Entries Tagged 'life' ↓
August 23rd, 2008 — 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
August 19th, 2008 — life
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.
Continue reading →
August 14th, 2008 — life, self improvement
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 →
August 12th, 2008 — life
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.
Continue reading →
August 9th, 2008 — life
Inca Gateway - Peru
Photo by: Unmesh Swanson, Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries
External links
August 5th, 2008 — life
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
(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
July 29th, 2008 — life
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?
Continue reading →
July 17th, 2008 — life
To many people, the world seems palpably lacking in leaders - people of principle who can empathise whith those they lead and who can be trusted to do what is best for the group at large. But what makes a good leader and how can you improve the quality of your leadership? We list six qualities any good leader should have:
A leader brings out the best in his people
Start with what they know. Build with what they have. The best of leaders when the job is done, when the task is accomplished, the people will say we have done it ourselves.
Lao Tzu
A lot of tension in leadership situations comes because we have a fixed idea of what should happen, regardless of peoples’ abilities to carry that thing out. Criticizing people for something they haven’t been properly trained to do or for not fitting into your grand plan is not leadership. Leadership comes from an honest evaluation of people’s capacities and strengths, and then playing to those strengths. When people can contribute their best qualities to a project, they are much more likely to feel a sense of ownership about the project and go the extra mile to see it through.
A good leader is not a control freak
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
George Patton
We have all seen the kind of person who says “its my way or the high way”. Sometimes forceful people can push their agenda and achieve a few immediate successes, but long term they are left with a crew rife with tension and bad feeling, and getting anything done becomes like squeezing blood from a stone. If you can harness people’s enthusiasm and give them a sense of empowerment about their work, then they are much more likely to work with you than against you, and you will discover new talents within your crew that you might otherwise never have found.
Continue reading →
July 9th, 2008 — life
In western society, the mind is generally considered to be the apex of our being, and deep thinkers celebrated as the defining product of our times. In fact, it was not until I was in my mid-twenties until I came across the notion that the ordinary human mind may not be the be all and end all of human existence. What could possibly lie beyond the mind, I wondered? Well, we unconsciously answer that question every day when we gesture towards ourselves during a conversation - we point towards the middle of the chest, the place where we intuitively feel the core of our being. Hence if you are interested in pursuing the possibilities of self-discovery, then learning to live in the heart is a very good place to start.
So what differentiates the heart from the mind?
- Empathy. The heart is the place where we feel a sense of connectedness and goodwill with other people and the world - the phrase ‘my heart goes out to him’ says it all, I think. This is in stark contrast to the mind, which quite often resorts to stereotyping and seeing the bad qualities in others.
- Oneness. The mind works by gathering information, then classifying and categorising - a process of dividing which ultimately separates you from the object you are looking at. The heart, on the other hand, expands to identify itself with an object or situation, such that you actually feel connected with the thing you are focusing on.
- Spontaneity. The mind can become very jaded with seeing the same things and constantly requires new excitement to keep it happy, newness and freshness are an intrinsic part of the heart’s nature. For the heart, everything happens in the now, no mulling over the past, no worrying about what might happen. We can see this most clearly with children, running around inventing new games and discarding them in favour of new ones at the spur of the moment.
- Purpose. Often we have difficulty finding a purpose to fulfill here on earth, the thing that will make us most happy. The mind is very often no help here, vacillating between one option and another, heavily influenced by the unrealistic expectations of other people or society. Yet when we quiet the mind, we can feel an inner inspiration coming from the depths of our existence. When we get such an inspiration, it is often accompanied by a tremendous sense of inner joy and relief of the tension that came from your mental indecision. There is also a sense of certainty that does not depend on the result of the action; we inwardly know it is the right thing to do, regardless of whether it meets with success or failure.
So how does one explore the realm of the heart?
