https://tinybuddha.

com/blog/how-to-meditate-at-any-time-without-
meditating/

How to Meditate at Any Time without Meditating

By Amanda Cook

“If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss
everything.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Flour. Salt. Water. Yeast. As I push the warm, soft dough against my
palm, I feel the cold stone countertop underneath. I feel my hips leaning
up against the cabinets. I hear my breath inside my head.

As I knead the dough, it changes. The dough becomes more elastic and
flexible, ready to rise and be baked into a crusty loaf.

As I make bread, I change. My thoughts go quiet. I come into the now.

I have struggled with an inconsistent meditation practice for months. In

those moments when I successfully meditate and clear my mind, I feel
such a sense of accomplishment and peace.

But as any beginning meditator knows, those moments are few and far
between.

Usually, my scattered mind is split between keeping track of the time,

trying to quiet the voice in my head, and chastising my body for
fidgeting. 

I struggled and pushed myself to meditate properly with little

success, until I realized that any act can be a meditation.

I discovered this fundamental insight through books by Eckhart Tolle

and Thich Nhat Hanh. It is not so important to sit with a perfectly erect
spine for 20 minutes per day in meditative bliss. What is important is to
be here, in the now. Living your life. Noticing what is. Noticing life.
So often throughout our days we are lost in our thoughts. We may be on
the train or in the shower, but in our heads we are already giving that
important presentation, having the difficult conversation, worrying about
and planning for what might happen next.

If you step back and think about it, this is a strange way to live.
With all of this planning, worrying, and thinking, we're missing out
on our lives.

I came to this realization a few years ago when I moved to Paris, France.
I had been living the overachieving, type-A personality lifestyle in the
United States my entire life.

It's a common cycle. Working hard in school to get into a good

university, then landing a “good job” and working to get promoted, all
the while trying to upgrade my belogings to match my desired lifestyle:
a bigger apartment, a new car, high thread count sheets, and gourmet
kitchen appliances.

My whole life was geared toward reaching some undefined point where
I would have “made it,” so I could then take a well deserved vacation.

Then, I moved to Paris.

Suddenly, everything I knew about status and lifestyle was irrelevant.

Instead of talking about work all the time, my new French friends talked
about hobbies, food, books, vacations, movies—anything except work.

I met people who really enjoyed their lives on a daily basis. Spending
time with friends. Savoring delicious lunches. Continuing their artistic
pursuits on the side of their career. Hiking in the mountains on weekends
and reconnecting with nature.

Moving overseas made me realize that my life isn't going to start at some
undefined point in the future. My constant planning, thinking, and
obsessing was making me miss out on my life! I suddenly realized that
my life was happening right now, in this very moment.
By living in our heads, we're missing opportunities to connect with our
family. Opportunities to feel the pleasure of sunshine on our face while
standing at the bus stop. Opportunities to feel our creative energy spark
when we watch a child playing. Opportunities to be in nature, even for
just a few minutes, and find our footing again.

Slowly, over the past few years, I have been working on showing up to
my life on a daily basis. Trying to live in the present moment. Trying to
really be here, now.

So now I have a new meditation practice. I make our weekly loaf of

bread by hand.

It doesn't take that long, once you know the technique. But it's such
grounding, salt-of-the-earth, staff-of-life stuff.

Making bread by hand connects me with the generations before and after
who have done this daily practice. I take it slowly. Measuring the flour,
salt and yeast. Then slowly pouring in warm water to form a dough.
Then the fun part—digging in with my hands. Kneading bread is an
almost childlike pleasure because it's so tactile.

When I make bread, I am reminded of the simple pleasures in life. I'm

reminded of the importance of health and nourishing our bodies. I re-
discover, week after week, the miracle of transformation. The miracle of
basic ingredients becoming something so pleasurable, delicious and a
cornerstone of our diet.

Perhaps bread baking isn't your thing. But you can turn any daily
activity into a meditation practice: washing the dishes, brushing your
teeth, ironing your clothes.

5 tips to incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine:

1. Notice, don't think.

Pretend you are a traveler or student encountering this activity for the
very first time. Don't judge, label, and think about what you're doing.
Just notice. Notice every detail with an open, beginner's mind.

2. When in doubt, check your breathing.

If you feel your thoughts wandering from the present task, take a minute
to hear and feel yourself breathe. Just paying attention to a few breaths
will bring you back to the present moment.

3. You have 5 senses, use them.

Mindfulness means truly experiencing what is going on right now. This

is more than just noticing what something looks like. What does it smell
like? Feel it with your hands. What is the texture? Temperature? What
do you hear?

4. Have a strategy to handle nagging thoughts.

Occasionally we all have thoughts that won't go away—so you need a

strategy for how to handle them. I like to have a notebook with me at all
times to write any nagging to-dos, ideas or issues. If you write them
down, your mind can relax because it knows you can go back to them
later.

5. It is what it is.

You don't need to analyze your mindfulness experience. Don't worry

about what it all means or if you're being mindful enough. Just try to be
mindful every day. Come more fully into the present moment. Let the
experience be what it is.
While this might not fit the ideal of a perfect, solitary meditation
practice, it works for me. It works because it gets me to the right place—
the present moment.

Every week when I make bread, I re-discover that by mixing, kneading

and baking, I am able to come more fully into the present moment and
really connect with life.  And isn't that the purpose of a meditation
practice in the first place?

https://www.yogajournal.com/meditation/step-into-the-stream

Step Into the Stream: Your Mind's Natural Meditative State

Put aside your expectations and allow your mind to relax into its true
state of meditation.

ut aside your expectations and allow your mind to relax into its true
state of meditation.

After immersing myself in Eastern philosophy in college, I finally turned

to meditation in my senior year when a bad acid trip made it crystal clear
that psychedelics didn't offer the definitive answer to the deeper
questions of life. The first time I entered a zendo, I knew I had come
home: The incense, the robes, the formality, the silence, all spoke a
language I recognized immediately as my own.

Before long I was sitting hours, days, even weeks at a time. Sure, my
knees and back ached, but so what? I couldn't get enough of the stillness.
To use a favorite phrase of one of my teachers, Shunryu Suzuki, I was
obeying an "innermost request" that drew me inexorably to meditate,
and something deep inside seemed to be awakening after years (or
lifetimes?) of sleeping. Or you could say I had fallen passionately in
love--not with a philosophy or a spiritual practice, but with some
mysterious, beneficent presence that filled my meditations on a regular
basis. Of course I got lost in thought like everyone else and forgot I had
a breath to follow. But the act of meditating held a freshness, an
aliveness, and a magic that was extremely nourishing and precious.

Like a baby discovering the world for the first time, I didn't have
the language or the concepts to describe what was happening, so I was
constantly in awe. Then I became an expert on meditation--a "senior
student." I was ordained as a monk and began teaching to others. I read
all the Zen books available at the time, which described the rigorous
practices and awakening experiences of the old Zen masters. In my
struggle to "die on my cushion," as my teachers kept exhorting me to do,
my sittings lost their original spontaneity, wonder, and juiciness and
gradually became more effortful, deliberate, and dry. Even when I tried
to recapture the old simplicity, I just got tangled up in the complexity of
my efforts.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind
there are few." If I had taken these familiar words of Suzuki Roshi's to
heart, I might never have relinquished the innocence and openness of a
beginner's mind for the narrow authority of the expert's.

Facing the Unknown

In my subsequent years of spiritual exploration, I've discovered that this

innocent, open awareness is in fact the awakened, expansive, all-
inclusive consciousness of the great masters and sages. As one of my
teachers, Jean Klein, often said, "The seeker is the sought; the looker is
what he or she is looking for."

But how, you may ask, can you keep this freshness and innocence when
you've been meditating for years? In my experience, you can't keep it at
all. Any effort to hold on to some special inner state is doomed to
failure, because states and experiences come and go like the weather.
The point of meditation is to reveal the sky, the inner expanse that
remains when all the clouds disperse.
Unfortunately, our thinking mind can't find the sky, no matter how hard
it tries. Minds simply don't know how to meditate--though they can go
through the motions, pretending. Sure, they do a great job of analyzing,
planning, and creating, but true meditation exists in a timeless dimension
beyond the mind. If not, meditation would merely be another form of
thinking. The real value of techniques is to keep the mind busy and
ultimately exhaust it until it finally relaxes and allows true meditation to
happen.

The mind is such a poor meditator because it can only deal with
known quantities, such as facts, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, the familiar
raw material of the inner life. But it can't wrap itself around meditation,
whose province is the unknown. When the mind tries to meditate, it
usually attempts to recreate familiar experiences. Perhaps it's the
powerful epiphany you had six months ago, the fleeting moment of bliss
you tasted yesterday, or empty, thought-free inner space. Or maybe it
tries to replicate the mind-states it has read in spiritual books.
Rearranging the inner furniture, the mind draws our awareness away
from true meditation.

During a long silent retreat a few years ago, as I exerted my usual

concentrated effort, I suddenly found the process so amusing that I burst
out laughing. Here was my mind, busily struggling to quiet down, and
all the while it was being embraced by a silence so deep I could feel it in
my bones. The meditative habits of a lifetime fell away like an old skin,
revealing the raw immediacy of the moment. There was no place to go,
nothing to do, no more tricks up my sleeve, just this--the indivisible and
ineffable now.

In reality, meditation is our natural state, the inner ground or context in

which all experiences come and go, as near to us as a heartbeat or a
breath. It can't be manipulated or fabricated in any way. Rather,
meditation is the awake, aware presence that remains unchanging and
undisturbed when even the most profound spiritual experiences have
dissolved into memory.
Ultimately, true meditation is synonymous with Spirit, God, Buddha
nature, and true self. Now I'm not suggesting you stop meditating--only
that you give up trying. Instead of practicing your usual technique,
experiment with being present and open to your experience just the way
it is, without judgment or manipulation. If your mind engages in its
usual meditative routine--making the effort to calm down, get rid of
thoughts, or have the correct spiritual experience-- so be it; just remain
present and open to that as well.

Giving It Up

"Many thoughts will crowd into your mind," wrote Zen master Dogen
more than 700 years ago. "Let [them] come and go, without getting
involved in them or trying to suppress them." You may discover that
your mind's relentless attempts to meditate begin to lose their
fascination, and you become more interested in the aware, empty
presence in which they're taking place.

As your letting go deepens, the one who is always aware, even of the
mind's efforts, gradually moves to the foreground to be recognized, and
true meditation blossoms. In a moment outside of time, the separate
"meditator" drops away, and only meditation remains. Don't worry if
these words make no sense to the mind. (How could they?) But they
may touch a place deep inside that knows exactly what I'm talking about.
In Zen, expressions that kindle this deep inner knowing are called "live
words." For centuries teachers have used live words to awaken their
students to the living truth of their essential nature. Allow the words you
read here to resonate beyond your mind and kindle your knowing.

As you may have noticed, the meditation I'm referring to is not an

activity you do at a particular time of day. It can't be done because it's
always occurring--it can only be joined. I like to think of meditation as a
powerful river that's continuously flowing beneath and through the
surface of life. Obviously you can't make this river happen. It's the very
ground and substance of everything that is. The ancients called it the
Tao. But you can stop clutching the familiar beliefs, habits, and
preoccupations that separate you from it--and fall in. Any effort to
meditate, no matter how subtle, takes you away from this deep current of
awareness and presence, which is the inexhaustible source of all spiritual
mind-states like bliss, peace, and joy. It's the ultimate observer of all
objects of awareness, and it's looking out through your eyes and my eyes
right now. But you can never locate or grasp it with the mind--you can
only be it.

I'm not offering techniques to add to your repertoire or sage counsel on

how to fine-tune your practice. My intention is to baffle your mind so it
gives up and lets meditation happen. If I've done my job, you will finish
this column knowing less than when you began.

https://www.quora.com/How-have-you-been-able-to-maintain-a-
meditative-state-while-engaged-in-daily-life

How have you been able to maintain a meditative state while

engaged in daily life?

To answer this, you need working definitions of mindfulness and

meditation - below are mine...

When you meditate, you cultivate awareness of your thoughts, emotions,

and urges - as well as the stories that play on a constant loop in your
head.

You develop the skill of observing this "mind-made" activity without

getting caught up in it.

Mindfulness is transferring that skill to the rest of your day when you
aren't meditating. If you are doing things mindfully, you are not
distracted by thoughts about the past or future (or, some alternate
reality). Instead, your attention is fully on the task at hand: working,
playing, talking to a friend, washing the dishes, walking the dog,
listening to music...
What does that mean to you?

The human condition is "lost in thought," and we tend to go through life

at the mercy of whatever our minds produce next. This results in the
problems that we struggle with every day: stress, anxiety, depression,
self-doubt, worry, regret, a lack of focus, and on and on.

If properly taught and applied, mindfulness and meditation can help with
all of these issues, and have a profound effect on your overall health and
well-being.

1. Meditation is just the bridge, the means, and to "maintain it" while
"engaged in daily life" is ok from one point of view, but from
another, it is just ridiculous.

2. Meditation raises the chance of a satori, the first glimpse of

enlightenment, and really after that, enlightenment may come or
go. Who cares? It comes or goes like a wild animal, like the winds
or ocean. There can be no maintenance of suchness.

3. If you meditate and feel good in your meditation, then the

workaday world is your ultimate test. It is just as real as anything
in space and time (pre-quantum) and as permanent as the
conservation of spacetime (post-quantum).

4.  The reality is to let go of your meditation, to get your fantastic

technique of meditations out of the way, and see what happens. 

5. As one Master put it to me once, "Joe, do you want to live in a

broom closet?

2. The more you practice meditation, the easiest it becomes to access

that state. By practice, you get better control over your mind, and
 can access a quiet state of openness and balance with a single
breath, even during your daily life.

You also need to slowly bring the feeling and mind-state of

meditation to your daily life. Here are some hints on how to do
that: mindfulness in daily life.

If you learned something from this answer, consider voting it

up. :-)

3. Life is a constant exchange. There must be balance in order for life

to be lived wholly.

You work and then you rest/play

There's Day and then there's Night
There's life and then there's death.

The two different arms form the cycle that is repeated continually
throughout life.

To my mind, being in a meditative state requires that you are

relaxed, resting even.

If you are at work, you probably cannot afford to be in a relaxed

state all day long. You couldn't concentrate enough to get your job
done.

Same goes for the opposite, you wouldn't relax properly if you
were constantly thinking about work.

Best to use the times for what they are billed for. Work time is for
work and rest time is for rest. Unless ofcourse your work requires
you to be meditative.
 So i'd say concentrate on your work, focus on it in such a way that
you complete tasks quicker. And you can then retire later and relax
and meditate to your hearts content.

If there's a doctrine that says you should be meditative all day long,
it just sounds unnatural to me and you know that anything
unnatural becomes forced and one sided.

4. Whenever you have free time chant mentally or to yourself a

sacred mantra like OM,Hare Krishna Mahamantra become aware
of the vibration of the mantra. Like waiting for Laptop to load
chant for that period, waiting for a Cab.
 
Other techniques are being aware, focus on breathing and many
more ways. For me chanting is the most practical I found.

https://www.quora.com/Is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-constant-meditation-
that-you-can-be-in-while-doing-something-else

Is there such a thing as a constant meditation that you can be in

while doing something else?

Yes there is. When one has grown the witness aspect within oneself,
after some significant practise, it becomes possible to hold both
poises..one of witness and other of doer.

Of course this does not happen overnight. Self willed effort yields
results after long practise. But sometimes a higher grace intervenes and
shows you how that separation feels by direct experience, then our faith
in the possibility increases. Initially one is able to hold that meditative
poise as observer only when seated in meditation, then comes the
willingness to practise this even while engaged in mundane activities but
the head not enagaged..like walking, eating etc...then comes the stage
where one can separate oneself one is talking about something
routine...then comes possibility where even while actively thinking one
can see the thinking mind as something apart.

And that witness consciousness once established helps one grow wider
and deeper, of that it is better to let experience reveal than talk about it
in words.

Meditation is all about holding to one single thought and eventually give
up on that one thought too. This will help you to get rid of that one
thought finally and let go of your ego or “I”. The ego cannot exist
without thoughts. This is why our ego doesn’t exist while we are deep
sleep when there are no thoughts. If you manage you go past your ego in
waking state, then you realize the self

So now how can you be in constant meditation? There is something you

can do.

There is one thing that you always do. It is brea’thing. Since breathing is
a constant, pay attention to your breathe. Watch your breathe. If you get
a thought, stop following it and ask your mind to watch your breathe. So
this way the one thought you hold on to is the thought of watching your
breathe. It will be a bit boring to start with, but as you continue you will
see enormous improvements in your general well being.

This way you can be meditative most of the time

In that case whatever else that you are engaged in, would be the object
of your meditation. For example you could be walking and the walking
will be the object of your meditation. Similarly with say eating... I'm not
so sure if the object is negative like dinking alcohol or smoking, if you
might be able to maintain a similar attitude...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meditation-modern-
life/201302/living-meditative-life

Living a Meditative Life

How to experience the benefits of meditation throughout the day
Source:
If you’ve ever meditated, you’ve probably had moments where you
experienced relaxation and peace of mind. Then life resumed, and so did
your nonstop mental activity. But life doesn’t have to be this way. In this
blog post, I’ll explain what it means to lead a “meditative life,” and
show you how to do it.

Meditation (link is external)is often described as a practice that quiets

and calms the mind. Imagine maintaining this state all day long. I
believe that this is both possible and can dramatically decrease stress and
stress related illnesses. This is the premise behind the daylong retreats
(link is external) that I provide—I teach attendants how to maintain a
meditative state throughout the day.

Living a meditative life breaks common conceptions people have of

meditation. For many, it’s a practice that they do in isolation. On the one
hand, they meditate. On the other, they work, spend time with family,
and more. During their period of silence, they may have deep and
blissful experiences, but once they stop, their thoughts and feelings take
charge.

In fact, whether you’re a long time meditator or have never indulged in

the practice, most of us spend the day thinking thoughts that jump all
over the place. The voices in our heads say things such as, “I don’t like
that,” “I really like this,” “What if I did this,” or “I shouldn’t have done
that.” It’s as if we have a little person resting on our shoulder whispering
in our ear all day. By bedtime, we’re downright exhausted from the
mind chatter. For non-meditators, just about the only time they’re given
a break from the internal dialogue is when they go to sleep.

If you meditate, however, you learn to quiet your mind as you sit in
silence. But what if you could maintain this meditative state all day
long? They key to do this is to be 100% present (link is external) with
one thing at time without the mind chatter. Of course, we need some
mental commentary to help us make decisions and learn new things—for
the most part, however, most of what needs to be accomplished can be
done spontaneously. In one of my books, I refer to it as “being in the
zone.” It’s a state where you trust and make decisions based on your
natural instincts. Professional athletes, musicians, and artists have
mastered the ability to tap into this so-called “zone.” When you discover
how to do this yourself, life flows very smoothly. 

Think of an NBA star. He has practiced countless hours to reach the

peak of his abilities. When it’s game time, he gets out of his head and
lets his instincts take charge. He’s present with the task at hand and isn’t
consumed with the barrage of thoughts that burden so many of us. 

In your case, you don’t have to be a world class athlete to access this
“zone” state. When you trust life and flow with it, you do what you’re
supposed to, and then what you need to do will naturally emerge and
you’ll act accordingly. When you’re presented with decisions, you may
ponder them, but for the most part, you’re present with life and are not a
slave to your mental commentary.

