May 14th, 2008 cate
From the positivityblog:
1. Change yourself.
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”
If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.
And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.
And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.
2. You are in control.
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.
You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.
And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.
3. Forgive and let it go.
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.
You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.
If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.
4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.
And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.
So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.
You can check out a few effective tips to overcome this problem in How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips. Or you can move on to the next point for more on the best tip for taking more action that I have found so far.
5. Take care of this moment.
“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”
The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.
Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.
Have a look at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment for tips on how quickly step into the now. And remember that reconnecting with and staying in the now is a mental habit – a sort of muscle – that you grow. Over time it becomes more powerful and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.
6. Everyone is…
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February 28th, 2008 cate
Perhaps not totally aware of it, nearly half of all teenagers bought online music and software and downloaded it, instead of buying CDs, which is a great relief to the environment. You see, all of those billions of CDs and plastic CD cases will eventually end up in a dump or incinerator somewhere only to leach hazardous chemicals into the ground or pollute the air with toxic fumes. The environmental impact of CDs and DVDs on the environment (and your health) is enormous. More than 5.5 million boxes of software go to landfills and incinerators every year.
Teenagers, I’m proud of you for what you’ve done, whether you realize what you’ve done or not.
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January 14th, 2008 cate
The mind’s capacity is limitless, and its manifestations are inexhaustible. Seeing forms with your eyes, hearing sounds with your ears, smelling odors with your nose, tasting flavors with your tongue, every movement or state is all your mind. At every moment, where language can’t go, that’s your mind.
All know the Way, but few actually walk it.
If you don’t find a teacher soon, you’ll live this life in vain. It’s true, you have the buddha-nature. But without the help of a teacher you’ll never know it. Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher’s help.
If, though, by the conjunction of conditions, someone understands what the Buddha meant, that person doesn’t need a teacher. Such a person has a natural awareness superior to anything taught. But unless you’re so blessed, study hard, and by means of instruction you’ll understand.
About Bodhidharma
Bodhidharma
was born in Kanchi in the Southern Indian kingdom of Pallava around year 440. At the instruction of Prajnatara he travelled to China by ship and arrived around 475. He is associated with the Shaolin temple, and is honored as the founder of kung fu. He is also credited with bringing tea to China. He is said to have cut off his eyelids to stay awake in meditiation, and so is usually depicted with bulging eyes. He is also credited with bringing Zen to China, even though he had few disciples in his lifetime.
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January 6th, 2008 cate
If money is your greatest obstacle in Life, what are you doing to break it down? No matter what your income, here are some very wise tips for being able to afford practically anything you want: (from Ken Rockwell):
“People ask me how I afford all this camera stuff. Easy: I beg, borrow, and sometimes even buy it. I certainly don’t still own everything I’ve reviewed here since 1999. I’ve also had real jobs for many years which pays for what I do buy, and I live like a hermit otherwise.
That’s the easy answer, but then I realized that I’ve always had a knack for buying expensive toys long before I’d ever had a job. Hopefully my cheapskate tricks can help you, too, which is why I write this.
I bought my first expensive single-lens reflex camera when I was an 11 year old kid. I saved my allowance, and still couldn’t afford film. My dad was kind enough to buy me a roll every month or so if I was good.
When I was in college I bought one of the world’s first digital audio recorders to record my music gigs. I had never had a real job in my life. This was in 1981, two years before the CD came out and back when digital audio was beyond the means of most professional recording studios. Digital audio recorders cost the same as a house back then!
I was 19. I bought the then-revolutionary new Sony PCM-F1, which sold for the amazingly low sum of $1,900 in 1981 ($4,400 in today’s money). The next cheapest recorder had cost $50,000 the week before. I also had to buy a Betamax video recorder on which to save the data, an additional $1,100. Back in those days, VCRs were still as exotic as helicopters. This cost me a total of $3,000 in 1981 dollars, or $7,000 in today’s money.
How the heck could I do that? For comparison, my car had cost only $650!!!
If a kid can afford toys more expensive than Nikon D3s, using their own very limited funds, anyone can.
When we were little kids, my brother asked my dad “How come Kenny always can buy expensive things, but I can’t, and we get the same allowance?” My dad responded that it was because my brother insisted on going out and buying everything as soon as he wanted it, but that I waited, saved, and did my homework to find the same things for less.
Today that same brother, who has never had a real job as far as we know, has been traveling the world ever since he was in college. When asked how he does it with no particular source of income, he responds that “most people are too stupid to be poor.” By that he means that most people waste what money they do have on stupid things, like new cars and eating in restaurants, and don’t instead buy their food at the grocery store while traveling. He travels by carefully checking auctions for other peoples’ unused weeks of time shares, so he will travel when he can bag a week in Paris or Tobago for just a couple of hundred dollars. He has to be ready to travel on a moment’s notice when he wins these auctions, another advantage of having no real job.
Our ability to buy expensive toys has nothing to do with how much money we do or don’t earn. Like everything in life, it has everything to do with how well you use what you have.
Sorry if this article starts to read like a self-help video, but honestly, if you can’t afford these things today, you’re going to have to make some changes in your life if you want to. It doesn’t take money. It takes the guts to be a cheapskate.
What I’ll describe has always worked for me. I hope it helps you. Everyone’s situations are different, but hopefully my skinflint lifestyle will give you the idea. This is all about prioritization and not wasting what you do have, so if you prioritize differently or enjoy spending money on something I consider wasteful, go right ahead. I certainly don’t intend to offend anyone.
Prioritization
Half of being able to afford what you want is to spend your money on what you really want.
This should be obvious, but most people are suckered out of their biggest chunks of money by blowing most of their cash on the wrong things. People spend money on the wrong things because the people who take that money make it so comfortable and easy.
Never Buy a…“
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January 5th, 2008 cate
The inimitable and wonderful Joseph Campbell once said that personal transformation only comes as a result of suffering or revelation. If we are lucky, we get that “ah ha!” moment by revelation. Unfortunately, for most humans, we are transformed by a serious illness, the death of a loved one or a divorce, among other traumatic and oftentimes grave situations. These tend to take you by surprise.
What Joseph Campbell says may shock some: These shattering moments of your life are exciting. They feed you. They are your sustenance. You need them to grow and so you should be happy about your suffering.
Usually when I’m suffering, I’m so not happy about it.
But I understand what he means by that. When you reach your lowest points, you cannot but wonder why these things are happening. You wonder what is the point? How can you live your life to the fullest? How can you grow personally? Who are you? Why are you here?
While the bad times are some of the most miserable times of your life, I encourage you to celebrate them. They are these moments that push you toward that personal transformation that will ultimately lead you to happiness and peace with yourself.
Nothing is exciting
if you know
what the outcome is going to be.
~ Joseph Campbell from Reflections on the Art of Living
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