Here are a few exercises to practice for five or ten minutes every day:
- Use the breath. It is in the silence of the mind that you can then bring your attention to the heart. I found this simple breathing exercise to be quite effective: as you breathe in follow the river of breath, as it enters through the nose and enters into the core of your being. Similarly on the outbreath, feel the river of breath leaving your heart centre and leaving through your mouth into the universe.
- No mind. Let the power of imagination point you towards the heart centre. Feel and imagine that you have no mind, all you have is the heart; you can repeat to yourself “I have no mind; all I have is the heart”. After a few munutes you can go even further and say “I am the heart”, firmly identifying yourself with this reality in the core of your being.
- Mantras. In Eastern traditions this is considered one of the most effective ways to get into the heart. You can use ancient Sanskrit terms like ‘Aum’ or ‘Shanti’ (meaning peace) or instead repeat some quality of the heart that you particularly like, like ‘Love’ or ‘Joy’. If you place your hands on your chest whilst saying it; the physical sensation of the voice helps to bring your attention to the heart centre. As you repeat, feel that it is actually your heart centre saying the mantra in and through you.
- Music. Different kinds of music tend to affect different parts of our being, like our mind or our emotions. Likewise music created by people who live in the heart tend to also elevate our awareness and bring us closer to the heart. Just as the tide gets under a boat and lifts it up, so music can elevate you to places of peace and beauty inside yourself. When listening, resist all temptation to analyse the music, and in the words of my meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy, “let the music-bird fly inside your heart-sky“.
July 7th, 2008 — life
“I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the indifference
of wisdom.”
- Anatole France
Enthusiasm is a great quality. Enthusiasm inspires others and ourselves to transcend our limitations and make a real difference. Without enthusiasm, life can become insipid and boring. Change is created by inspired people not by people who are half-hearted about life. These are some of the benefits of enthusiasm and how to cultivate enthusiasm in our own lives.
Enthusiasm Doesn’t dwell on Difficulties.
“Daring enthusiasm and abiding cheerfulness
Can accomplish everything on earth
Without fail.”
- Sri Chinmoy
Whenever we try to do something new, we will encounter problems and difficulties. We can’t expect to create something worthwhile unless we can overhcome difficulties. If we are half hearted in our approach, these difficulties will be a reason to give up. Our mind will be able to justify our failure by saying the difficulties are intractable. However, if we have real enthusiasm and determination, we will find a way around these difficulties; our enthusiasm will make our aspiration and dreams come true.
Enthusiasm is a stranger to Procrastination.
Procrastination is the biggest killer of any project. In procrastination our initial enthusiasm evaporates and it gives us time to deliberate on problems. This stop start approach will reduce our inspiration and creative flow. Genuine enthusiasm makes us focused and encourages us to overcome difficulties straight away.
Enthusiasm Doesn’t Give Up
“Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm”
- Winston Churchill
Any project will face setbacks. If we are not determined and enthusiastic we will tend to give up. Enthusiasm can create success in even the most difficult circumstances.
Enthusiasm Inspires others.
“Mere enthusiasm is the all in all.”
- William Blake
Anything worthwhile requires more than one person. If we want to achieve something memorable, we need to inspire others. It is no good having a vision if we keep it to ourselves. If we are enthusiastic and 100% committed to the goal, it will imperceptibly encourage others to follow our lead. If a leader has no enthusiasm for a project, how will he inspire others to join in? Look around at the people who inspire you. It is enthusiastic, dynamic and positive people who encourage us to get involved. An attitude of indifference will turn people off straight away.
Enthusiasm Creates Intensity
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The power of focus cannot be under-appreciated. To achieve something great we need the enthusiasm to concentrate on a goal until it is achieved. Without intensity we will struggle to make the a real difference.
How To Create Enthusiasm in Our Lives
Don’t Listen to the Naysayers.
There are some people who will always find the problems and negative outlook on life. They will subconsciously dampen your enthusiasm by highlighting the difficulties and being suspicious of anything new.
Continue reading →