So what does living in a meditative life look like in the real world? The
following is an example.

Let’s say that you have a meditative practice where you focus on your
breath. When your mind wanders you witness the thoughts,
acknowledge them, and then return to your breath. 

Now it’s time to apply these techniques to life outside your meditative
practice. Imagine that you’re talking to a friend and your mind wanders.
Rather than suppress your thoughts, acknowledge them and just go back
to your conversation. Or perhaps you’re watching a beautiful sunset and
you find that yourself thinking “non sunset related thoughts.” Simply
bring your focus back to the sunset and be with it. In both instances, you
don't push your thoughts away. Instead, you acknowledge them and then
return back to what is in front of you right now. In other words, be
present with what is and the moment you’re experiencing.

If you can apply the principles of leading meditative life to how you live
and work everyday, I believe you’ll experience more happiness (link is
external) and less stress. Learning how to live in the present moment,
concentrating on one thing at a time minus the mind chatter, and
acknowledging your thoughts and returning back to the present will
bring about a peace that surpasses understanding.

https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/ten-stages-of-meditation-
complete-guide/

How to Master the Art of Meditation:

A Complete Guide to the 10 Stages of Meditative Development

The entire process of training the mind unfolds through Ten Stages.
Each Stage of meditation has its own distinct characteristics, challenges
to overcome, and specific techniques for working through those
challenges. The Stages mark gradual improvements in your abilities. As
you make progress, there will also be Four Milestone Achievements that
divide the Ten Stages of meditation into four distinct parts. These are
especially significant transition points in your practice where mastery of
certain skills takes your meditation to a whole new level.

The Stages and Milestones, considered together, form a broad map to

help you figure out where you are and how best to continue. Yet,
because each person is unique, the route your spiritual journey takes will
always be at least slightly different from that of somebody else. For this
reason, we will also talk about how the process unfolds, how fast or slow
you may experience progress, and about what kind of attitude to have.
The point isn’t to force your experience to match something you have
read. Instead, use this article as a guide for working with and
understanding your own experiences—no matter what forms they take.
“Your abilities as a meditator gradually build on each other. Just as
you have to learn to walk before you can run, you must move
through the Stages in order.”

This article outlines the general arc of the practice. It will be helpful to
revisit it from time to time to keep the big picture fresh in your mind.
The more clearly you understand the Stages of meditation, and why they
happen in the order that they do, the quicker and more enjoyably you
will walk the path toward happiness and freedom.

How the Process Unfolds

Each of the Ten Stages on the path to becoming an adept meditator is

defined in terms of certain skills that you have to master. Only when you
have mastered the skills of a particular Stage of meditation will you be
able to master the next Stage. This is because your abilities as a
meditator gradually build on each other. Just as you have to learn to
walk before you can run, you must move through the Stages in order,
without skipping any of them. To make progress, you should correctly
determine your current Stage, work diligently with the techniques you’re
given, and move on only when you have achieved mastery. Mastery of
one Stage is a requirement for the mastery of the next, and none can be
skipped. Taking “shortcuts” just creates problems and ultimately
prolongs the process—so they’re not really shortcuts. Diligence is all
you need to make the fastest progress possible.

However, even though the Stages of meditation are presented as a linear

path of progress, the practice doesn’t actually unfold in such a
straightforward manner. For example, a beginning meditator will be
working on Stages One and Two at the same time. As your practice
progresses, you will frequently find yourself navigating several Stages at
the same time, moving back and forth between them over weeks, days,
or even during a single session. This is perfectly normal. You can also
expect to have times when you seem to have jumped to a more advanced
Stage, as well as days where you seem to have gone backward. In every
case, the important thing is to practice according to whatever is
happening in your meditation in the present. Don’t get ahead of what is
actually happening. On the other hand, once you have overcome the
obstacles for a given Stage even temporarily, then you can work with the
obstacles for the next Stage.

You will also notice that many of the techniques are similar in several
different Stages of meditation. A meditator at Stage Three, for instance,
uses similar techniques as a meditator at Stage Four. The same is true for
Stages Five and Six. However, the goals for each Stage are always
different.

The secret to progress is working with the specific obstacles and goals
appropriate to your current skill level. It’s like learning to skate: you
have to learn the basics before you can start doing triple-axels. The
earlier Stages of meditation take longer to master. However, because the
Stages build on one another, the methods overlap, and the skills you
develop in one Stage are used in the next, you start making faster and
faster progress. Advancing from Stage Three to Four might take a long
time, but progressing from Four to Five usually happens more quickly,
and so on.
figure 1. progression through the stages of meditation is not linear:
expect to be moving between stages over several sits or even during a
single sit.

It’s common to have occasional or even frequent meditation experiences

that correspond to more advanced Stages. Even a beginning meditator at
Stage Two may have experiences that resemble those of advanced
Stages. When this happens, you might overestimate your abilities and try
to replicate that experience instead of working to master the skills for
your current Stage. Such experiences have no real significance in terms
of your progress, although they do show you what is possible. Use them
as inspiration, while continuing to work toward mastering your current
Stage of meditation. Isolated meditation experiences can happen at any
time, but if they can’t be repeated, consistently and intentionally, they
are of little value. Once your practice matures, you will have the
knowledge and skills to consistently create these kinds of experiences.

The Rate of Progress through the Ten Stages

Some books give the impression that it takes many, many years or even
decades to become an adept meditator. This simply isn’t true! For
householders who practice properly, it’s possible to master the Ten
Stages of meditation within a few months or years. What you need is a
regular daily sitting practice of one to two hours per day in combination
with some of the supplemental practices described in the appendices.
Meditation retreats are quite helpful, but ones lasting months or years
are certainly not necessary. Diligent daily meditation, combined with
occasional longer periods of practice, will be enough for success.

“It’s possible to master the Ten Stages within a few months or

years.”

That said, there are several factors that determine how fast we make
progress through the stages of meditation. Some of them we can
influence, others we can’t. To start with, different people have different
natural abilities for working with attention and awareness. Some
lifestyles and career paths are more conducive to developing these skills.
Also, some people are better able to discipline themselves to practice
regularly and diligently. Regardless of your natural abilities, you
absolutely must master Stage One, “Establishing a Practice,” to make
progress.

Life factors and stressful events can also affect the process. Losing your
job, the death of a spouse, or a health problem can set even an advanced
meditator back to the earliest Stages of meditation. In fact, almost
anything that happens outside of meditation can potentially have this
effect. This just serves as another reminder that meditative
accomplishments, like everything else, depend on certain conditions, and
can therefore be influenced by worldly events.

Another factor that affects your progress is the problem of

compartmentalization. We have a common tendency to separate
meditation practice from the rest of our life. If the skills and insights we
learn on the cushion don’t infuse our daily life, progress through the
stages of meditation will be quite slow. It’s like filling a leaky bucket.
This may be one reason why some people consider long retreats the only
way to make real progress. Retreats are certainly wonderful and can help
bring your practice to a whole new level. Yet, we can only experience
the full benefits if the wisdom we acquire permeates every facet of our
life, and that takes work. Otherwise, long retreats are like filling an even
bigger leaky bucket.

The most important factor for improving quickly is a clear

understanding of each Stage of meditation. That means recognizing the
mental faculties you need to cultivate, as well as the correct methods to
overcome specific obstacles. It also means not getting ahead of yourself.
Be systematic and practice at the appropriate level. Just as a scalpel is
more effective for surgery than a large knife, skillful means and positive
reinforcement are much better for pacifying the mind than blind,
stubborn persistence. Finesse and patience pay off.

The Ten Stages of Meditative Training

Here, I briefly describe each Stage’s distinct characteristics, goals,

challenges, and the techniques for achieving those goals and working
through those challenges. Four particularly significant achievements
divide the Ten Stages of meditation into four distinct parts: One through
Three are the Stages of a novice;

How to Master the Art of Meditation:

A Complete Guide to the 10 Stages of Meditative Development

BY CULADASA (JOHN YATES Ph.D.)

there are 10 distinct stages of meditation that you move through as you
become a master of the art. photo: jock+scott photocase.com

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The entire process of training the mind unfolds through Ten Stages.
Each Stage of meditation has its own distinct characteristics, challenges
to overcome, and specific techniques for working through those
challenges. The

Stages mark gradual improvements in your abilities. As you make

progress, there will also be Four Milestone Achievements that divide the
Ten Stages of meditation into four distinct parts. These are especially
significant transition points in your practice where mastery of certain
skills takes your meditation to a whole new level.

The Stages and Milestones, considered together, form a broad map to

help you figure out where you are and how best to continue. Yet,
because each person is unique, the route your spiritual journey takes will
always be at least slightly different from that of somebody else. For this
reason, we will also talk about how the process unfolds, how fast or slow
you may experience progress, and about what kind of attitude to have.
The point isn’t to force your experience to match something you have
read. Instead, use this article as a guide for working with and
understanding your own experiences—no matter what forms they take.

 
“Your abilities as a meditator gradually build on each other. Just as
you have to learn to walk before you can run, you must move
through the Stages in order.”

This article outlines the general arc of the practice. It will be helpful to
revisit it from time to time to keep the big picture fresh in your mind.
The more clearly you understand the Stages of meditation, and why they
happen in the order that they do, the quicker and more enjoyably you
will walk the path toward happiness and freedom.

How the Process Unfolds

Each of the Ten Stages on the path to becoming an adept meditator is

defined in terms of certain skills that you have to master. Only when you
have mastered the skills of a particular Stage of meditation will you be
able to master the next Stage. This is because your abilities as a
meditator gradually build on each other. Just as you have to learn to
walk before you can run, you must move through the Stages in order,
without skipping any of them. To make progress, you should correctly
determine your current Stage, work diligently with the techniques you’re
given, and move on only when you have achieved mastery. Mastery of
one Stage is a requirement for the mastery of the next, and none can be
skipped. Taking “shortcuts” just creates problems and ultimately
prolongs the process—so they’re not really shortcuts. Diligence is all
you need to make the fastest progress possible.
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However, even though the Stages of meditation are presented as a linear

path of progress, the practice doesn’t actually unfold in such a
straightforward manner. For example, a beginning meditator will be
working on Stages One and Two at the same time. As your practice
progresses, you will frequently find yourself navigating several Stages at
the same time, moving back and forth between them over weeks, days,
or even during a single session. This is perfectly normal. You can also
expect to have times when you seem to have jumped to a more advanced
Stage, as well as days where you seem to have gone backward. In every
case, the important thing is to practice according to whatever is
happening in your meditation in the present. Don’t get ahead of what is
actually happening. On the other hand, once you have overcome the
obstacles for a given Stage even temporarily, then you can work with the
obstacles for the next Stage.

You will also notice that many of the techniques are similar in several
different Stages of meditation. A meditator at Stage Three, for instance,
uses similar techniques as a meditator at Stage Four. The same is true for
Stages Five and Six. However, the goals for each Stage are always
different.

The secret to progress is working with the specific obstacles and goals
appropriate to your current skill level. It’s like learning to skate: you
have to learn the basics before you can start doing triple-axels. The
earlier Stages of meditation take longer to master. However, because the
Stages build on one another, the methods overlap, and the skills you
develop in one Stage are used in the next, you start making faster and
faster progress. Advancing from Stage Three to Four might take a long
time, but progressing from Four to Five usually happens more quickly,
and so on.
figure 1. progression through the stages of meditation is not linear:
expect to be moving between stages over several sits or even during a
single sit.

It’s common to have occasional or even frequent meditation experiences

that correspond to more advanced Stages. Even a beginning meditator at
Stage Two may have experiences that resemble those of advanced
Stages. When this happens, you might overestimate your abilities and try
to replicate that experience instead of working to master the skills for
your current Stage. Such experiences have no real significance in terms
of your progress, although they do show you what is possible. Use them
as inspiration, while continuing to work toward mastering your current
Stage of meditation. Isolated meditation experiences can happen at any
time, but if they can’t be repeated, consistently and intentionally, they
are of little value. Once your practice matures, you will have the
knowledge and skills to consistently create these kinds of experiences.
The Rate of Progress through the Ten Stages

Some books give the impression that it takes many, many years or even
decades to become an adept meditator. This simply isn’t true! For
householders who practice properly, it’s possible to master the Ten
Stages of meditation within a few months or years. What you need is a
regular daily sitting practice of one to two hours per day in combination
with some of the supplemental practices described in the appendices.
Meditation retreats are quite helpful, but ones lasting months or years
are certainly not necessary. Diligent daily meditation, combined with
occasional longer periods of practice, will be enough for success.

“It’s possible to master the Ten Stages within a few months or

years.”

That said, there are several factors that determine how fast we make
progress through the stages of meditation. Some of them we can
influence, others we can’t. To start with, different people have different
natural abilities for working with attention and awareness. Some
lifestyles and career paths are more conducive to developing these skills.
Also, some people are better able to discipline themselves to practice
regularly and diligently. Regardless of your natural abilities, you
absolutely must master Stage One, “Establishing a Practice,” to make
progress.

Life factors and stressful events can also affect the process. Losing your
job, the death of a spouse, or a health problem can set even an advanced
meditator back to the earliest Stages of meditation. In fact, almost
anything that happens outside of meditation can potentially have this
effect. This just serves as another reminder that meditative
accomplishments, like everything else, depend on certain conditions, and
can therefore be influenced by worldly events.
Another factor that affects your progress is the problem of
compartmentalization. We have a common tendency to separate
meditation practice from the rest of our life. If the skills and insights we
learn on the cushion don’t infuse our daily life, progress through the
stages of meditation will be quite slow. It’s like filling a leaky bucket.
This may be one reason why some people consider long retreats the only
way to make real progress. Retreats are certainly wonderful and can help
bring your practice to a whole new level. Yet, we can only experience
the full benefits if the wisdom we acquire permeates every facet of our
life, and that takes work. Otherwise, long retreats are like filling an even
bigger leaky bucket.

The most important factor for improving quickly is a clear

understanding of each Stage of meditation. That means recognizing the
mental faculties you need to cultivate, as well as the correct methods to
overcome specific obstacles. It also means not getting ahead of yourself.
Be systematic and practice at the appropriate level. Just as a scalpel is
more effective for surgery than a large knife, skillful means and positive
reinforcement are much better for pacifying the mind than blind,
stubborn persistence. Finesse and patience pay off.

The Ten Stages of Meditative Training

Here, I briefly describe each Stage’s distinct characteristics, goals,

challenges, and the techniques for achieving those goals and working
through those challenges. Four particularly significant achievements
divide the Ten Stages of meditation into four distinct parts: One through
Three are the Stages of a novice;

Four through Six are the Stages of a skilled meditator; Seven is a

transition Stage; and Eight through Ten are the Stages of an adept. It is
helpful to think of each Stage in terms of the Milestone that lies ahead.
You will also notice a number of bold and italicized key terms. Don’t
worry if you don’t know what the terms mean or can’t remember
everything being presented here.
The Ten Stages and Four Milestones

The Novice Meditator

Stage One: Establishing a Practice

Stage Two: Interrupted Attention and Overcoming Mind-Wandering
Stage Three: Extended Attention and Overcoming Forgetting

Milestone One: Continuous Attention to the Meditation Object

The Skilled Meditator

Stage Four: Continuous Attention and Overcoming Gross Distraction

and Strong Dullness
Stage Five: Overcoming Subtle Dullness and Increasing Mindfulness
Stage Six: Subduing Subtle Distraction

Milestone Two: Sustained Exclusive Focus of Attention

The Transition

Stage Seven: Exclusive Attention and Unifying the Mind

Milestone Three: Effortless Stability of Attention

The Adept Meditator

Stage Eight: Mental Pliancy and Pacifying the Senses

Stage Nine: Mental and Physical Pliancy and Calming the Intensity of
Meditative Joy
Stage Ten: Tranquility and Equanimity
Milestone Four: Persistence of the Mental Qualities of an Adept
Diagram of The Ten Stages of Meditation. The monk is the meditator.
The rope he holds represents vigilant, alert mindfulness. The goad in his
other hand represents strong intention and firm resolve. The elephant
represents the mind. The black color of the elephant represents the Five
Hindrances and the Seven Problems they give rise to. The monkey
represents scattering of attention, and the black color represents subtle
and gross distraction, forgetting, and mind-wandering. The rabbit
represents subtle dullness. The flames represent vigilance and effort,
and when effort is no longer required, the flames disappear. The length
of the road between successive Stages indicates the relative time
required to progress from one Stage to the next. The Stages come
closer together until Stage Seven, then they begin to stretch out again.
Because the road folds back, it is possible to jump up to higher Stages

The Novice—Stages One through Three

Stage One: Establishing a Practice

This Stage of meditation is about developing a consistent and diligent

meditation practice. Being consistent means setting a clear daily
schedule for when you’re going to meditate, and sticking to it except
when there are circumstances beyond your control. Diligence means
engaging whole-heartedly in the practice rather than spending your time
on the cushion planning or daydreaming.

Goals: Develop a regular meditation practice.

Obstacles: Resistance, procrastination, fatigue, impatience, boredom,

lack of motivation.

Skills: Creating practice routines, setting specific practice goals,

generating strong motivation, cultivating discipline and diligence.

Mastery: Never missing a daily practice session.

Stage Two: Interrupted Attention and Overcoming Mind-
Wandering

Stage Two of meditation involves the simple practice of keeping your

attention on the breath. This is easier said than done. You will discover
that attention is easily captured by a distraction, making you forget that
you’re supposed to be paying attention to the breath. Forgetting quickly
leads to mind-wandering, which can last a few seconds, several minutes,
or the entire meditation session. This sequence is so important it’s worth
committing to memory—the untrained mind produces distractions that
lead to forgetting, which results in mind-wandering. In Stage Two, you
only work with the last event—mind-wandering.

Goals: Shorten the periods of mind-wandering and extend the periods of

sustained attention to the meditation object.

Obstacles: Mind-wandering, monkey-mind, and impatience.

Skills: Reinforcing spontaneous introspective awareness and learning to

sustain attention on the meditation object. Spontaneous introspective
awareness is the “aha” moment when you suddenly realize there’s a
disconnect between what you wanted to do (watch the breath) and what
you’re actually doing (thinking about something else). Appreciating this
moment causes it to happen faster and faster, so the periods of mind-
wandering get shorter and shorter.

Mastery: You can sustain attention on the meditation object for minutes,
while most periods of mind-wandering last only a few seconds.

Stage Three: Extended Attention and Overcoming Forgetting

Stages Two and Three are similar, but mind-wandering gets shorter and
shorter until it stops altogether. The biggest challenge during this Stage
of meditation is forgetting, but sleepiness often becomes a problem as
well.
Goals: Overcome forgetting and falling asleep.

Obstacles: Distractions, forgetting, mind-wandering, and sleepiness.

Skills: Use the techniques of following the breath and connecting to

extend the periods of uninterrupted attention, and become familiar with
how forgetting happens. Cultivate introspective awareness through the
practices of labeling and checking in. These techniques allow you to
catch distractions before they lead to forgetting.

Mastery: Rarely forgetting the breath or falling asleep.

Milestone One: Continuous Attention to the Meditation Object

The first Milestone is continuous attention to the meditation object,

which you achieve at the end of Stage Three. Before this, you’re a
beginner—a person who meditates, rather than a skilled meditator.
When you reach this Milestone, you’re no longer a novice, prone to
forgetting, mind-wandering, or dozing off. By mastering Stages One
through Three, you have acquired the basic, first level skills on the way
to stable attention. You can now do something that no ordinary,
untrained person can. You will build on this initial skillset over the
course of the next three Stages of meditation to become a truly skilled
meditator.

