealousy can infact be a significant stumbling block to inner progress.

Why is that? Well, when we harbour jealous thoughts, we inhabit a mental space that consists solely of the person we are jealous of. In doing so we limit our possiblilities and our view of the world shrinks; we begin blaming other people for our current state rather than doing something about it ourselves.

Jealousy also brings us further away from true awareness of the world, as it invariably always exaggerates the person’s bad qualities, and these exaggerations then become our reality. It acts as a kind of a filter where we often see only the bad things about the person, and not the person as a whole. Continue reading →

A traditional Zen Story - Is That So?

“There was a Zen Master who was very pure, very illumined. Near the place where he lived there happened to be a food store. The owner of the food store had a beautiful unmarried daughter. One day she was found with child. Her parents flew into a rage. They wanted to know the father, but she would not give them the name. After repeated scolding and harassment, she gave up and told them it was the Zen Master. The parents believed her. When the child was born they ran to the Zen Master, scolding him with foul tongue, and they left the infant with him. The Zen Master (1) said, “Is that so.” This was his only comment.

continued…

He accepted the child. He started nourishing and taking care of the child. By this time his reputation had come to an end, and he was an object of mockery. Days ran into weeks, weeks into months and months into years. But there is something called conscience in our human life, and the young girl was tortured by her conscience. One day she finally disclosed to her parents the name of the child’s real father, a man who worked in a fish market. The parents again flew into a rage. At the same time, sorrow and humiliation tortured the household. They came running to the spiritual Master, begged his pardon, narrated the whole story and then took the child back.”

His only comment: “Is that so.”

Version of Story by Sri Chinmoy from: Is That So?

What Can We Learn From This Story?

• Equanimity. True inner peace comes when we can respond to success and failure, praise and criticism in the same detached way. The Zen Master did not allow the unexpected event to disturb his inner peace and inner happiness. It shows that real happiness does not depend on the opinions of others.
• Acceptance. Whatever life throws at us, we need to accept the external influences we have no control over. The only thing we are responsible for is our own inner attitude.
• Character. True character depends on how we respond to difficult challenges.
• Judging Others. We should avoid making jumping to conclusions on people’s character.
• Conscience. We can never be happy when we ignore our conscience.
• Language. Language is very revealing. We can speak with anger and rage or we can speak peacefully.

Related

• Wisdom of Zen Haiku Masters
• Lending Money with wisdom
• Avoiding Misunderstanding

(1) I believe the Zen Master was Hakuin (1686 - 1768). He helped revitalised Zen Buddhism encouraging zazen meditation and the use of Zen Koans such as “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

Picture by: Kedar, Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries

The very notion of ’self-improvement’ can often imply a deep dissatisfaction with ourselves and with life. This is rather unfortunate, because such an attitude can be pretty counterproductive if we want to change ourselves! Let’s first explain how accepting ourselves does not mean giving up on improving ourselves; in fact it makes the whole process of self improvement much more joyful:

• We get to set our own standards for self-improvement: Often we are unhappy because we judge ourselves by some unrealistic standard, which has often to do the expectations set by other people and society. By accepting some external guideline for what constitutes self-improvement, you are in effect comparing yourself to others.  Accepting ourselves allows us to judge our self improvement not by criteria set by others, but by our own previous marks.

• We get to focus on the positive: Often we spend so much time poring over our faults and failings that they occupy our entire mental space, leaving no room for us to appreciate our good qualities. By constantly ruminating on our weaknesses we give them a kind of power and we feel more and more helpless to overcome them. However by accepting yourself as you are, warts and all, you can then focus on increasing and expanding your good qualities - you will notice that your weaknesses will decrease in strength as well. Indeed, the most effective way of reducing your weaknesses is not by focusing on them, but by invoking its opposite positive quality instead.

• We live in the moment: Self acceptance means accepting whatever you did in the past, no matter how deplorable, is done and there is nothing you can do to change it now. Any time and energy spent wondering what might have been is therefore pointless. You have to start from where you are, here and now, at your current state of development, with what you have at your disposal.

• We change our attitude to the world: A poor self image leads to problems relating to other people, and excessive time wondering how others perceive us. However if we are happy in our own skin, then we begin caring less about what people think about us, and more time caring about people.

So how do we go about cultivating a philosophy of self acceptance? Here are a few tips:

• Create space to acknowledge your good qualities. Our mind often seems automatically geared to think of only the bad about ourselves, you have to consciously shift the focus to the good.  Even a simple five minute daily exercise of writing down the good things you did (no matter how small), or positive thoughts and inspirations you have had helps enormously.

• Don’t identify with the mind. We often see our minds as the final arbiter over our behaviour, and take anything it tells us very seriously, especially when it tells us something bad about ourselves. However a practice of meditation can help you access a deeper part of your nature, and take your thoughts much less seriously.

• Compete with yourself rather than others. Whether it be work, sports or any other field of endeavour, try to set your challenges not so much as achieving a fixed goal or competing with others, but more about transcending your own personal best. This relieves the pressure of outside expectation, and you will get tremendous joy from knowing that you have gone beyond anything you have previously done.

Photo: Jowan Guthier, Sri Chinmoy Centre galleries

It is easy to become attached to feelings of guilt, even over small things. This feeling of guilt is actually usually damaging and unhelpful. We are not saying we should ignore our conscience - far from it. What we are trying to do is let go of unnecessary feelings of guilt and move on with our life.

Learn From Mistakes and Move On.

If we have done something wrong, we need to be aware of it. It is only when we acknowledge our mistakes and faults that we can make progress. However, once we have acknowledged our fault, the important thing is to learn from it and resolve to avoid repeating it in the future. By harbouring feelings of guilt, we do not help the situation in anyway. When we feel guilty, we just make ourselves unhappy and when we are unhappy we are rarely able to help others.

Avoid Judging Others

It is an irony that if we keep judging others, we are more prone to guilty feelings ourselves. If we are always criticising others for being late; when we are late ourselves, we start to feel guilty. Judge less and you will be much happier. Avoid feeling morally superior to others and you will be less prone to feeling guilty yourself. Learn to live in the heart where we feel oneness with others rather than separation.

Think of the Positive

The best antidote to feelings of guilty is to focus on the good things we are now doing. Whatever has happened in the past, there is always some positive contribution that anyone can start making now. If we throw ourselves into helpful, selfless activities, how can we retain feelings of guilt?

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