The Skilled Meditator—Stages Four through Six

Stage Four: Continuous Attention and Overcoming Gross
Distraction and Strong Dullness

You can stay focused on the breath more or less continuously, but
attention still shifts rapidly back and forth between the breath and
various distractions. Whenever a distraction becomes the primary focus
of your attention, it pushes the meditation object into the background.
This is called gross distraction. But when the mind grows calm, there
tends to be another problem, strong dullness. To deal with both of these
challenges, you develop continuous introspective awareness to alert you
to their presence.

Goal: Overcome gross distraction and strong dullness.

Obstacles: Distractions, pain and discomfort, intellectual insights,

emotionally charged visions and memories.

Skills: Developing continuous introspective awareness allows you to

make corrections before subtle distractions become gross distractions,
and before subtle dullness becomes strong dullness. Learning to work
with pain. Purifying the mind of past trauma and unwholesome
conditioning.

Mastery: Gross distractions no longer push the breath into the

background, and breath sensations don’t fade or become distorted due to
strong dullness.

Stage Five: Overcoming Subtle Dullness and Increasing Mindfulness

You have overcome gross distractions and strong dullness, but there is a
tendency to slip into stable subtle dullness. This makes the breath
sensations less vivid and causes peripheral awareness to fade.
Unrecognized, subtle dullness can lead you to overestimate your abilities
and move on to the next Stage of meditation prematurely, which leads to
concentration with dullness. You will experience only a shallow
facsimile of the later Stages, and your practice will come to a dead end.
To overcome subtle dullness, you must sharpen your faculties of
attention and awareness.

Goal: To overcome subtle dullness and increase the power of

mindfulness.

Obstacles: Subtle dullness is difficult to recognize, creates an illusion of

stable attention, and is seductively pleasant.
Skills: Cultivating even stronger and more continuous introspective
awareness to detect and correct for subtle dullness. Learning a new body
scanning technique to help you increase the power of your mindfulness.

Mastery: You can sustain or even increase the power of your

mindfulness during each meditation session.

Stage Six: Subduing Subtle Distraction

Attention is fairly stable but still alternates between the meditation

object and subtle distractions in the background. You’re now ready to
bring your faculty of attention to a whole new level where subtle
distractions fall away completely. You will achieve exclusive attention
to the meditation object, also called single-pointed attention.

Goal: To subdue subtle distractions and develop metacognitive

introspective awareness.

Obstacles: The tendency for attention to alternate to the continuous

stream of distracting thoughts and other mental objects in peripheral
awareness.

Skills: Defining your scope of attention more precisely than before, and
ignoring everything outside that scope until subtle distractions fade
away. Developing a much more refined and selective awareness of the
mind itself, called metacognitive introspective awareness. You will also
use a method called “experiencing the whole body with the breath” to
further subdue potential distractions.

Mastery: Subtle distractions have almost entirely disappeared, and you

have unwavering exclusive attention together with vivid mindfulness.

Milestone Two: Sustained Exclusive Focus of Attention

With mastery of Stages of meditation Four through Six, your attention

no longer alternates back and forth from the breath to distractions in the
background. You can focus on the meditation object to the exclusion of
everything else, and your scope of attention is also stable. Dullness has
completely disappeared, and mindfulness takes the form of a powerful
metacognitive introspective awareness. That is, you’re now aware of
your state of mind in every moment, even as you focus on the breath.
You have accomplished the two major objectives of meditative training:
stable attention and powerful mindfulness. With these abilities you’re
now a skilled meditator, and have achieved the second Milestone.

The Transition—Stage Seven

Stage Seven: Exclusive Attention and Unifying the Mind

You can now investigate any object with however broad or narrow a
focus you choose. But you have to stay vigilant and make a continuous
effort to keep subtle distractions and subtle dullness at bay.

Goal: Effortlessly sustained exclusive attention and powerful

mindfulness.

Obstacles: Distractions and dullness will return if you stop exerting

effort. You must keep sustaining effort until exclusive attention and
mindfulness become automatic, then effort will no longer be necessary.
Boredom, restlessness, and doubt tend to arise during this time. Also,
bizarre sensations and involuntary body movements can distract you
from your practice. Knowing when to drop all effort is the next obstacle.
But making effort has become a habit, so it’s hard to stop.

Methods: Practicing patiently and diligently will bring you to the

threshold of effortlessness. It will get you past all the boredom and
doubt, as well as the bizarre sensations and movements. Purposely
relaxing your effort from time to time will let you know when effort and
vigilance are no longer necessary. Then you can work on letting go of
the need to be in control. Various Insight and jhāna practices add variety
at this Stage of meditation.
Mastery: You can drop all effort, and the mind still maintains an
unprecedented degree of stability and clarity.

Milestone Three: Effortless Stability of Attention

The third Milestone is marked by effortlessly sustained exclusive

attention together with powerful mindfulness. This state is called mental
pliancy, and occurs because of the complete pacification of the
discriminating mind, meaning mental chatter and discursive analysis
have stopped. Different parts of the mind are no longer so resistant or
preoccupied with other things, and diverse mental processes begin to
coalesce around a single purpose. This unification of mind means that,
rather than struggling against itself, the mind functions more as a
coherent, harmonious whole. You have completed the transition from
being a skilled meditator to an adept meditator at this point in your
journey through the stages of meditation.

The Adept Meditator—Stages Eight through Ten

Stage Eight: Mental Pliancy and Pacifying the Senses

With mental pliancy, you can effortlessly sustain exclusive attention and
mindfulness, but physical pain and discomfort still limit how long you
can sit. The bizarre sensations and involuntary movements that began in
Stage Seven not only continue, but may intensify. With continuing
unification of mind and complete pacification of the senses, physical
pliancy arises, and these problems disappear. Pacifying the senses
doesn’t imply going into some trance. It just means that the five physical
senses, as well as the mind sense, temporarily grow quiet while you
meditate.

Goal: Complete pacification of the senses and the full arising of

meditative joy.

Obstacles: The primary challenge is not to be distracted or distressed by

the variety of extraordinary experiences during this Stage of meditation:
unusual, and often unpleasant, sensations, involuntary movements,
feelings of strong energy currents in the body, and intense joy. Simply
let them be.

Method: Practicing effortless attention and introspective awareness will

naturally lead to continued unification, pacification of the senses, and
the arising of meditative joy. Jhāna and other Insight practices are very
productive as part of this process.

Mastery: When the eyes perceive only an inner light, the ears perceive
only an inner sound, the body is suffused with a sense of pleasure and
comfort, and your mental state is one of intense joy. With this mental
and physical pliancy, you can sit for hours without dullness, distraction,
or physical discomfort.

Stage Nine: Mental and Physical Pliancy and Calming the Intensity
of Meditative Joy

With mental and physical pliancy comes meditative joy, a unique state
of mind that brings great happiness and physical pleasure.

Goal: The maturation of meditative joy, producing tranquility and

equanimity.

Obstacles: The intensity of meditative joy can perturb the mind,

becoming a distraction and disrupting your practice.

Method: Becoming familiar with meditative joy through continued

practice until the excitement fades, replaced by tranquility and
equanimity.

Mastery: Consistently evoking mental and physical pliancy,

accompanied by profound tranquility and equanimity.
Stage Ten: Tranquility and Equanimity

You enter Stage Ten with all the qualities of samatha: effortlessly stable
attention, mindfulness, joy, tranquility, and equanimity. At first these
qualities immediately fade after the meditation has ended. But as you
continue to practice, they persist longer and longer between meditation
sessions. Eventually they become the normal condition of the mind.
Because the characteristics of samatha never disappear entirely,
whenever you sit on the cushion, you quickly regain a fully developed
meditative state. You have mastered this Stage of meditation when the
qualities of samatha persist for many hours after you rise from the
cushion. Once Stage Ten is mastered, the mind is described as
unsurpassable.

Milestone Four: Persistence of the Mental Qualities of an Adept

When you have mastered the final Stage of meditation, the many
positive mental qualities you experience during meditation are strongly
present even between meditation sessions, so your daily life is imbued
with effortlessly stable attention, mindfulness, joy, tranquility, and
equanimity. This is the fourth and final Milestone and marks the
culmination of an adept meditator’s training.

Cultivating The Right Attitude and Setting Clear Intentions

We naturally tend to think of ourselves as the agent responsible for

producing results through will and effort. Certain words we can’t avoid
using when we talk about meditation, such as “achieve” and “master,”
only reinforce this idea. We often believe we should be in control, the
masters of our own minds. But that belief only creates problems for your
practice. It will lead you to try to willfully force the mind into
submission. When that inevitably fails, you will tend to get discouraged
and blame yourself. This can turn into a habit unless you realize there is
no “self” in charge of the mind, and therefore nobody to blame. As you
continue to move through the stages of meditation, this fact of “no-Self”
becomes increasingly clear, but you can’t afford to wait for that Insight.
For the sake of making progress, it’s best to drop this notion, at least at
an intellectual level, as soon as possible.

In reality, all we’re “doing” in meditation is forming and holding

specific conscious intentions—nothing more. In fact, while it may not be
obvious, all our achievements originate from intentions. Consider
learning to play catch. As a child, you may have wanted to play catch,
but at first your arm and hand just didn’t move in quite the right way.
However, by sustaining the intention to catch the ball, after much
practice, your arm and hand eventually performed the task whenever you
wanted. “You” don’t play catch. Instead, you just intend to catch the
ball, and the rest follows. “You” intend, and the body acts.

In exactly the same way, we can use intention to profoundly transform

how the mind behaves. Intention, provided it is correctly formulated and
sustained, is what creates the causes and conditions for stable attention
and mindfulness. Intentions repeatedly sustained over the course of
many meditation sessions give rise to frequently repeated mental acts,
which eventually become habits of the mind.

At every Stage of meditation, all “you” really do is patiently and

persistently hold intentions to respond in specific ways to whatever
happens during your meditation. Setting and holding the right intentions
is what’s essential. If your intention is strong, the appropriate responses
will occur, and the practice will unfold in a very natural and predictable
way. Once again, repeatedly sustained intentions lead to repeated mental
actions, which become mental habits—the habits of mind that lead to
joy, equanimity, and Insight. The exquisite simplicity of this process
isn’t so obvious in the early Stages of meditation. However, by the time
you reach Stage Eight and your meditations become completely
effortless, it will be clear.

While useful, the lists of goals, obstacles, skills, and mastery provided
above can obscure just how simple the underlying process really is:
intentions lead to mental actions, and repeated mental actions become
mental habits. This simple formula is at the heart of every Stage.
Therefore, here’s a brief recap of the Ten Stages of meditation,
presented in a completely different way that puts the emphasis entirely
on how intention works in each Stage. Refer to the earlier outline when
you need to orient yourself within the context of the Stages as a whole,
but look at the outline below whenever working through the individual
Stages begins to feel like a struggle.

Stage One
Put all your effort into forming and holding a conscious intention to sit
down and meditate for a set period every day, and to practice diligently
for the duration of the sit. When your intentions are clear and strong, the
appropriate actions naturally follow, and you’ll find yourself regularly
sitting down to meditate. If this doesn’t happen, instead of chastising
yourself and trying to force yourself to practice, work on strengthening
your motivation and intentions.

“When your intentions are clear and strong, the appropriate actions
naturally follow, and you’ll find yourself regularly sitting down to
meditate.”

Stage Two
Willpower can’t prevent the mind from forgetting the breath. Nor can
you force yourself to become aware that the mind is wandering. Instead,
just hold the intention to appreciate the “aha” moment that recognizes
mind-wandering, while gently but firmly redirecting attention back to
the breath. Then, intend to engage with the breath as fully as possible
without losing peripheral awareness. In time, the simple actions flowing
from these three intentions will become mental habits. Periods of mind-
wandering will become shorter, periods of attention to the breath will
grow longer, and you’ll have achieved your goal.
Stage Three
Set your intention to invoke introspective attention frequently, before
you’ve forgotten the breath or fallen asleep, and make corrections as
soon as you notice distractions or dullness. Also, intend to sustain
peripheral awareness while engaging with the breath as fully as possible.
These three intentions and the actions they produce are simply
elaborations of those from the previous Stage of medtiation. Once they
become habits, you’ll rarely forget the breath.

Stages Four through Six

Set and hold the intention to be vigilant so that introspective awareness
becomes continuous, and notice and immediately correct for dullness
and distraction. These intentions will mature into the highly developed
skills of stable attention and mindfulness as you move through later
stages of meditation. You overcome every type of dullness and
distraction, achieving both exclusive, single-pointed attention and
metacognitive introspective awareness.

Stage Seven
Everything becomes even simpler at this stage of meditation. With the
conscious intention to continuously guard against dullness and
distraction, the mind becomes completely accustomed to effortlessly
sustaining attention and mindfulness.

Stages Eight through Ten

Your intention is simply to keep practicing, using skills that are now
completely effortless. In Stage Eight, effortlessly sustained exclusive
attention produces mental and physical pliancy, pleasure, and joy. In
Stage Nine, simply abiding in the state of meditative joy causes
profound tranquility and equanimity to arise. In Stage Ten, just by
continuing to practice regularly, the profound joy and happiness,
tranquility, and equanimity you experience in meditation persists
between meditation sessions, infusing your daily life as well.

As with planting seeds, at each Stage of meditation you sow the

appropriate intentions in the soil of the mind. Water these intentions
with the diligence of regular practice, and protect them from the
destructive pests of procrastination, doubt, desire, aversion, and
agitation. These intentions will naturally flower into a specific series of
mental events that mature to produce the fruits of our practice. Will a
seed sprout more quickly if you keep digging it up and replanting it? No.
Therefore, don’t let impatience or frustration stop you from practicing or
convince you that you need to seek out a “better” or “easier” practice.
Getting annoyed with every instance of mind-wandering or sleepiness is
like tearing up the garden to get rid of the weeds. Attempting to force
attention to remain stable is like trying to make a sapling grow taller by
stretching it. Chasing after physical pliancy and meditative joy is like
prying open a bud so it will blossom more quickly. Impatience and
striving won’t make anything grow faster. Be patient and trust in the
process. Care for the mind like a skilled gardener, and everything will
flower and fruit in due time.

This article on the stages of meditation is excerpted with permission

from The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide
Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science by Culadasa (John
Yates, Ph.D.).

About The Author

Culadasa (John Yates) has practiced Buddhist meditation for over four
decades and is the director of Dharma Treasure Buddhist Sangha in
Tucson, Arizona. He has deeply studied both the Theravadin and
Tibetan traditions. This unique lineage allows him to provide a broad
and in-depth perspective on the Buddha Dharma. He has combined the
original teachings of the Buddha with an emerging, scientific
understanding of the mind to give students a rich and rare opportunity
for rapid progress and profound insight. Visit his website:
http://www.dharmatreasure.org

https://liveanddare.com/process-of-meditation/

The Process Of Meditation – How To Deepen Your Practice

[Originally published as a guest post on HighExistence.com (slightly
adapted version)]

“I’ve been meditating every day for 20-30 minutes, for the past 6
months, but I feel my practice is now stuck, and I don’t know how to
make it deeper.”

Have you ever felt like this? Maybe for you it’s two months, or two
years, or ten years.

As a meditation teacher and writer, I get this type of complaint fairly

often. Assuming that you have a clear understanding of the meditation
technique you are practicing, there are basically three reasons why your
meditation practice feels like it’s in a plateau, or is not going deep
enough:

 lack of preparation before practice

 your daily life habits and attitudes are not supporting your practice
 not enough intensity of focus during practice

The first point is about what you do before practice; the second is what
you do outside of your seated practice. The third one is about the
meditation process itself, the how of focusing attention, and is what I’ll
explore in this article. Future posts will deal with the other two aspects.

In the beginning of one’s journey into meditation, the most important

thing is simply to build up the habit, get used to sitting, and be
comfortable with the posture of meditation. If you are still in the early
stages of building a meditation habit, I’ll recommend reading the post of
meditation for beginners instead.

Once the habit is already firm, then paying attention to actually

improving one’s practice can take place, without the risk of
demotivating the person. Which is what we will talk about now.
The Process of Meditation

The reason why it feels our meditation doesn’t go deep, or is not clear

enough, is due to lack of intensity of focus, which is a result of not fully
understanding the process of meditation and “what we should be doing”.
It is a form of torpor or sloth, which is one of the “five hindrances” of
meditation, according to the Buddhist tradition.

The mind has two main functions, ‘doing’ and ‘knowing’. The way of
meditation is to calm the ‘doing’ to complete tranquility while
maintaining the ‘knowing’. Sloth and torpor occur when one carelessly
calms both the ‘doing’ and the ‘knowing’, unable to distinguish between
them. – Ajahn Brahmavamso

Suppose you meditate for 10 minutes (which is 600 seconds), focusing

on your breathing. Let’s visually represent your meditation as a square
on a paper, filled with 600 dots. When you are about to start meditation,
they are all blank.
Each second of your meditation can only be spent in one of three ways:
with the object of focus (in this case, the breath), with another object (for
example, a thought or memory), or neither focused nor distracted, in a
kind of “blanked out” state. Let’s represent these with colors:

 For each second your attention is with your breathing, you get a
green dot;
 For each second where it is engaged in mental phenomena
(thoughts, sensations, memories, etc.), you get a red dot;
  For each second where it is neither paying attention to the object of
your meditation, nor engaged in the mind, you get a gray dot.

Your objective is to fill that square with as many green dots as possible.
The more green dots you have, the deeper and clearer your meditation
feels; if it is filled with red dots, you would say your meditation was
“noisy”, and all you get from it is simply bodily relaxation. If it is filled
with gray dots, meditation is “calm but clouded”. Some people confuse
this “gray state” with the real quietude of meditation, but it’s not (more
about this later).

As a beginner – or as an advanced meditator in the first minutes of

practice – our session may look like this

A
s time passes and you brush up your concentration skills, your
meditation starts to look more like this

The goals of the practice, for the beginner meditator, is to gently

 1. Decrease the number of consecutive reds (meaning the time
needed for us to realize that we got distracted gets shorter);
2. Increase the overall number of greens (pure concentration
moments);
3. Increase the number of consecutive greens;
4. Decrease the number of grays.

For those familiar with the Hindu teaching of the three gunas (which are
the basic characteristics of building blocks of all existence), we can say
that:

 green is sattva (purity, balance, serenity, openness, clarity,

presence, awareness)
 red is rajas (activity, dynamism, movement, agitation,
restlessness)
 gray is tamas (torpor, sloth, inertia, obfuscation, heaviness,
forgetfulness)

I hope this gives you a better understanding of the process of meditation.

What happens to most people is that after 3 green dots, they relax their
focus, and then the mind wanders. Thus, there is no intensity, and the
results are limited.

Our attitude during meditation, then, should be to re-focus the attention

second after second on the object of your meditation. At the “end” of
each green dot you need to be particularly vigilant, because it is easy for
the mind to slip to agitation or forgetfulness. Therefore, the key to
deepening in meditation is to affirm and reaffirm your object of focus
second after second, in a continuous flow of attention.

Of course, this is by no means easy, and takes long training to be

achieved. But having a clear understanding of the process can help us
progress faster. Unfortunately, I didn’t find this process laid out like this
anywhere; it took me some time to connect the dots (intentional pun).
This process is true to mostly all types of meditation, since they are all
an exercise in regulating attention. It’s applicable especially in
concentrative practices and mindfulness.

 In focused attention techniques, it is bringing back the attention to

the single object of focus – be it the breath, a mantra, a chakra,
feelings of loving-kindness, or anything else (external or internal,
actual or imagined).
 In open monitoring types of meditation (like mindfulness), the
attention is constantly brought back to the perception of the present
moment. The contents of the perception are constantly changing,
but not the fact of perceiving itself.

In all these techniques, attention is constantly redirected to the practice,

whatever form it takes. In the third type of meditation, in particular, it is
very easy to confuse open awareness with gray states, which is perhaps
why it’s not the best practice for most beginners.

Generating More Intensity

Energy, intensity and focus follow interest. Wherever we have a deep

sense of interest, for that thing there is natural focus and intensity in our
mind.

Sloth and torpor is overcome by rousing energy. Energy is always

available but few know how to turn on the switch, as it were. Setting a
goal, a reasonable goal, is a wise and effective way to generate energy,
as is deliberately developing interest in the task at hand. A young child
has a natural interest, and consequent energy, because its world is so
new. Thus, if one can learn to look at one’s life, or one’s meditation,
with a ‘beginner’s mind’ one can see ever new angles and fresh
possibilities which keep one distant from sloth and torpor, alive and
energetic. […] Sloth and torpor is a common problem which can creep
up and smother one slowly. A skilful meditator keeps a sharp look-out
for the first signs of sloth and torpor and is thus able to spot its approach
and take evasive action before it’s too late. – Ajahn Brahmavamso
(Wikipedia)

If your meditation is focusing on the breathing, you need to generate

deep interest for the breath, with a mind of curiosity, of love for the
breath. You need to want to know your breath deeply, in detail and
depth; to experience it in many levels, again and again. Keeping the
interest alive and intense, in the object of meditation, is the whole secret.
You need to be more interested in exploring your breath than in
rehearsing thoughts and memories in your mind.

As our focus goes deeper, what we before saw as a single dot (green, red
or gray), we realise that it’s actually a collection of hundreds of mini-
dots, of milliseconds of attentional movement. So when we say that we
got a green dot, or a red dot, what it means is that for the majority of
milliseconds of that dot, attention was green or red. But this is probably
only relevant for more advanced meditators.

For this reason, also, choose among the traditional types of

meditation one that your mind is naturally attuned to. That will help you
keep your interest alive.

As a metaphor that can help us get a better experience of this feeling of

intensity of focus, imagine you are walking on a rope, suspended over a
cliff. You need your full attention every step of the way – every second
of each step. A single moment of distraction, and your body loses
balance and you fall.

If we could “walk” our meditation with this level of intensity we would

have no problem in attaining deeper levels of meditative absorption and
clear vision.

To experiment this state of one-pointedness, you can also do the

following experiment: balance a glass of  water on your head, and
slowly walk around your home, without letting it fall. Second after
second your attention needs to be there. Even though you may still have
other thoughts, the glass never leaves your focus. In our meditation
practice, we should “balance” our attention thus.

Here is another image that conveys intense continuous focus in the task
at hand. Both these guys have only one task in mind.

Get this intensity, minus the adrenaline and agitation, and you have the
perfect attitude for deep meditation.

The main factor in dhyana is to keep the mind active in its own pursuit
without taking in external impressions or thinking of other matters. –
Ramana Maharshi (Talks, 61)

Keep your focus on your breath second after second, as if something

extraordinary is about to happen at any moment, and you cannot miss it
for the world. If you have this attitude, your meditation will be deep and
beautiful, and thoughts will subside.

Your attention will get more and more subtle. You get increasingly
aware of more subtle mental phenomena (perceptions, formations,
fabrications, vrittis, whatever you call it), and let go of it, moving deeper
and deeper. It is a continuous process of focusing in one point, and
letting go of everything else. With practice, that one point becomes more
stable and sharp, and the mental waves that you are perceiving – and
letting go of – becomes more subtle.

Balancing Intensity With Gentleness

Having an idea of how intense meditation can be, and being able to
actually go that deep, are different things.

We must not feel bad about our inability to concentrate, or about “how
far we are” from ideal states. It’s important to have a good north in our
practice, to know what is possible, so we keep pushing our boundaries.
However, ultimately all we need to do is to simply give the best of
ourselves at each step of the way.
Self-punishment, self-criticism, and feeling bad about ourselves are part
of the obstacles that come – in meditation and in many activities in life.
We must not give in to this type of thinking in meditation, but simply
gently bring our attention back to our object of focus, as soon as we
notice it has wandered. Slowly increasing the number of greens, and
decreasing the reds, is what we are looking for. The trick is finding the
perfect balance between effort and relaxation.

If you have a natural tendency towards self-criticism, Loving-Kindness

meditation might be something you want to try.

Finally, even bad meditation is good. In a world where most of us are

already constantly distracted, restless, agitated and busy, having a few
minutes each day to just sit still will already, by itself, bring heaps of
benefits, even if our focus is not that good.

There is transformative power in the meditation posture itself. Simply

sitting moveless and trying our best to regulate our attention already
goes a long way.

Gray States

When there is no understanding of the process of meditation, or no

emphasis in concentration or regulation of attention, those that continue
practicing for long get more into “gray states”. This happened several
times in my meditation journey, especially in the beginning, so I speak
from experience.

These states lack the one-pointedness and rock-solid aliveness of

consciousness; instead, attention is more in a quiet, standby state.
Sometimes discursive thinking is absent, but often there is a continuous
thread of more “subtle” thinking, which usually goes unnoticed.
Sometimes they transition into sleepiness or even napping.

Gray states also feel like peace, quiet, and rest, and many of the benefits
of meditation – especially the physical ones – still happen. There is
nothing inherently wrong with these states; but some meditation masters
consider them a “waste of time”. Those that follow an “effortless”
approach to meditation usually meditate like this for their entire lives.
(See here for further discussion on effort and meditation.)

These states are often expressed in terms of “It was so quiet that I didn’t
know anything” or “I don’t remember what was happening… it was like
I was not there.”  The tricky thing is that people that are experiencing
genuinely advanced states of meditation may express their experience in
very similar terms – but the state is completely different. In the case of
the advanced state of meditation that goes into a “no-thingness”, there is
still a very intense of conscious presence and one-pointedness.

In the Yoga contemplative tradition, these are called laya, and are seen
as an obstacle.

If you are looking for simply some inner calmness, relief from stress,
deep rest, and other physical benefits, you’ll probably be happy with
these states. But if you are looking for deep internal transformation, self-
mastery, transcendence – they come back to the green as soon as you
notice you have left the meditation focus.

Conclusion: effort must be directed to being with your object of

meditation for as long as possible.

Advanced Stages

The advanced stage of meditative absorption known in the Hindu

tradition as savikalpa samadhi is like a continuous flow of green dots in
concentration. Effort is still there, although in a very subtle form.
At this point, though, it feels more like a continuous/unbroken stream,
rather than a collection of individual concentration moments.

On the other hand, in the highest state, known as seed-less absorption

or nirvikalpa samadhi, there is no more effort, no attention, no
meditator, and no object of meditation. We can say (I speculate), that
this is like having empty dots (neither green, nor red, nor gray).

These are states that very few meditators ever experience.

Parting Words

It is said that if you can meditate with perfect concentration for 10

minutes, on the 11th minute you will be in samadhi.

A completely green square is not to be expected. It’s simply a

continuous process of exercising this muscle of attention, and my hope
is that this article helped clarify the scope of this amazing exercise.

You may also enjoy reading my other tips on deepening your meditation
practice and on how to prepare for a deep meditation.

Here are four very technical articles, from different contemplative

traditions, that complement this discussion on the process of meditation

 Developing Single-Pointed Concentration (Gehlek Rinpoche –

Tibetan Buddhism)
 The Path of Concentration & Mindfulness (Thanissaro Bhikkhu –
Theravada Buddhism)
 Yoga Sutras 3.1~3.3 (Swami Jnaneshvara – Himalayan Yogis)
 Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi and Meditation (Swami Nirmalananda
Giri – Hindu Yoga)

Are you an advanced practitioner? Your feedback will be more than

welcomed. Is this how you perceive meditation as well? Leave a
comment.
Get this intensity, minus the adrenaline and agitation, and you have the
perfect attitude for deep meditation.

The main factor in dhyana is to keep the mind active in its own pursuit
without taking in external impressions or thinking of other matters. –
Ramana Maharshi (Talks, 61)

Keep your focus on your breath second after second, as if something

extraordinary is about to happen at any moment, and you cannot miss it
for the world. If you have this attitude, your meditation will be deep and
beautiful, and thoughts will subside.

Your attention will get more and more subtle. You get increasingly
aware of more subtle mental phenomena (perceptions, formations,
fabrications, vrittis, whatever you call it), and let go of it, moving deeper
and deeper. It is a continuous process of focusing in one point, and
letting go of everything else. With practice, that one point becomes more
stable and sharp, and the mental waves that you are perceiving – and
letting go of – becomes more subtle.

Balancing Intensity With Gentleness

Having an idea of how intense meditation can be, and being able to
actually go that deep, are different things.

We must not feel bad about our inability to concentrate, or about “how
far we are” from ideal states. It’s important to have a good north in our
practice, to know what is possible, so we keep pushing our boundaries.
However, ultimately all we need to do is to simply give the best of
ourselves at each step of the way.

Self-punishment, self-criticism, and feeling bad about ourselves are part

of the obstacles that come – in meditation and in many activities in life.
We must not give in to this type of thinking in meditation, but simply
gently bring our attention back to our object of focus, as soon as we
notice it has wandered. Slowly increasing the number of greens, and
decreasing the reds, is what we are looking for. The trick is finding the
perfect balance between effort and relaxation.

If you have a natural tendency towards self-criticism, Loving-Kindness

meditation might be something you want to try.

Finally, even bad meditation is good. In a world where most of us are

already constantly distracted, restless, agitated and busy, having a few
minutes each day to just sit still will already, by itself, bring heaps of
benefits, even if our focus is not that good.

There is transformative power in the meditation posture itself. Simply

sitting moveless and trying our best to regulate our attention already
goes a long way.

Gray States

When there is no understanding of the process of meditation, or no

emphasis in concentration or regulation of attention, those that continue
practicing for long get more into “gray states”. This happened several
times in my meditation journey, especially in the beginning, so I speak
from experience.

These states lack the one-pointedness and rock-solid aliveness of

consciousness; instead, attention is more in a quiet, standby state.
Sometimes discursive thinking is absent, but often there is a continuous
thread of more “subtle” thinking, which usually goes unnoticed.
Sometimes they transition into sleepiness or even napping.

Gray states also feel like peace, quiet, and rest, and many of the benefits
of meditation – especially the physical ones – still happen. There is
nothing inherently wrong with these states; but some meditation masters
consider them a “waste of time”. Those that follow an “effortless”
approach to meditation usually meditate like this for their entire lives.
(See here for further discussion on effort and meditation.)
These states are often expressed in terms of “It was so quiet that I didn’t
know anything” or “I don’t remember what was happening… it was like
I was not there.”  The tricky thing is that people that are experiencing
genuinely advanced states of meditation may express their experience in
very similar terms – but the state is completely different. In the case of
the advanced state of meditation that goes into a “no-thingness”, there is
still a very intense of conscious presence and one-pointedness.

In the Yoga contemplative tradition, these are called laya, and are seen
as an obstacle.

If you are looking for simply some inner calmness, relief from stress,
deep rest, and other physical benefits, you’ll probably be happy with
these states. But if you are looking for deep internal transformation, self-
mastery, transcendence – they come back to the green as soon as you
notice you have left the meditation focus.

Conclusion: effort must be directed to being with your object of

meditation for as long as possible.

Advanced Stages

The advanced stage of meditative absorption known in the Hindu

tradition as savikalpa samadhi is like a continuous flow of green dots in
concentration. Effort is still there, although in a very subtle form.

At this point, though, it feels more like a continuous/unbroken stream,

rather than a collection of individual concentration moments.
On the other hand, in the highest state, known as seed-less absorption
or nirvikalpa samadhi, there is no more effort, no attention, no
meditator, and no object of meditation. We can say (I speculate), that
this is like having empty dots (neither green, nor red, nor gray).

These are states that very few meditators ever experience.

Parting Words

It is said that if you can meditate with perfect concentration for 10

minutes, on the 11th minute you will be in samadhi.

A completely green square is not to be expected. It’s simply a

continuous process of exercising this muscle of attention, and my hope
is that this article helped clarify the scope of this amazing exercise.

You may also enjoy reading my other tips on deepening your meditation
practice and on how to prepare for a deep meditation.

Here are four very technical articles, from different contemplative

traditions, that complement this discussion on the process of meditation

 Developing Single-Pointed Concentration (Gehlek Rinpoche –

Tibetan Buddhism)
 The Path of Concentration & Mindfulness (Thanissaro Bhikkhu –
Theravada Buddhism)
 Yoga Sutras 3.1~3.3 (Swami Jnaneshvara – Himalayan Yogis)
 Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi and Meditation (Swami Nirmalananda
Giri – Hindu Yoga)

Are you an advanced practitioner? Your feedback will be more than

welcomed. Is this how you perceive meditation as well? Leave a
comment.

Get this intensity, minus the adrenaline and agitation, and you have the
perfect attitude for deep meditation.The main factor in dhyana is to keep
the mind active in its own pursuit without taking in external impressions
or thinking of other matters. – Ramana Maharshi (Talks, 61)Keep your
focus on your breath second after second, as if something extraordinary
is about to happen at any moment, and you cannot miss it for the world.
If you have this attitude, your meditation will be deep and beautiful, and
thoughts will subside.Your attention will get more and more subtle. You
get increasingly aware of more subtle mental phenomena (perceptions,
formations, fabrications, vrittis, whatever you call it), and let go of it,
moving deeper and deeper. It is a continuous process of focusing in one
point, and letting go of everything else. With practice, that one point
becomes more stable and sharp, and the mental waves that you are
perceiving – and letting go of – becomes more subtle.Balancing
Intensity With GentlenessHaving an idea of how intense meditation can
be, and being able to actually go that deep, are different things.We must
not feel bad about our inability to concentrate, or about “how far we are”
from ideal states. It’s important to have a good north in our practice, to
know what is possible, so we keep pushing our boundaries. However,
ultimately all we need to do is to simply give the best of ourselves at
each step of the way.Self-punishment, self-criticism, and feeling bad
about ourselves are part of the obstacles that come – in meditation and in
many activities in life. We must not give in to this type of thinking in
meditation, but simply gently bring our attention back to our object of
focus, as soon as we notice it has wandered. Slowly increasing the
number of greens, and decreasing the reds, is what we are looking for.
The trick is finding the perfect balance between effort and relaxation.If
you have a natural tendency towards self-criticism, Loving-Kindness
meditation might be something you want to try.Finally, even bad
meditation is good. In a world where most of us are already constantly
distracted, restless, agitated and busy, having a few minutes each day to
just sit still will already, by itself, bring heaps of benefits, even if our
focus is not that good.There is transformative power in the meditation
posture itself. Simply sitting moveless and trying our best to regulate our
attention already goes a long way.Gray StatesWhen there is no
understanding of the process of meditation, or no emphasis in
concentration or regulation of attention, those that continue practicing
for long get more into “gray states”. This happened several times in my
meditation journey, especially in the beginning, so I speak from
experience.These states lack the one-pointedness and rock-solid
aliveness of consciousness; instead, attention is more in a quiet, standby
state. Sometimes discursive thinking is absent, but often there is a
continuous thread of more “subtle” thinking, which usually goes
unnoticed. Sometimes they transition into sleepiness or even
napping.Gray states also feel like peace, quiet, and rest, and many of the
benefits of meditation – especially the physical ones – still happen.
There is nothing inherently wrong with these states; but some meditation
masters consider them a “waste of time”. Those that follow an
“effortless” approach to meditation usually meditate like this for their
entire lives. (See here for further discussion on effort and
meditation.)These states are often expressed in terms of “It was so quiet
that I didn’t know anything” or “I don’t remember what was
happening… it was like I was not there.” The tricky thing is that people
that are experiencing genuinely advanced states of meditation may
express their experience in very similar terms – but the state is
completely different. In the case of the advanced state of meditation that
goes into a “no-thingness”, there is still a very intense of conscious
presence and one-pointedness.In the Yoga contemplative tradition, these
are called laya, and are seen as an obstacle.If you are looking for simply
some inner calmness, relief from stress, deep rest, and other physical
benefits, you’ll probably be happy with these states. But if you are
looking for deep internal transformation, self-mastery, transcendence –
they come back to the green as soon as you notice you have left the
meditation focus.Conclusion: effort must be directed to being with your
object of meditation for as long as possible.Advanced StagesThe
advanced stage of meditative absorption known in the Hindu tradition as
savikalpa samadhi is like a continuous flow of green dots in
concentration. Effort is still there, although in a very subtle
form.Savikalpa SamadhiAt this point, though, it feels more like a
continuous/unbroken stream, rather than a collection of individual
concentration moments.On the other hand, in the highest state, known as
seed-less absorption or nirvikalpa samadhi, there is no more effort, no
attention, no meditator, and no object of meditation. We can say (I
speculate), that this is like having empty dots (neither green, nor red, nor
gray).These are states that very few meditators ever experience.Parting
WordsIt is said that if you can meditate with perfect concentration for 10
minutes, on the 11th minute you will be in samadhi.A completely green
square is not to be expected. It’s simply a continuous process of
exercising this muscle of attention, and my hope is that this article
helped clarify the scope of this amazing exercise.You may also enjoy
reading my other tips on deepening your meditation practice and on how
to prepare for a deep meditation.Here are four very technical articles,
from different contemplative traditions, that complement this discussion
on the process of meditationDeveloping Single-Pointed Concentration
(Gehlek Rinpoche – Tibetan Buddhism)The Path of Concentration &
Mindfulness (Thanissaro Bhikkhu – Theravada Buddhism)Yoga Sutras
3.1~3.3 (Swami Jnaneshvara – Himalayan Yogis)Dharana, Dhyana,
Samadhi and Meditation (Swami Nirmalananda Giri – Hindu Yoga)Are
you an advanced practitioner? Your feedback will be more than
welcomed. Is this how you perceive meditation as well? Leave a
comment.

10 Ways to Improve Your Meditation

Meditation is supposed to induce a simpler, less busy state of mind. But

that does not mean that all you need to do is sit down, close your eyes
and hey presto: land of peace and bliss! If you’ve tried this you’ll
know it’s not that easy. Just as you need to warm up before playing
sports, or practice scales to learn the guitar, there are ways to prepare
yourself for meditation and other tricks and techniques that can make all
the difference.Which is good news. If you have trouble concentrating in
meditation or other problems with your practice, there is a lot you can do
about it. Here are just ten of the many tips I teach to help people with
their meditation.

1. Meditate regularly at the same time, twice a day: If you sincerely

want to advance in your meditation it is important to establish a habit of
regular practice. One reason to practice twice a day is because the
subliminal effect of the mantra carries over for about twelve hours. So if
you meditate twice daily this effect will be continuous and will build.
Experienced meditators find that if they always meditate at, say, 6am
and 6pm, when that time of day comes around they feel like meditating,
in the same way that you feel hungry just before your regular meal-time.
Optimum times for meditation are near sunrise and sunset. People who
are beginning meditation frequently report having difficulty finding the
time to meditate. Try writing down everything you do during the whole
day for a couple of days. Then look for spaces where you could fit in
even a short meditation. Almost everyone has time somewhere in their
day when they are doing something less important. Experienced
meditators often find that they need less sleep (due to the deep state of
physiological rest during meditation), so you may gain back most of
your time spent in meditation by sleeping less.

2. Meditate in the same place. Try to arrange a corner or even a small

room as your meditation space. Keep it clean and fresh and meditate
there regularly. When you go to this space, you will naturally want to
meditate. You can really feel this if you meditate in a place where a
great Yogi has practiced their meditation for many years. Of course you
can meditate anywhere, but it helps to have a quiet and special place
dedicated to meditation.

3. Meditate on an empty stomach. After eating, the energy of your

body is directed toward the digestive processes at the expense of your
mental processes. Think of the sluggishness you feel following a heavy
meal. Meditation requires alertness, concentration, mental energy and
‘wakefulness’. It is much easier to meditate with an empty stomach. If
you are really famished and your hunger is distracting you, try eating
something light like fruit, or drinking some juice.

4. Minimize interruptions: Put your phone on ‘do-not-disturb’ mode

and let your friends and family know that during this time you do not
want to be interrupted. Close the door, close your eyes and leave the
ordinary world behind. This has a deep psychological impact. Give
yourself completely to the practice.

5. Meditate in a comfortable, erect posture. When meditation is really

working there is a flow of energy upwards through the spinal column.
Slumping or slouching impedes this energy flow, impairs breathing and
reduces mental alertness. Gentle stretches or warm-ups help prepare the
body for meditation. Some people find that putting a small pillow
underneath their hips alleviates pressure on the knees and induces better
posture by elevating the spinal column. If sitting on a rug, cushion or
folded blanket is not comfortable, you may want to meditate sitting in a
straight backed chair.

6. Read spiritually inspiring books. Your rational mind, which

hopefully keeps quiet during meditation, also needs to be satisfied. Set
aside some time each day for reading uplifting books. After meditation,
when your mind is calm and clear, take a few minutes for reading.

7. Use Kiirtan chanting music before meditation. Kiirtan means

singing or chanting a spiritual mantra. A mantra is a word of group of
words, usually in sanskrit, that help sooth the mind and take you into a
meditative state. Mantras can be repeated silently in meditation, but
some mantras are intended for singing.  Music is like a language of
emotion – it can shift our emotional state in seconds. With the right
music, Kiirtan can put us into just the right mood for meditation in a few
minutes. Many experienced meditators consider this an indispensable
part of their practice.

8. Breathing. It is well known that breathing deeply and slowly calms

the mind. But what few people understand is the difference it makes to
your mind depending whether you are breathing through your right or
your left nostril. If the flow of air through your left nostril is stronger,
you will be able to concentrate much better in meditation. It is easy to
check which nostril is dominant. Just place your hand beneath your
nostrils, breathe out, and you will feel which nostril emits a stronger
flow of air. If your right nostril is dominant you can change it by lying
on your right side with your head on your right arm for a few moments.
The left nostril will become dominant and you should now sit for
meditation. I know this may sound kind of weird, but it really works. I
explain why in my article, The Nose Knows, but for now I suggest you
just take my word for it and try it.

9. Talk to a Meditation Teacher. I am one of many teachers who work

with the Ananda Marga spiritual movement. Ananda Marga means ‘The
Path of Bliss’ and the association propagates the practices of meditation,
yoga and social service. Find out more about it on the website
www.pathofbliss.org A teacher in this system is known as ‘Acharya’
which means ‘one who teaches by example.’ If you talk to an Acharya
you can get personal instruction, free of charge.

10. Meditate with a group regularly and attend retreats whenever

you can. The experience of chanting and meditating in a group is quite
different than practicing on your own and is a great source of inspiration
and support. Meditation retreats are an opportunity to go much deeper in
your practice. This is where many people have their first intense
meditation experience. Ananda Marga conferences, classes and seminars
offer you a chance to enjoy the powerful energy generated by the group
chanting and meditation, form new friendships and learn more about
your practice the ageless philosophy of yoga.

https://theheartysoul.com/how-to-meditate-without-meditating/
No time to sit down and meditate? Here’s how to be in a meditative
state anytime, anywhere, all the time

This article is shared with permission from our friends at

www.artofwellbeing.com.

If you practice mindfulness throughout the day, you will become

a highly present sort of person. Fact.
Ultra-presence can look like a variety of things: zeal, enthusiasm,
‘aliveness’, alertness, extreme purposefulness. These are the attributes I
personally embody when I am practicing mindfulness a lot. (I don’t
really do ‘zen’ and ‘calm’ – though you might)!

When you practice everyday mindfulness, there is less attending on

whatever psychological complaint happens to be plaguing your hour,
and more attending on whatever matters are in hand.

What Mindfulness Could Do For You

Can you imagine how life would be if you were being present a lot of
the time (instead of ‘going into your head’)?

It might look like this:

 You can notice other people’s needs more.

 You effectively distinguish between what’s ‘urgent’ and what’s
‘important’ in your workload (read this for an explanation of the
difference).
 You can recognize when you are acting out of impulse and –
potentially – stop yourself from acting out.
 You are clearer on what you actually enjoy doing and what you
don’t – pastimes and people.
 You experience very little ‘added’ (from the mind) stress.
 You are more equipped to handle a problem because you are
responding to all of the information.
 Your energy levels naturally increase as less is wasted by wafting
off into the abysss of your dilemmas/problems.
 Decision-making is much improved. This was a big one for me
(see below).
 There is more energy for the important stuff in life. Like goals, and
people.
 You do less procrastinating as the gap between thinking, doing and
being is smaller.
Being present (which is like a state of acceptance) is a dynamic state. By
doing less with our minds, we get access to more. I like the way Chris
Kresser puts it: ‘Acceptance allows us to see clearly, to be truthful with
ourselves, to receive the wisdom that each situation offers us.’

How Being Mindful Benefits Me

What I personally value about practicing everyday mindfulness:

 It helps me to deal appropriately with emotional upsets caused by

having difficult conversations. I probably spend more time
‘responding’ rather than ‘reacting.’
 Related to that, I am more able to see things as they are, rather than
being at the mercy of what my psyche has made of events. Which
– let’s face it – by definition is horribly limited, when you think
about it.
 I’m a lot more decisive and experience less conflict about my
decisions.

In short, it anchors me. Along with movement, getting adequate sleep

and eating quality food, practicing mindfulness is the single most
important thing I do for my psychological well-being.

That is not to say that I always do use it – sometimes I want to jazz up

the present moment with a little productive or counter-productive brain
safari. That’s a conscious decision and quite different to getting lost in
thought.

Incidentally, my mindfulness habit is not a thing I talk about…ever. I

hadn’t actually considered myself an active mindfulness proponent
before I started to write this post. I think that many of us were using this
tool before it became such a buzzword, and sometimes labeling things
can be a distraction.
Meditation Vs. Mindfulness

I do not meditate currently. That is, I do not set time aside in my day for
a meditation practice. I do bring a meditative state to my daily activities.

Meditation is one key vehicle for developing a mindfulness habit. There

are others (see below).

As any seasoned meditator would tell you, there is a high value in

maintaining a regular meditation practice. For me, I can see that where I
do come unstuck in life, the ‘cycles’ would probably be shorter if I had
that meditation muscle at my disposal.

Meditating can also be lot more ‘focused’ towards a particular benefit

than just straightforward mindfulness. Meditators are more equipped
directors of their realities and experience. It is also looking likely that
there are enhanced health benefits associated with being in those deeper
meditative states.

These Are The Merits, But What is The Actual Difference Between
The Two?

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of the Stress Reduction

Clinic defines mindfulness as, ‘paying attention on purpose, in the
present moment, and non-judgmentally, to the unfolding of experience
moment to moment.’ Headspace defines it as ‘the intention [emphasis
added] to be present in the here and now, fully engaged in whatever is
happening, free from distraction or judgement, with a soft and open
mind.’

Headspace’s definition of meditation is ‘the simple exercise to

familiarize oneself with the qualities of mindfulness. It is a way of
providing the optimum conditions for training the mind to be calmer,
clearer and kinder.’
In Summary: meditation could be described as a sort of ‘stage setter’ for
mindfulness. You can develop mindfulness without ‘officially
meditating,’ and meditation’s potential as a tool of personal
transformation probably extends beyond what mindfulness has to offer.

Mediation/Mindfulness Health Benefits

The science on this subject is snowballing, and I think that we have

barely scratched the surface in terms of what health benefits are
available to us when we practice mindfulness and meditate.

One recent study found that those who practice everyday mindfulness
tend to have healthy glucose levels. The study also showed that they are
a less likely to be obese in the first place, as they’re more likely to
believe they can change many of the important things in their life.
Powerful stuff.

Another study highlighting the link between mindfulness and resilience

found that ‘mindful people … can better cope with difficult thoughts and
emotions without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down
(emotionally).’

A non comprehensive list of the benefits associated with meditation:

relief from chronic pain, relief from anxiety and depression symptoms,
improvement to decision making, changes memory, sense of self,
empathy levels and stress, improved perception and attentiveness, better
levels of attention and longevity enhancement.

As you can see, this really is something worth doing.

A (Very Brief and Whimsical) Tour of The Types of Meditation

You’ll find a lot more detail on the different kinds of meditation in the
reading material I have linked to below.
Mindfulness: Where you focus on an object, such as the breath, bodily
sensations, thoughts, feelings, or sounds. Practice is often extended to
daily actions, such as eating, walking, driving, or housework.

Concentrative: The objective is to cultivate a single-pointed attention

on some object, such as a sound, an image, the breath, or a flame. The
most well-known and researched form of the concentrative type in the
West is Transcendental Meditation (TM).

Open Awareness: The objective is to open the mind into a panoramic

awareness of whatever is happening without a specific focus. Often this
awareness is compared to the spacious sky or a river with objects
floating by. The capacity to be present with whatever arises is developed
through this practice.

Guided Meditation: Where you follow auditory guidance from a

teacher or recording that elicits certain images, affirmations, states (such
as peacefulness), or imagined desired experiences. This type is often
used to rehearse successful outcomes of procedures, such as surgery or
an athletic performance.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences says: “There are scores of variations of

meditation, most of which range along a continuum of some
combination of concentration and open awareness techniques. Defining
and understanding the type of meditation being practiced represents
some of the most important and challenging factors in the field of
scientific meditation research. The difficulty of creating clear and
consistent definitions of meditative practices is evidenced by the
discrepancies found in many academic descriptions of meditation.”

How to Actually Do Everyday Mindfulness

The idea is to use cues to take the focus away from the internal chatter.
You are aware of your thoughts and feelings but you aren’t being
defined by them.
Note that this is not the same as ‘distracting’ yourself, stuffing thoughts
away, resisting them or ‘transcending’ them (although the last thing is
probably the closest).

It’s more accurate to say you are purposely directing your attention back
to the present moment, like a little game with yourself. And you repeat
that new neural pathway until the path is well-trodden.

I have several cues, or ‘access points’, that I use for a more mindfully
spent moment:

 My environment – This is particularly easy when it’s new. I think

this is partly why we get so much from travelling.
 Paying attention to bodily sensations – Any seasoned yogi will
be practiced at doing this. The feeling of your butt on the chair,
etc. We tend to be very mindful naturally when we are engaging in
certain enjoyable bodily pursuits.
 Reading whilst switching off all other distractions.
 Exercising, especially walking and running.
 Generally being disciplined about doing one thing at a time.
 Other people – I’m deliberate about showing up with people fully.
Everyone. Even the coffee barrister. I avoid checking my phone
during these interactions. In fact, when I do have the strong urge to
check my phone a lot around people, it is usually those I have a
challenging time being present with for whatever reason.

Precursors – Impulse, Control and Healthy Lifestyle

A starting place before you can even practice mindfulness is having

some sort of presence of mind. And that is largely predicated on your
health. Which is why you can’t isolate a healthy diet, movement and a
well rested body from living mindfully. All of these things affect our
impulse control.

If impulse control is a problem for you (and you’ll know if it is), then
mindfulness is also going to be more challenging. I think it’s helpful
not seeing it as a permanent way of being (even if it is something that
has been with you for a while), bringing as much awareness as possible
to your lapses of self-control, and slowly slowly wrestling that monkey
down.

Appreciate the importance of setting yourself up for a win by managing

your brain chemistry through food and lifestyle choices.

Perspectives/Resources on Mindfulness and Meditation

 The best free audio resource I have found. Will actually walk

you through a mindfulness session, or a type of meditation called
‘progressive relaxation.’
 Meditation for beginners, by Jack Kornfield (book).
 Conscious Evolution’s 20 tips for meditation beginners.
 Tara Brach’s guided meditations.
 Zen Habits’ meditation for beginners.
 ‘Fuck that’ meditation. Not sure I am on board with this one, it’s
just here for entertainment.
 How to meditate whilst on cannibas. Interesting. I will leave it at
that.
 Hugging meditation.
 Deepak Chopra’s explanation of meditation.
 MindBody Green’s meditation infographic.
 12 of the best free guided meditation sites.
 Wildmind’s online meditation resources.
 The Mind Unleashed’s guide.
 Mindful’s audio resources.
 Live and Dare’s 23 types of meditation.
 Joe Dispenza’s book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. I got
a lot from reading this.
 The Chopra center’s meditation resources.
 5 types of meditation uncoded.
 11 mediation techniques explained.
Getting Your Om On

OmHarmonics is a pretty epic set of meditation audios of varying

lengths you can use at the different junctures in your day. It will help
you eliminate the barriers to meditation if you are struggling.

If you are a heavy auditory type (and even if you’re not), it will suit.
Like I say, the beauty of OmHarmonicsis that you can use the tracks for
different stages throughout your day, such as waking up, being
productive at work, or recovering from a hectic day. Each track comes in
2 versions: 30-minutes and 15-minutes.

They are a bit of a magic button for getting into deep meditation quickly.

Get a free kit here.

Summary

Everyday mindfulness is a powerful tool that will help you kick-ass in

life, and has myriad benefits for your health. Zero doubts given.

http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english_17
.phphttp://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_englis
h_17.php
Chapter 15
Meditation In Everyday Life

Every musician plays scales. When you begin to study the piano, that's
the first thing you learn, and you never stop playing scales. The finest
concert pianists in the world still play scales. It's a basic skill that can't
be allowed to get rusty.

Every baseball player practices batting. It's the first thing you learn in
Little League, and you never stop practicing. Every World Series game
begins with batting practice. Basic skills must always remain sharp.
Seated meditation is the arena in which the meditator practices his own
fundamental skills. The game the meditator is playing is the experience
of his own life, and the instrument upon which he plays is his own
sensory apparatus. Even the most seasoned meditator continues to
practice seated meditation, because it tunes and sharpens the basic
mental skills he needs for his particular game. We must never forget,
however, that seated meditation itself is not the game. It's the practice.
The game in which those basic skills are to be applied is the rest of one's
experiential existence. Meditation that is not applied to daily living is
sterile and limited.

The purpose of Vipassana meditation is nothing less than the radical and
permanent transformation of your entire sensory and cognitive
experience. It is meant to revolutionize the whole of your life
experience. Those periods of seated practice are times set aside for
instilling new mental habits. You learn new ways to receive and
understand sensation. You develop new methods of dealing with
conscious thought, and new modes of attending to the incessant rush of
your own emotions. These new mental behaviors must be made to carry
over into the rest of your life. Otherwise, meditation remains dry and
fruitless, a theoretical segment of your existence that is unconnected to
all the rest. Some effort to connect these two segments is essential. A
certain amount of carry-over will take place spontaneously, but the
process will be slow and unreliable. You are very likely to be left with
the feeling that you are getting nowhere and to drop the process as
unrewarding.

One of the most memorable events in your meditation career is the

moment when you first realize that you are meditating in the midst of
some perfectly ordinary activity. You are driving down the freeway or
carrying out the trash and it just turns on by itself. This unplanned
outpouring of the skills you have been so carefully fostering is a genuine
joy. It gives you a tiny window on the future. You catch a spontaneous
glimpse of what the practice really means. The possibility strikes you
that this transformation of consciousness could actually become a
permanent feature of your experience. You realize that you could
actually spend the rest of your days standing aside from the debilitating
clamoring of your own obsessions, no longer frantically hounded by
your own needs and greed. You get a tiny taste of what it is like to just
stand aside and watch it all flow past. It's a magic moment.

That vision is liable to remain unfulfilled, however, unless you actively

seek to promote the carry-over process. The most important moment in
meditation is the instant you leave the cushion. When your practice
session is over, you can jump up and drop the whole thing, or you can
bring those skills with you into the rest of your activities.

It is crucial for you to understand what meditation is. It is not some

special posture, and it's not just a set of mental exercises. Meditation is a
cultivation of mindfulness and the application of that mindfulness once
cultivated. You do not have to sit to meditate. You can meditate while
washing the dishes. You can meditate in the shower, or roller skating, or
typing letters. Meditation is awareness, and it must be applied to each
and every activity of one's life. This isn't easy.

We specifically cultivate awareness through the seated posture in a quiet

place because that's the easiest situation in which to do so. Meditation in
motion is harder. Meditation in the midst of fast-paced noisy activity is
harder still. And meditation in the midst of intensely egoistic activities
like romance or arguments is the ultimate challenge. The beginner will
have his hands full with less stressful activities.

Yet the ultimate goal of practice remains: to build one's concentration

and awareness to a level of strength that will remain unwavering even in
the midst of the pressures of life in contemporary society. Life offers
many challenges and the serious meditator is very seldom bored.

Carrying your meditation into the events of your daily life is not a
simple process. Try it and you will see. That transition point between the
end of your meditation session and the beginning of 'real life' is a long
jump. It's too long for most of us. We find our calm and concentration
evaporating within minutes, leaving us apparently no better off than
before. In order to bridge this gulf, Buddhists over the centuries have
devised an array of exercises aimed at smoothing the transition. They
take that jump and break it down into little steps. Each step can be
practiced by itself.

1. Walking Meditation

Our everyday existence is full of motion and activity. Sitting utterly

motionless for hours on end is nearly the opposite of normal experience.
Those states of clarity and tranquility we foster in the midst of absolute
stillness tend to dissolve as soon as we move. We need some transitional
exercise that will teach us the skill of remaining calm and aware in the
midst of motion. Walking meditation helps us make that transition from
static repose to everyday life. It's meditation in motion, and it is often
used as an alternative to sitting. Walking is especially good for those
times when you are extremely restless. An hour of walking meditation
will often get you through that restless energy and still yield
considerable quantities of clarity. You can then go on to the seated
meditation with greater profit.

Standard Buddhist practice advocates frequent retreats to complement

your daily sitting practice. A retreat is a relatively long period of time
devoted exclusively to meditation. One or two day retreats are common
for lay people. Seasoned meditators in a monastic situation may spend
months at a time doing nothing else. Such practice is rigorous, and it
makes sizable demands on both mind and body. Unless you have been at
it for several years, there is a limit to how long you can sit and profit.
Ten solid hours of the seated posture will produce in most beginners a
state of agony that far exceeds their concentration powers. A profitable
retreat must therefore be conducted with some change of posture and
some movement. The usual pattern is to intersperse blocks of sitting
with blocks of walking meditation. An hour of each with short breaks
between is common.
To do the walking meditation, you need a private place with enough
space for at least five to ten paces in a straight line. You are going to be
walking back and forth very slowly, and to the eyes of most Westerners,
you'll look curious and disconnected from everyday life. This is not the
sort of exercise you want to perform on the front lawn where you'll
attract unnecessary attention. Choose a private place.

The physical directions are simple. Select an unobstructed area and start
at one end. Stand for a minute in an attentive position. Your arms can be
held in any way that is comfortable, in front, in back, or at your sides.
Then while breathing in, lift the heel of one foot. While breathing out,
rest that foot on its toes. Again while breathing in, lift that foot, carry it
forward and while breathing out, bring the foot down and touch the
floor. Repeat this for the other foot. Walk very slowly to the opposite
end, stand for one minute, then turn around very slowly, and stand there
for another minute before you walk back. Then repeat the process. Keep
you head up and you neck relaxed. Keep your eyes open to maintain
balance, but don't look at anything in particular. Walk naturally.
Maintain the slowest pace that is comfortable, and pay not attention to
your surroundings. Watch out for tensions building up in the body, and
release them as soon as you spot them. Don't make any particular
attempt to be graceful. Don't try to look pretty. This is not an athletic
exercise, or a dance. It is an exercise in awareness. Your objective is to
attain total alertness, heightened sensitivity and a full, unblocked
experience of the motion of walking. Put all of your attention on the
sensations coming from the feet and legs. Try to register as much
information as possible about each foot as it moves. Dive into the pure
sensation of walking, and notice every subtle nuance of the movement.
Feel each individual muscle as it moves. Experience every tiny change
in tactile sensation as the feet press against the floor and then lift again.

Notice the way these apparently smooth motions are composed of

complex series of tiny jerks. Try to miss nothing. In order to heighten
your sensitivity, you can break the movement down into distinct
components. Each foot goes through a lift, a swing; and then a down
tread. Each of these components has a beginning, middle, and end. In
order to tune yourself in to this series of motions, you can start by
making explicit mental notes of each stage. Make a mental note of
"lifting, swinging, coming down, touching floor, pressing" and so on.
This is a training procedure to familiarize you with the sequence of
motions and to make sure that you don't miss any. As you become more
aware of the myriad subtle events going on, you won't have time for
words. You will find yourself immersed in a fluid, unbroken awareness
of motion. The feet will become your whole universe. If your mind
wanders, note the distraction in the usual way, then return your attention
to walking. Don't look at your feet while you are doing all of this, and
don't walk back and forth watching a mental picture of your feet and
legs. Don't think, just feel. You don't need the concept of feet and you
don't need pictures. Just register the sensations as they flow. In the
beginning, you will probably have some difficulties with balance. You
are using the leg muscles in a new way, and a learning period is natural.
If frustration arises, just note that and let it go.

The Vipassana walking technique is designed to flood your

consciousness with simple sensations, and to do it so thoroughly that all
else is pushed aside. There is no room for thought and no room for
emotion. There is no time for grasping, and none for freezing the activity
into a series of concepts. There is no need for a sense of self. There is
only the sweep of tactile and kinesthetic sensation, an endless and ever-
changing flood of raw experience. We are learning here to escape into
reality, rather than from it. Whatever insights we gain are directly
applicable to the rest of our notion-filled lives.

2. Postures

The goal of our practice is to become fully aware of all facets of our
experience in an unbroken, moment-to-moment flow. Much of what we
do and experience is completely unconscious in the sense that we do it
with little or no attention. Our minds are on something else entirely. We
spend most of our time running on automatic pilot, lost in the fog of day-
dreams and preoccupations.

One of the most frequently ignored aspects of our existence is our body.
The technicolor cartoon show inside our head is so alluring that we tend
to remove all of our attention from the kinesthetic and tactile senses.
That information is pouring up the nerves and into the brain every
second, but we have largely sealed it off from consciousness. It pours
into the lower levels of the mind and it gets no further. Buddhists have
developed an exercise to open the floodgates and let this material
through to consciousness. It's another way of making the unconscious
conscious.

Your body goes through all kinds of contortions in the course of a single
day. You sit and you stand. You walk and lie down. You bend, run,
crawl, and sprawl. Meditation teachers urge you to become aware of this
constantly ongoing dance. As you go through your day, spend a few
seconds every few minutes to check your posture. Don't do it in a
judgmental way. This is not an exercise to correct your posture, or to
improve you appearance. Sweep your attention down through the body
and feel how you are holding it. Make a silent mental note of 'Walking'
or 'Sitting' or 'Lying down' or 'Standing'. It all sounds absurdly simple,
but don't slight this procedure. This is a powerful exercise. If you do it
thoroughly, if you really instil this mental habit deeply, it can
revolutionize your experience. It taps you into a whole new dimension
of sensation, and you feel like a blind man whose sight has been
restored.

3. Slow-Motion Activity

Every action you perform is made up of separate components. The

simple action of tying your shoelaces is made up of a complex series of
subtle motions. Most of these details go unobserved. In order to promote
the overall habit of mindfulness, you can perform simple activities at
very low speed - making an effort to pay full attention to every nuance
of the act.
Sitting at a table and drinking a cup of tea is one example. There is much
here to be experienced. View your posture as you are sitting and feel the
handle of the cup between your fingers. Smell the aroma of the tea,
notice the placement of the cup, the tea, your arm, and the table. Watch
the intention to raise the arm arise within your mind, feel the arm as it
raises, feel the cup against your lips and the liquid pouring into your
mouth. Taste the tea, then watch the arising of the intention to lower
your arm. The entire process is fascinating and beautiful, if you attend to
it fully, paying detached attention to every sensation and to the flow of
thought and emotion.

This same tactic can be applied to many of your daily activities.

Intentionally slowing down your thoughts, words and movements allows
you to penetrate far more deeply into them than you otherwise could.
What you find there is utterly astonishing. In the beginning, it is very
difficult to keep this deliberately slow pace during most regular
activities, but skill grows with time. Profound realizations occur during
sitting meditation, but even more profound revelations can take place
when we really examine our own inner workings in the midst of day-to-
day activities. This is the laboratory where we really start to see the
mechanisms of our own emotions and the operations of our passions.
Here is where we can truly gauge the reliability of our reasoning, and
glimpse the difference between our true motives and the armor of
pretense that we wear to fool ourselves and others.

We will find a great deal of this information surprising, much of it

disturbing, but all of it useful. Bare attention brings order into the clutter
that collects in those untidy little hidden corners of the mind. As you
achieve clear comprehension in the midst of life's ordinary activities,
you gain the ability to remain rational and peaceful while you throw the
penetrating light of mindfulness into those irrational mental nooks and
crannies. You start to see the extent to which you are responsible for
your own mental suffering. You see your own miseries, fears, and
tensions as self-generated. You see the way you cause your own
suffering, weakness, and limitations. And the more deeply you
understand these mental processes, the less hold they have on you.

4. Breath Coordination

In seated meditation, our primary focus is the breath. Total concentration

on the ever-changing breath brings us squarely into the present moment.
The same principle can be used in the midst of movement. You can
coordinate the activity in which you are involved with your breathing.
This lends a flowing rhythm to your movement, and it smooths out many
of the abrupt transitions. Activity becomes easier to focus on, and
mindfulness is increased. Your awareness thus stays more easily in the
present. Ideally, meditation should be a 24 hour-a-day practice. This is a
highly practical suggestion.

A state of mindfulness is a state of mental readiness. The mind is not

burdened with preoccupations or bound in worries. Whatever comes up
can be dealt with instantly. When you are truly mindful, your nervous
system has a freshness and resiliency which fosters insight. A problem
arises and you simply deal with it, quickly, efficiently, and with a
minimum of fuss. You don't stand there in a dither, and you don't run off
to a quiet corner so you can sit down and meditate about it. You simply
deal with it. And in those rare circumstances when no solution seems
possible, you don't worry about that. You just go on to the next thing
that needs your attention. Your intuition becomes a very practical
faculty.

5. Stolen Moments

The concept of wasted time does not exist for a serious meditator. Little
dead spaces during your day can be turned to profit. Every spare
moment can be used for meditation. Sitting anxiously in the dentist's
office, meditate on your anxiety. Feeling irritated while standing in a
line at the bank, meditate on irritation. Bored, twiddling you thumbs at
the bus stop, meditate on boredom. Try to stay alert and aware
throughout the day. Be mindful of exactly what is taking place right
now, even if it is tedious drudgery. Take advantage of moments when
you are alone. Take advantage of activities that are largely mechanical.
Use every spare second to be mindful. Use all the moments you can.

6. Concentration On All Activities

You should try to maintain mindfulness of every activity and perception

through the day, starting with the first perception when you awake, and
ending with the last thought before you fall asleep. This is an incredibly
tall goal to shoot for. Don't expect to be able to achieve this work soon.
Just take it slowly and let you abilities grow over time. The most
feasible way to go about the task is to divide your day up into chunks.
Dedicate a certain interval to mindfulness of posture, then extend this
mindfulness to other simple activities: eating, washing, dressing, and so
forth. Some time during the day, you can set aside 15 minutes or so to
practice the observation of specific types of mental states: pleasant,
unpleasant, and neutral feelings, for instance; or the hindrances, or
thoughts. The specific routine is up to you. The idea is to get practice at
spotting the various items, and to preserve your state of mindfulness as
fully as you can throughout the day.

Try to achieve a daily routine in which there is as little difference as

possible between seated meditation and the rest of your experience. Let
the one slide naturally into the other. Your body is almost never still.
There is always motion to observe. At the very least, there is breathing.
Your mind never stops chattering, except in the very deepest states of
concentration. There is always something coming up to observe. If you
seriously apply your meditation, you will never be at a loss for
something worthy of your attention.

Your practice must be made to apply to your everyday living situation.

That is your laboratory. It provides the trials and challenges you need to
make your practice deep and genuine. It's the fire that purifies your
practice of deception and error, the acid test that shows you when you
are getting somewhere and when you are fooling yourself. If your
meditation isn't helping you to cope with everyday conflicts and
struggles, then it is shallow. If your day-to-day emotional reactions are
not becoming clearer and easier to manage, then you are wasting your
time. And you never know how you are doing until you actually make
that test.

The practice of mindfulness is supposed to be a universal practice. You

don't do it sometimes and drop it the rest of the time. You do it all the
time. Meditation that is successful only when you are withdrawn in
some soundproof ivory tower is still undeveloped. Insight meditation is
the practice of moment-to-moment mindfulness. The meditator learns to
pay bare attention to the birth, growth, and decay of all the phenomena
of the mind. He turns from none of it, and he lets none of it escape.
Thoughts and emotions, activities and desires, the whole show. He
watches it all and he watches it continuously. It matters not whether it is
lovely or horrid, beautiful or shameful. He sees the way it is and the way
it changes. No aspect of experience is excluded or avoided. It is a very
thoroughgoing procedure.

If you are moving through your daily activities and you find yourself in
a state of boredom, then meditate on your boredom. Find out how it
feels, how it works, and what it is composed of. If you are angry,
meditate on the anger. Explore the mechanics of anger. Don't run from
it. If you find yourself sitting in the grip of a dark depression, meditate
on the depression. Investigate depression in a detached and inquiring
way. Don't flee from it blindly. Explore the maze and chart its pathways.
That way you will be better able to cope with the next depression that
comes along.

Meditating your way through the ups and downs of daily life is the
whole point of Vipassana. This kind of practice is extremely rigorous
and demanding, but it engenders a state of mental flexibility that is
beyond comparison. A meditator keeps his mind open every second. He
is constantly investigating life, inspecting his own experience, viewing
existence in a detached and inquisitive way. Thus he is constantly open
to truth in any form, from any source, and at any time. This is the state
of mind you need for Liberation.

It is said that one may attain enlightenment at any moment if the mind is
kept in a state of meditative readiness. The tiniest, most ordinary
perception can be the stimulus: a view of the moon, the cry of a bird, the
sound of the wind in the trees. It's not so important what is perceived as
the way in which you attend to that perception. The state of open
readiness is essential. It could happen to you right now if you are ready.
The tactile sensation of this book in your fingers could be the cue. the
sound of these words in your head might be enough. You could attain
enlightenment right now, if you are ready.

Dhamma Essay:
Sorrowless, Stainless and Secure by Ayya Khema

http://aboutmeditation.com/how-to-meditate-2/

How to Enter into a Meditative State

It’s not hard to do, but it does require practice to learn how to meditate.
When Scott Young, guest writer for ZenHabits, first started using
meditation he found it difficult to hold a visual scene for a length of time
without allowing distracting thoughts enter. With patience, he writes that
he’s become better at holding focus and cutting out distractions. Here
are some tips from Scott on how to enter into a meditative state:

1. Get into a position where you don’t feel discomfort but aren’t
completely relaxed. I don’’t bother with becoming a human pretzel.
The importance is that you shouldn’t have distracting muscular tensions
in your body that break your focus, but if you get too comfortable you
may fall asleep. I usually sit upright on my bed or a pillow.
2. Close your eyes and monitor your breathing. It takes a few minutes
to enter a meditative state. Focus on breathing in and out and slowly
lowering your rate of breathing. I can sometimes go to twenty seconds
for a single breath. This not only eliminates distractions but it forces
your heart rate down and relaxes your body.

3. Once you’ve sufficiently slowed your breathing, start with some

quick mental exercises. Run your focus around your body. Notice
where you hands, feet, elbows and back are. Notice how they feel. In
your relaxed state this will further sharpen your focus and drive out
distractions.

4. Finally try a few visualization exercises seeing how long and how

clearly you can hold a picture, sound or sensation in your
imagination. I find once I can hold an image for about ten or fifteen
seconds with enough clarity, I move on to the purpose I had for the
meditation.

This entire process of getting into a meditative state only takes me about
five to ten minutes. If you want practice, try getting into a meditative
state when you are going to sleep. It will help you relax and won’’t take
up any more time out of your day.

https://www.learning-mind.com/achieve-meditative-state-every-day/

5 Easy Ways to Achieve a Meditative State Every Day

Perhaps you’ve heard about the various benefits meditation offers to
one’s mind and body. Unlike many other health beneficial means
and resources that offer one a chance for healing, longevity and
happiness, the meditative state offers pure and total fulfillment of
one’s being.

A state of well-being, satisfaction and a sense of being whole. I would

mention that it is the ultimate stress relief solution too. Keep reading to
learn how you can help yourself escape into a meditative state of
consciousness every day – free and all by yourself.

For those of you (if there are any reading this) who are unaware of what
meditation is the definition is –

Meditation is a practice where an individual trains the mind or induces

a mode of consciousness, either to realize some benefit or for the mind
to simply acknowledge its content without becoming identified with that
content, or as an end in itself.

The term meditation refers to a broad variety of practices that includes

techniques designed to promote relaxation, build internal energy or life
force (qi, ki, prana, etc.) and develop compassion, love, patience,
generosity and forgiveness. A particularly ambitious form of meditation
aims at effortlessly sustained single-pointed concentration meant to
enable its practitioner to enjoy an indestructible sense of well-being
while engaging in any life activity.

Here is a guide that shows you a glimpse of the possibilities, their

benefits and how they can ultimately help you develop and expand
spiritually.

1. Spending time outdoors

We all have time to spare and thus need to consider if it is a time well
spent. In the absence of any business or any other kind of
obligations, treat yourself to a visit to the nature outside. Explore and
marvel the vivid colors with which it greets you every time you venture
into it. Relax to the sounds of breeze swaying grass and leaves and take
deep breaths with your abdomen doing all the work. Close your eyes
and you will be surprised at how nature imposes its beauty upon you
while at the same time relaxing and soothing you. Every problem you
may have will be easily washed away from your mind by the soothing
sensation of being outside.

2. Exercising

Feel sleepy, nervous or having a stiff neck/back way too often? Perhaps
the worries and tasks of every day are taking their toll on your body and
mind. Consider doing small exercises at home or at work. There are
excellent guides that can help you do a minimum amount of body
exercise even when at work in the office. We are a mind in a physical
body. The body needs to be maintained regularly in order to function
properly.

Keep in mind that our ancestors used to hunt to survive and in doing so,
they traveled miles and miles every day, in the quest for food. Even
when they started growing their own food, it still demanded a healthy
amount of daily outdoor activity. Remember this Latin phrase: Mens
sana in corpore sano! – “a sound mind in a sound body” or “a healthy
mind in a healthy body”.

3. Hobby activity

Do you have a lot of free time on your hands? Feeling that you have
often slipped away to thoughts that burden you, but you cannot get rid of
them easily? Have a hard time sleeping at all?

May I suggest to you to find an activity that will fulfill your free time
by also occupying you with interest and benefit. Ask yourself about
what you’re good at and start developing and honing those skills and
skill set – it can only do you good. You could learn to repair things in
your house, start your own shop in your garage, create and complete
projects you’ve delayed with excuses of not having enough time – you
have all the time in the world to fulfill your dreams, hopes and
everything you strive to become.

You have the power to accomplish each and every task that comes to
mind. Be reasonable when making plans – at first draw goals, you can
obtain. Increase your ambition as you increase experience. Most
important of all – don’t let anyone and anything prevent you in realizing
your dreams. Remember: Nothing is impossible!

4. Find a sanctuary for yourself

Each and every one of us has the inner strength, hidden inside ourselves,
that can instantaneously calm us. That power can be tapped at any time
of need. That temple that can help us overcome every difficulty or tough
situation that requires a “cool head” and a calm heart.

An easy way to access that power is to visualize or induce a meditative

state by accessing soothing memories that bring you happiness and a
peace of mind. Everyone can do this! If you are not a visual type, then,
you can alternatively induce this state of serenity by taking deep breaths.
Breathe through your nose and with using your stomach to drive your
lungs to a deep but slow rhythm.

The more relaxed you get, the calmer your body becomes. You will
sense and hear your heart rhythms which will additionally calm you
down. When you get good at this exercise, there will be absolutely
nothing in this world that will be able to anger or sadden you. It will feel
like you have a shield that blocks the negativity from getting to and into
you. As with all practical things, the more you practice and repeat the
better and more efficient you will become. Achieve the serenity of body
and mind by entering a meditative state now!
5. Sound frequencies can induce a meditative state of mind

Have you noticed the effects of sound and frequency to your mind and
body? Ever been driven by the rhythm of a favorite tune? There is no
counterargument about the positive effect of sounds for our states of
emotion and mind.

Sound can affect us in a bad way too, so if possible, try to escape the
noise that can do you harm. Try to isolate yourself from the noise of a
busy town atmosphere as best as you can. Soundproof your home and
workplace if you feel affected in a bad way. Constant anxiety, that you
cannot explain, could be a good sign that you are exposed to frequencies
that, do you harm but perhaps are not audible to you.

Change your mindset and enter into a meditative state by listening

to the sounds of nature – sounds of rainfall, breaking of the sea waves
onto shore, humming of the winds or even the sounds of distant
thunderstorms approaching. Listen to a calming music at a slow pace,
thus inducing a relaxed state of mind and body. Discover the great
composers of old and new classical music, jazz, funk, soul and so many
other musical genres waiting to be discovered by you.

Much of our bodies consist of water and water is an excellent

transducer of frequency and vibration! Our minds and bodies reside
together as one whole, so it might be in our best interest to be exposed
only to “good vibes” – most if not all of the time.

I will finish this thought with a powerful quote from the great scientist
Nikola Tesla:

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy,
frequency and vibration.”

Great strength resides dormant in all of us. If you enter a meditative

state regularly, it is only a matter of time of when you are about to
discover your true potential. Upon discovery that it is up to you
whether or not you will use it to your benefit. It can be used to help
others too. When in doubt and feel a bad emotion or thought is getting a
better of you – ask yourself to what ends that path will lead you. Will
it benefit you or consume you?

Answer sincerely with your heart and all the worries you think you have
– will wash away. And you will feel true strength … You will feel free
…You shall find peace.

https://liveanddare.com/deep-meditation/

7 Tips To Experience Deep Meditation

By Giovanni 42 Commentsmeditation

When it’s time for your sitting session, you can simply sit down and
start. That’s what I was doing in the first few years of my practice. Or
you can take a couple of minutes to center and “prepare” yourself – and
your meditation session will be more pleasant and quiet.

I took me a long time to learn these hacks, and I wish I had known them
before. That’s why I decided to write about them, so you can shortcut
your learning curve, and experience deep meditation sessions more
often.

The first three hacks are part of the preparation process and can take
from two 20 minutes – it’s entirely up to you. You don’t need to go
through all these elements, but I found that each of them is helpful.

The fourth and fifth hack are attitudes that you can develop during
practice that will aid your concentration. And the last two ones is about
what you do after your practice.

At the bottom of this page you will find a button to download the free
PDF with these 7 hacks.
BEFORE
(1) Calm Your Body And Breath

Our mind, body and breath are interconnected. So relaxing the body and
calming the breath will naturally calm the mind as well.
The parasympathetic nervous system gets activated, and as a result the
stress response will be down-regulated. That is why, in the system of
Yoga practice, one works with postures (asanas) and breathing
regulation (pranayama).

Short version

Once you sit on your cushion/chair, take three to five full breaths –
breathing in through the nose, and out through the mouth. Make them as
long, even, and deep as possible.

 Breathing in, center yourself in the present moment

 Breathing out, consciously relax all the muscles in your body,
letting go of all tension

Pay special attention to relaxing the jaw, throat, tongue, and forehead.

Long version: 

Take 5-10 minutes to do the following 9 Yoga Asanas, so you can relax
and lighten up the body.

Then, for five minutes, do the following breathing exercise:

 Breathe in for 4 seconds, through the nose

 Breathe out for 8 seconds, through the nose

Instead of 4-8 seconds, you can go for 3-6, or 5-10, 6-12, etc. The
important thing is that we are aiming for the exhalation to be longer than
the inhalation (ideally double). That may be hard in the beginning, so
you grow into it as you go.

Breathing should be soft, even, and as soundless as possible. Do not

force yourself – it should be comfortable. So adjust your count
according to your capacity.

For a more in-depth resource on relaxation of body and breath as a

support for meditation, see this article.

(2) Gladden The Mind

Our brain is deeply wired to avoid pain, and seek pleasure. So if you can
generate some stable feelings of safety and contentment, right before
your meditation, you are sending a message to your brain that all is well,
and it need not be restless.

When our mind is joyful and content, it is naturally more quiet,

introverted, and together. So after relaxing your body and mind, I advise
you to gladden the mind by doing one of these:

 Remember something that you are grateful for

 Remember the joy of meditation (if you have already experienced
that)
 Tell yourself that all is safe and well in this moment
 Feel good that you are taking time to heal, grow, and master your
mind
 If you believe in God, doing a short prayer before meditation can
help set a mood of attention, sacredness and centeredness

Also, if you have practiced loving-kindness meditation before, you know

you have the capacity to kindle feelings of love and compassion in your
heart, and that doing that brings in joy. So you can remember these
feelings, or generate them inside yourself, for a couple of minutes before
meditation.
To explore more this fact, I recommend listening to episode 149 of
Buddhist Geeks, on “neurodharma”.

Also, for increasing the feeling of safety, allocate a safe and quiet place
for your meditation and remove anything that may interrupt your
practice such as your mobile, pets, etc. Inform those that may need your
attention to be respectful of the space and the time you are allocating for
your practice and not to create any abrupt noise or move in and out of
the room. If you cannot find such a place, alternatively you can use
earplugs or headphones to cover your ears.

(3) Affirm Your Intention

Taking a few moments to just focus your intention before practice can
do wonders for your meditation.

You can do this by saying to yourself, with intention and presence,

something like this:

“For the next X minutes I will only focus on my meditation. There is

nothing else for me to do and nothing else for me to think about during
this time. Mind, please don’t disturb me. I will start concentrating now.”

Determination and will power are very important. As Swami Rama says,
“I can do it. I will do it. I am going to do it.” This is an essential key to
deepen your meditation.

If you feel you don’t have good determination or will power, don’t
worry. By practicing setting up your intention in this way, you slowly
start developing these muscles.

DURING
(4) Don’t Suffer The Distractions

During your meditation practice, it is important never to criticize

yourself, or feel bad about getting distracted with thoughts. These types
of thoughts are harmful and not in line with the spirit of good
meditation.

Learn to be gentle with yourself during your practice. For decades you
have trained your mind to be distracted; so it will take some time to train
it to be focused. Be patient and kind with yourself.

(5) Delight in Concentration

There will be moments when your mind is more focused on the

meditation object. When this happens, it’s important to delight in it.
Enjoy how quiet, stable and unified the mind gets.

Mind’s most fundamental habit is to seek pleasure/well-being and shun

pain/suffering. By teaching the mind to appreciate the joy of
concentration, it starts working more towards increasing that, by
facilitating more focus.

According to the Buddha, joy (piti) and happiness (sukha) are two of the
five factors of meditative absorption (jhanna). The more you learn to
open up and enjoy your meditation, the less reasons there are for the
mind to get restless thinking of other things.

This practice is very useful when your concentration is still wavering.

Once concentration gets solid and stable, however, there is no need to
disturb the mind with these thoughts and intentions – just stay there.

AFTER
(6) Gentle Transition

When the bell rings, get out of your meditation gently, not hurriedly.
Keep the mind in the same state, gently move your fingers and neck, and
then open your eyes. This transition helps you bring more of the
“meditation feeling” into your daily life.
(7) Keep a Journal

I highly encourage you to then take some notes about how your practice
went. This helps you solidify the meditation habit. It also develops a
greater understanding of the workings of the mind, and the mechanics of
meditation.

A simple entry could answer these three questions:

 How long did I sit?

 How do I feel now?
 How was my mind during meditation?

For the third question, you can note things like how many times you got
distracted, what types of thoughts or feelings were you experiencing,
and for how long you could keep focused.

CONCLUSION

By integrating these 7 elements in your routine, your meditation can be

deeper, more enjoyable and more transformative. Here’s a summary:

 Before meditation
o Relax your body and breath, to calm down and center
yourself;
o Gladden the mind with gratitude or other positive feelings;
o Have strong intention in your mind
 During meditation
o Don’t feel bad about getting distracted
o Find delight in the moments of concentration
 After meditation
o Move out of meditation gently
o Take notes in your journal
In my beginners meditation course I integrate these seven tips and
other valuable principles. If you feel you still don’t know what you are
doing in terms of meditation, or need help building a practice that is
consistent and deep, check it out.

Finally, sometimes the best thing you can do for your practice is
experiment with new techniques. Finding the ideal meditation technique
for you makes a big difference in terms of having a deeper practice, with
the benefits and goals you are seeking.  

I would love to hear how these hacks affect your practice and daily life.
Please leave a comment sharing your experience.

Here is the PDF & worksheets I promised you:

[If you are already part of my mailing list, don’t worry, only one
instance of your email will be kept. No duplicate messages will ever be
sent.

Meditate on!

https://www.yogajournal.com/meditation/step-into-the-stream

Step Into the Stream: Your Mind's Natural Meditative State

Put aside your expectations and allow your mind to relax into its true
state of meditation.
Put aside your expectations and allow your mind to relax into its
true state of meditation.

After immersing myself in Eastern philosophy in college, I finally turned

to meditation in my senior year when a bad acid trip made it crystal clear
that psychedelics didn't offer the definitive answer to the deeper
questions of life. The first time I entered a zendo, I knew I had come
home: The incense, the robes, the formality, the silence, all spoke a
language I recognized immediately as my own.
Before long I was sitting hours, days, even weeks at a time. Sure, my
knees and back ached, but so what? I couldn't get enough of the stillness.
To use a favorite phrase of one of my teachers, Shunryu Suzuki, I was
obeying an "innermost request" that drew me inexorably to meditate,
and something deep inside seemed to be awakening after years (or
lifetimes?) of sleeping. Or you could say I had fallen passionately in
love--not with a philosophy or a spiritual practice, but with some
mysterious, beneficent presence that filled my meditations on a regular
basis. Of course I got lost in thought like everyone else and forgot I had
a breath to follow. But the act of meditating held a freshness, an
aliveness, and a magic that was extremely nourishing and precious.

See also Find Lasting Peace with Meditation

Like a baby discovering the world for the first time, I didn't have
the language or the concepts to describe what was happening, so I was
constantly in awe. Then I became an expert on meditation--a "senior
student." I was ordained as a monk and began teaching to others. I read
all the Zen books available at the time, which described the rigorous
practices and awakening experiences of the old Zen masters. In my
struggle to "die on my cushion," as my teachers kept exhorting me to do,
my sittings lost their original spontaneity, wonder, and juiciness and
gradually became more effortful, deliberate, and dry. Even when I tried
to recapture the old simplicity, I just got tangled up in the complexity of
my efforts. "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the
expert's mind there are few." If I had taken these familiar words of
Suzuki Roshi's to heart, I might never have relinquished the innocence
and openness of a beginner's mind for the narrow authority of the
expert's.

Facing the Unknown

In my subsequent years of spiritual exploration, I've discovered that this

innocent, open awareness is in fact the awakened, expansive, all-
inclusive consciousness of the great masters and sages. As one of my
teachers, Jean Klein, often said, "The seeker is the sought; the looker is
what he or she is looking for."

But how, you may ask, can you keep this freshness and innocence when
you've been meditating for years? In my experience, you can't keep it at
all. Any effort to hold on to some special inner state is doomed to
failure, because states and experiences come and go like the weather.
The point of meditation is to reveal the sky, the inner expanse that
remains when all the clouds disperse.

Unfortunately, our thinking mind can't find the sky, no matter how hard
it tries. Minds simply don't know how to meditate--though they can go
through the motions, pretending. Sure, they do a great job of analyzing,
planning, and creating, but true meditation exists in a timeless dimension
beyond the mind. If not, meditation would merely be another form of
thinking. The real value of techniques is to keep the mind busy and
ultimately exhaust it until it finally relaxes and allows true meditation to
happen.

The mind is such a poor meditator because it can only deal with
known quantities,

such as facts, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, the familiar raw material of the
inner life. But it can't wrap itself around meditation, whose province is
the unknown. When the mind tries to meditate, it usually attempts to
recreate familiar experiences. Perhaps it's the powerful epiphany you
had six months ago, the fleeting moment of bliss you tasted yesterday, or
empty, thought-free inner space. Or maybe it tries to replicate the mind-
states it has read in spiritual books. Rearranging the inner furniture, the
mind draws our awareness away from true meditation.

During a long silent retreat a few years ago, as I exerted my usual

concentrated effort, I suddenly found the process so amusing that I burst
out laughing. Here was my mind, busily struggling to quiet down, and
all the while it was being embraced by a silence so deep I could feel it in
my bones. The meditative habits of a lifetime fell away like an old skin,
revealing the raw immediacy of the moment. There was no place to go,
nothing to do, no more tricks up my sleeve, just this--the indivisible and
ineffable now.

In reality, meditation is our natural state, the inner ground or context in

which all experiences come and go, as near to us as a heartbeat or a
breath. It can't be manipulated or fabricated in any way. Rather,
meditation is the awake, aware presence that remains unchanging and
undisturbed when even the most profound spiritual experiences have
dissolved into memory.

Ultimately, true meditation is synonymous with Spirit, God, Buddha

nature, and true self. Now I'm not suggesting you stop meditating--only
that you give up trying. Instead of practicing your usual technique,
experiment with being present and open to your experience just the way
it is, without judgment or manipulation. If your mind engages in its
usual meditative routine--making the effort to calm down, get rid of
thoughts, or have the correct spiritual experience-- so be it; just remain
present and open to that as well.

Giving It Up

"Many thoughts will crowd into your mind," wrote Zen master Dogen
more than 700 years ago. "Let [them] come and go, without getting
involved in them or trying to suppress them." You may discover that
your mind's relentless attempts to meditate begin to lose their
fascination, and you become more interested in the aware, empty
presence in which they're taking place.

As your letting go deepens, the one who is always aware, even of the
mind's efforts, gradually moves to the foreground to be recognized, and
true meditation blossoms. In a moment outside of time, the separate
"meditator" drops away, and only meditation remains. Don't worry if
these words make no sense to the mind. (How could they?) But they
may touch a place deep inside that knows exactly what I'm talking about.
In Zen, expressions that kindle this deep inner knowing are called "live
words." For centuries teachers have used live words to awaken their
students to the living truth of their essential nature. Allow the words you
read here to resonate beyond your mind and kindle your knowing.

As you may have noticed, the meditation I'm referring to is not an

activity you do at a particular time of day. It can't be done because it's
always occurring--it can only be joined. I like to think of meditation as a
powerful river that's continuously flowing beneath and through the
surface of life. Obviously you can't make this river happen. It's the very
ground and substance of everything that is. The ancients called it the
Tao. But you can stop clutching the familiar beliefs, habits, and
preoccupations that separate you from it--and fall in. Any effort to
meditate, no matter how subtle, takes you away from this deep current of
awareness and presence, which is the inexhaustible source of all spiritual
mind-states like bliss, peace, and joy. It's the ultimate observer of all
objects of awareness, and it's looking out through your eyes and my eyes
right now. But you can never locate or grasp it with the mind--you can
only be it.

I'm not offering techniques to add to your repertoire or sage counsel on

how to fine-tune your practice. My intention is to baffle your mind so it
gives up and lets meditation happen. If I've done my job, you will finish
this column knowing less than when you began.

Former YJ Editor-In-Chief Stephan Bodian is the author of several

books, including Meditation for Dummies (Hungry Minds, 1999).

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/meditation-modern-
life/201302/living-meditative-life
Robert Puff Ph.D. Meditation for Modern Life

Living a Meditative Life

How to experience the benefits of meditation throughout the day

Posted Feb 14, 2013
If you’ve ever meditated, you’ve probably had moments where you
experienced relaxation and peace of mind. Then life resumed, and so did
your nonstop mental activity. But life doesn’t have to be this way. In this
blog post, I’ll explain what it means to lead a “meditative life,” and
show you how to do it.

Meditation (link is external)is often described as a practice that quiets

and calms the mind. Imagine maintaining this state all day long. I
believe that this is both possible and can dramatically decrease stress and
stress related illnesses. This is the premise behind the daylong retreats
(link is external) that I provide—I teach attendants how to maintain a
meditative state throughout the day.

Living a meditative life breaks common conceptions people have of

meditation. For many, it’s a practice that they do in isolation. On the one
hand, they meditate. On the other, they work, spend time with family,
and more. During their period of silence, they may have deep and
blissful experiences, but once they stop, their thoughts and feelings take
charge.

In fact, whether you’re a long time meditator or have never indulged in

the practice, most of us spend the day thinking thoughts that jump all
over the place. The voices in our heads say things such as, “I don’t like
that,” “I really like this,” “What if I did this,” or “I shouldn’t have done
that.” It’s as if we have a little person resting on our shoulder whispering
in our ear all day. By bedtime, we’re downright exhausted from the
mind chatter. For non-meditators, just about the only time they’re given
a break from the internal dialogue is when they go to sleep.

If you meditate, however, you learn to quiet your mind as you sit in
silence. But what if you could maintain this meditative state all day
long? They key to do this is to be 100% present (link is external) with
one thing at time without the mind chatter. Of course, we need some
mental commentary to help us make decisions and learn new things—for
the most part, however, most of what needs to be accomplished can be
done spontaneously. In one of my books, I refer to it as “being in the
zone.” It’s a state where you trust and make decisions based on your
natural instincts. Professional athletes, musicians, and artists have
mastered the ability to tap into this so-called “zone.” When you discover
how to do this yourself, life flows very smoothly. 

Think of an NBA star. He has practiced countless hours to reach the

peak of his abilities. When it’s game time, he gets out of his head and
lets his instincts take charge. He’s present with the task at hand and isn’t
consumed with the barrage of thoughts that burden so many of us. 

In your case, you don’t have to be a world class athlete to access this
“zone” state. When you trust life and flow with it, you do what you’re
supposed to, and then what you need to do will naturally emerge and
you’ll act accordingly. When you’re presented with decisions, you may
ponder them, but for the most part, you’re present with life and are not a
slave to your mental commentary.

So what does living in a meditative life look like in the real world? The
following is an example.

Let’s say that you have a meditative practice where you focus on your
breath. When your mind wanders you witness the thoughts,
acknowledge them, and then return to your breath. 

Now it’s time to apply these techniques to life outside your meditative
practice. Imagine that you’re talking to a friend and your mind wanders.
Rather than suppress your thoughts, acknowledge them and just go back
to your conversation. Or perhaps you’re watching a beautiful sunset and
you find that yourself thinking “non sunset related thoughts.” Simply
bring your focus back to the sunset and be with it. In both instances, you
don't push your thoughts away. Instead, you acknowledge them and then
return back to what is in front of you right now. In other words, be
present with what is and the moment you’re experiencing.
If you can apply the principles of leading meditative life to how you live
and work everyday, I believe you’ll experience more happiness (link is
external) and less stress. Learning how to live in the present moment,
concentrating on one thing at a time minus the mind chatter, and
acknowledging your thoughts and returning back to the present will
bring about a peace that surpasses understanding.

https://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-meditate-at-any-time-without-
meditating/

How to Meditate at Any Time without Meditating

By Amanda Cook

“If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss
everything.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh

Flour. Salt. Water. Yeast. As I push the warm, soft dough against my
palm, I feel the cold stone countertop underneath. I feel my hips leaning
up against the cabinets. I hear my breath inside my head.

As I knead the dough, it changes. The dough becomes more elastic and
flexible, ready to rise and be baked into a crusty loaf.

As I make bread, I change. My thoughts go quiet. I come into the now.

I have struggled with an inconsistent meditation practice for months. In

those moments when I successfully meditate and clear my mind, I feel
such a sense of accomplishment and peace.

But as any beginning meditator knows, those moments are few and far
between.

Usually, my scattered mind is split between keeping track of the time,

trying to quiet the voice in my head, and chastizing my body for
fidgeting. 
I struggled and pushed myself to meditate properly with little
success, until I realized that any act can be a meditation.

I discovered this fundamental insight through books by Eckhart Tolle

and Thich Nhat Hanh. It is not so important to sit with a perfectly erect
spine for 20 minutes per day in meditative bliss. What is important is to
be here, in the now. Living your life. Noticing what is. Noticing life.

So often throughout our days we are lost in our thoughts. We may be on

the train or in the shower, but in our heads we are already giving that
important presentation, having the difficult conversation, worrying about
and planning for what might happen next.

If you step back and think about it, this is a strange way to live.
With all of this planning, worrying, and thinking, we’re missing out
on our lives.

I came to this realization a few years ago when I moved to Paris, France.
I had been living the overachieving, type-A personality lifestyle in the
United States my entire life.

It’s a common cycle. Working hard in school to get into a good

university, then landing a “good job” and working to get promoted, all
the while trying to upgrade my belogings to match my desired lifestyle:
a bigger apartment, a new car, high thread count sheets, and gourmet
kitchen appliances.

My whole life was geared toward reaching some undefined point where
I would have “made it,” so I could then take a well deserved vacation.

Then, I moved to Paris.

Suddenly, everything I knew about status and lifestyle was irrelevant.

Instead of talking about work all the time, my new French friends talked
about hobbies, food, books, vacations, movies—anything except work.
I met people who really enjoyed their lives on a daily basis. Spending
time with friends. Savoring delicious lunches. Continuing their artistic
pursuits on the side of their career. Hiking in the mountains on weekends
and reconnecting with nature.

Moving overseas made me realize that my life isn’t going to start at

some undefined point in the future. My constant planning, thinking, and
obsessing was making me miss out on my life! I suddenly realized that
my life was happening right now, in this very moment.

By living in our heads, we’re missing opportunities to connect with our

family. Opportunities to feel the pleasure of sunshine on our face while
standing at the bus stop. Opportunities to feel our creative energy spark
when we watch a child playing. Opportunities to be in nature, even for
just a few minutes, and find our footing again.

Slowly, over the past few years, I have been working on showing up to
my life on a daily basis. Trying to live in the present moment. Trying to
really be here, now.

So now I have a new meditation practice. I make our weekly loaf of

bread by hand.

It doesn’t take that long, once you know the technique. But it’s such
grounding, salt-of-the-earth, staff-of-life stuff.

Making bread by hand connects me with the generations before and after
who have done this daily practice. I take it slowly. Measuring the flour,
salt and yeast. Then slowly pouring in warm water to form a dough.
Then the fun part—digging in with my hands. Kneading bread is an
almost childlike pleasure because it’s so tactile.

When I make bread, I am reminded of the simple pleasures in life. I’m

reminded of the importance of health and nourishing our bodies. I re-
discover, week after week, the miracle of transformation. The miracle of
basic ingredients becoming something so pleasurable, delicious and a
cornerstone of our diet.

Perhaps bread baking isn’t your thing. But you can turn any daily
activity into a meditation practice: washing the dishes, brushing your
teeth, ironing your clothes.

5 tips to incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine:

1. Notice, don’t think.

Pretend you are a traveler or student encountering this activity for the
very first time. Don’t judge, label, and think about what you’re doing.
Just notice. Notice every detail with an open, beginner’s mind.

2. When in doubt, check your breathing.

If you feel your thoughts wandering from the present task, take a minute
to hear and feel yourself breathe. Just paying attention to a few breaths
will bring you back to the present moment.

3. You have 5 senses, use them.

Mindfulness means truly experiencing what is going on right now. This

is more than just noticing what something looks like. What does it smell
like? Feel it with your hands. What is the texture? Temperature? What
do you hear?

4. Have a strategy to handle nagging thoughts.

Occasionally we all have thoughts that won’t go away—so you need a

strategy for how to handle them. I like to have a notebook with me at all
times to write any nagging to-dos, ideas or issues. If you write them
down, your mind can relax because it knows you can go back to them
later.
5. It is what it is.

You don’t need to analyze your mindfulness experience. Don’t worry

about what it all means or if you’re being mindful enough. Just try to be
mindful every day. Come more fully into the present moment. Let the
experience be what it is.

While this might not fit the ideal of a perfect, solitary meditation
practice, it works for me. It works because it gets me to the right place—
the present moment.

Every week when I make bread, I re-discover that by mixing, kneading

and baking, I am able to come more fully into the present moment and
really connect with life.  And isn’t that the purpose of a meditation
practice in the first place?

https://www.quora.com/How-have-you-been-able-to-maintain-a-
meditative-state-while-engaged-in-daily-life

How have you been able to maintain a meditative state while

engaged in daily life?

Giovanni Dienstmann, Meditation practitioner, coach & writer

(LiveAndDare.com)
Answered May 2, 2015
The more you practice meditation, the easiest it becomes to access that
state. By practice, you get better control over your mind, and can access
a quiet state of openness and balance with a single breath, even during
your daily life.

You also need to slowly bring the feeling and mind-state of meditation
to your daily life. Here are some hints on how to do that: mindfulness in
daily life.

If you learned something from this answer, consider voting it up. :-

J.D. Andre, 20+ years teaching, speaking, writing, practicing.
Answered May 6, 2015
To answer this, you need working definitions of mindfulness and
meditation - below are mine...

When you meditate, you cultivate awareness of your thoughts, emotions,

and urges - as well as the stories that play on a constant loop in your
head.

You develop the skill of observing this "mind-made" activity without

getting caught up in it.

Mindfulness is transferring that skill to the rest of your day when you
aren't meditating. If you are doing things mindfully, you are not
distracted by thoughts about the past or future (or, some alternate
reality). Instead, your attention is fully on the task at hand: working,
playing, talking to a friend, washing the dishes, walking the dog,
listening to music...

What does that mean to you?

The human condition is "lost in thought," and we tend to go through life

at the mercy of whatever our minds produce next. This results in the
problems that we struggle with every day: stress, anxiety, depression,
self-doubt, worry, regret, a lack of focus, and on and on.
If properly taught and applied, mindfulness and meditation can help with
all of these issues, and have a profound effect on your overall health and
well-being.
Answered Apr 28, 2015
Life is a constant exchange. There must be balance in order for life to be
lived wholly.

You work and then you rest/play

There's Day and then there's Night
There's life and then there's death.

The two different arms form the cycle that is repeated continually
throughout life.

To my mind, being in a meditative state requires that you are relaxed,

resting even.

If you are at work, you probably cannot afford to be in a relaxed state all
day long. You couldn't concentrate enough to get your job done.

Same goes for the opposite, you wouldn't relax properly if you were
constantly thinking about work.

Best to use the times for what they are billed for. Work time is for work
and rest time is for rest. Unless ofcourse your work requires you to be
meditative.

So i'd say concentrate on your work, focus on it in such a way that you
complete tasks quicker. And you can then retire later and relax and
meditate to your hearts content.

If there's a doctrine that says you should be meditative all day long, it
just sounds unnatural to me and you know that anything unnatural
becomes forced and one sided.
Joseph Tanega, BA Philosophy Princeton University 1975.
Answered May 3, 2015
1. Meditation is just the bridge, the means, and to "maintain it" while
"engaged in daily life" is ok from one point of view, but from another, it
is just ridiculous.

2. Meditation raises the chance of a satori, the first glimpse of

enlightenment, and really after that, enlightenment may come or go.
Who cares? It comes or goes like a wild animal, like the winds or ocean.
There can be no maintenance of suchness.

3. If you meditate and feel good in your meditation, then the workaday
world is your ultimate test. It is just as real as anything in space and time
(pre-quantum) and as permanent as the conservation of spacetime (post-
quantum).

4.  The reality is to let go of your meditation, to get your fantastic

technique of meditations out of the way, and see what happens. 

5. As one Master put it to me once, "Joe, do you want to live in a broom

closet?"
Abhishek Jaiswal, 12 years of Practising Gaudiya Vaishav Philosophy.
Answered Apr 28, 2015
Whenever you have free time chant mentally or to yourself a sacred
mantra like OM,Hare Krishna Mahamantra become aware of the
vibration of the mantra. Like waiting for Laptop to load chant for that
period, waiting for a Cab.
 
Other techniques are being aware, focus on breathing and many more
ways. For me chanting is the most practical I found.
Answered May 7, 2015
Yes and so have you. It's not some special state floating in ecstacy. The
reason you have not recognized it is that you where totally absorbed in
the activity.  Can you recollect a moment where you where totally
relaxed doing your favourite activity, in the zone.  When concentration
is total, worry or concern gone, absorption complete the meditative state
is natural.
Jos Buurman, Sometimes meditation goes good, sometimes it's horrible.
Keep going and you'll learn
Answered May 6, 2015
I have a counter question to ponder:

What is distracting you so much that you are unable to maintain a

meditative state the entire day?

Get this source of distraction out of the way and you will have the
answer.

Or in another way of stating:

Why is there no noise when two hands clap and a lot of noise when one
hand claps? Where does the confusion originate?
James Hu, 20+ years experience living a balanced Lifestyle learned thru
the highs and lows
Answered Apr 29, 2015
For me the way I maintain a meditative state while engaged in daily life
is to notice subtle sensations in whatever I am doing. For example, right
now I am typing this thought out while feeling the keyboards at my
finger tips. I feel the slight pressure and the extension of each finger
pressing the keys. And while I'm feeling this process I'll notice and
observe the thoughts that cross my mind without any reaction to them. 

Another technique I use whenever I walk is to look straight ahead and

notice the beautiful picture in front of me and in my peripheral vision
while I feel the subtle vibrations from the ground through my shoes or
the air gliding off my skin.

Anita Marathe, Short story lover.

Answered Apr 28, 2015
I don't know if I have, but really want to work on that. We get affected
either by surrounding people or circumstances. I am training myself in
such a way, that, the moment something disturbing starts happening, I
should suggest the mind to keep chanting this- Nothing is going to last
forever. This, too, shall pass. Have patience and don't react.

I hope, it works!
Prashanth Hirematada, Author of LAMP
Answered May 8, 2015
What does it mean? ...to be in meditative state? When do you think you
are? When do you think you are not? Why? Is it something like walking
without walking... like floating? Or if you are levitating during
meditation?

Another worthwhile question to ask yourself is what is your state of

mind when you are sitting meditating and what is it while you are
walking? or eating? or taking a shower? talking to another person?
listening to another person? etc...
David Wilson
Answered May 2, 2015
Practice. I meditate by being aware of my breathing...at first just at home
sitting down...then walking to work...then doing the housework, and so
on...

One of the things I've found I do automatically now - if something is

annoying (I was adjusting the legs on my weight bench the other day and
it was one of those jobs were you need 3 hands) I reflexively reach for
my breathing and slow down. At no point did I plan to do this, it just
started happening after meditating for a while.
Nandan Choksi, Student of Life
Answered Apr 28, 2015
A meditative state is not something that you maintain. It isn't like
maintaining your house or maintaining your job or maintaining your
family. It is something that is part of you. It is always there. It is you.
129 Views · View Upvoters
Teena Cormack, Lifelong Learner, BA
Answered May 4, 2015
No, though I have not tried.  I enjoy daily meditation and I can take a
moment to return to a meditative break at any time during a moment of
specific need during the day. But I do not meditate when driving or any
other time when attention is needed.
Stefan Pecho
Answered May 12, 2015
What is the meditative state? Meditative state for the sake of meditative
state? With human beings the key issue is moral and compassion. If
speaking onkly about a meditative state then we speak also about amoral
and non-compassionate people. They can have a great ability to
meditate...
Wendell Henckel, Philosopher
Answered Apr 28, 2015
By practicing being aware of the sense of seeing, sense of touching and
the sense of hearing all together at the same time in this moment now.

Robert Dunlap
Answered May 17, 2015
You shall not try but do.  Doing is not a reaction to you're daily life, but
an active awareness of life and each eternal moment.
Dan Smith, retired techy, blogger, teacher, art historian & collector,
trekker, global wanderer, Life-long reader of s...
Answered May 1, 2015
Yes, provided the engaged tasks do not involve risk to self or others,
e.g., don't meditate while driving.
AWAKENING
Having gained this rare human life of freedom and fortune,
Hear, think and meditate unwaveringly night and day, in order to
free yourself and others from the ocean of cyclic existence.
Attached to your loved ones, you are stirred up like water. Hating your
enemies, you burn the fire. In the darkness of confusion, you forget
what to adopt and what to discard.
By avoiding bad objects, disturbing emotions gradually decrease.
Without distraction, virtuous activities naturally increase. With clarity
of mind, conviction in teaching arises. Cultivate concentration.
Loved ones who have long kept company will part. Wealth created with
difficulty will be left behind. Consciousness, the guest, will leave the
guesthouse of the body. Let go of this life.
When you keep company with bad friends, your three poisons increase,
viz., negative thoughts, negative actions and negative words. Your
activities of hearing, thinking and meditating decline, and they make you
lose your love and compassion. Give up bad friends.
When you keep company with spiritual friends and rely on them, your
faults come to an end, and your good qualities grow like the waxing
moon. Cherish spiritual friends even more than your own body.
Seek to transform your life by letting go of the three poisons, viz.,
negative speech, negative thoughts and negative actions, and generate
positive uplifting qualities such as compassion in yourself.
Though someone may speak bad words about you in a public gathering,
looking on him as a spiritual teacher, bow to him.
When all beings who have loved you since time without beginning, are
suffering, what use is your own happiness? Therefore, to free limitless
living beings, develop the altruistic intention.
Like dew on the top of a blade of grass, pleasures of this life are
temporary and last only a while and then vanish. Aspire to the never-
changing supreme state of liberation.
All suffering comes from the wish for your own happiness. Perfect
Buddhas are born from the thought to help others. Therefore, exchange
your own happiness for the suffering of others.
Understand that disturbing emotions are destroyed by skilful
communication that does not cause and create further suffering, and
hence, cultivate concentration and be mindful of your own words.
Cultivate mindfulness.
Harsh words disturb the minds of others and cause deterioration in your
spiritual conduct. Therefore, give up harsh words which are unpleasant
to others. Even if a person, for whom you have cared like your own
child regards you as an enemy, cherish him specially, like a mother does
her child who is stricken with sickness.
Though you lack what you need and are constantly disparaged, and
afflicted by dangerous sickness and spirits, take on the misdeeds and the
pain of all living beings, without discouragement.
While the enemy of your own anger is not subdued, though you conquer
external foes they will only increase. Therefore, with the army of love
and compassion, subdue your own mind.
Sensual pleasures are like saltwater. The more you indulge, the more the
thirst increases. Abandon at once those things which breed clinging
attachments.
In brief, whatever you are doing, ask yourself, ”What is the state of my
mind?” with constant mindfulness and mental alertness. Generate a
peaceful mind so that you may help others.

http://www.omswami.com/2014/01/three-principles-of-
confrontation.html

Saturday, 25 January 2014

Three Principles of Confrontation

Confrontation is not about putting the other person down or throwing

them off balance.
Confrontations are hard. They are difficult because they often leave a
bad taste. The person you are confronting may choose to deny, disagree,
resist, or if he's sincere, there may be an apology, but it's never a
pleasant conversation by any stretch of imagination. It could be between
a manager and a worker, between two partners, parent-child, two
friends, between teams or even governments. Sometimes positive and
constructive confrontation is the only way to get past a disagreement.
Think of confrontation as a type of conversation; an undesirable one, the
type that can make people feel ashamed, guilty, embarrassed, angry and
more. So, let me offer you the three golden principles of confrontation.
Don't raise your voice
It's absolutely critical to not shout if you want any positive outcome.
Think about this: we confront someone because we want them to listen
to us and accept that they acted irresponsibly or it caused us pain. The
only chance you have of getting them to listen to you is by not raising
your voice. Why? Human mind is naturally open to pleasant
conversations. When you keep your voice low, they may disagree but
their brain won't allow them to shut you out. The primary difference
between a conversation and an argument is the pitch and tone of the
voice. Disagreement may be there in both the cases but in an argument,
both parties are talking when none is listening. When you shout at
anyone, they immediately turn off and withdraw. Their mind shifts from
conversing to completely avoiding the issue or being defensive. On the
other hand, if you talk about it in your normal tone, you may feel they
haven't understood the seriousness of the situation, but your words will
find a way into their mind. It doesn't necessarily mean they'll change
their ways though.

Don't attack
Remember, the goal of any confrontation is to have the other person see
your perspective and to have them cease from acting a certain way. You
can't accomplish this by putting them down or attacking them. Give
them a chance to save their face. Start with the assumption that they
made a mistake. Without violating the first principle, if you keep the
focus on how their actions are hurting you and the relationship, or, how
it's not in their own best interest, they are likely to listen to you better.
But when we attack the other person by saying, you did this and you did
that, you are like this and you are like that and so on and so forth, we
create a giant barrier and now they are on the other side of the fence.
They turn defensive and to protect themselves, they launch a counter-
attack. This defeats the purpose, the distance increases, and both people
end up angrier.

Don't deviate
This is the hardest of the three. Often, when we confront someone, they
want to evade the issue. To avoid any explanations, apologies or
consequences, there's a natural tendency to deviate from the real issue. If
both get carried away, it becomes impossible to retain any sense or
sensibility in the confrontation. It will quickly turn into a heated
argument or a violent disagreement. When the other person digresses,
just hear them out, let them finish and then politely persist with the
primary issue because if you deviate as well, it'll become a pointless
argument resulting in a lot of talk but no conclusion. It is paramount to
stay focused and to keep it to the point. For example, if you want to
confront someone about being late. Only talk about the present instance.
Don't start talking about how they are always late, how they are not
efficient or competent and so on.

Once again, bear in mind that the objective of any confrontation is to

make the other person aware of their certain actions you disapprove of.
It is not to demean or deprecate them. Therefore, your selection of
words, tone, gestures and timing will make a huge difference to the
outcome. That said, if you have to confront someone more than a couple
of times over the same issue, there's little hope they'll ever mend their
ways because for the wise and sincere, even a subtle hint is more than
enough. If the other person is not willing to come clean, no conversation
or confrontation, however done, can yield any result.

A friend approached Mulla Nasrudin to borrow his donkey for a few

hours.
"But, I don't have my donkey. It ran away last night," said Mulla, "and, I
can't find him."
His friend looked at him skeptically. Mulla maintained an affirmative
and quiet mien. Just then the donkey started to bray loudly.
"Mulla! I can hear your donkey in your house. You lied to me! I thought
we were friends."
"Exactly! Are you telling me you trust a donkey's braying more than
your friend's words."

Life is colorful because of the various shades; not all colors can be
white, not all can be red or black; not all dialogs can be pleasant or
desirable. Success in relationships — professional and personal —
depends a great deal on your ability to handle difference of opinions and
on how you hold unpleasant conversations.
(Image credit: David Smith)
Peace.
Swami

http://www.omswami.com/2014/01/have-i-been-bad-parent.html

Saturday, 18 January 2014

Have I been a Bad Parent?

There is no categorical good or bad way of raising children. Take it
easy.
Where did I go wrong? How do I persuade my kids that I tried
everything, that, I didn't mean to be a bad parent, that, they were my
priority, that, I only meant their welfare? Often I meet parents who
sacrificed their own desires for decades only to later feel they didn't do a
good job at bringing up their kids, or that they went wrong somewhere,
or that they were terrible parents (as mostly their kids had them believe).
I look at the emotional turmoil they go through because their children
have convinced them with their gestures, impressions and words that
they — the parents — couldn't get their act together.

Agreed, there are broken families too, no doubt that sometimes parents
can be irresponsible as well especially if they are subjecting their child
to emotional or physical abuse. Emotional abuse could range from trying
to live all your dreams through your children to making them feel they
are good-for-nothing. But, this is not so with most families I come
across. These are perfectly functional families where parents care for
their children and each other, where they frequently go out of their way
to be good parents. Yet, the kids are not happy. They don't believe their
parents are doing a thorough job. They repeatedly give examples of
someone else's father or mother who's a better parent. The parents even
start to believe their kids.

There is an interesting observation I would like to share with you.

Young and neo adults who are lazy and lead an irresponsible life are the
first ones to blame everything on their parents or childhood. In a
functional family of, let's say, four siblings, if two are successful in their
lives or generally positive, I never hear from them that their parents
messed up their lives. The other two, who are struggling in careers or
relationships are quick to conclude that their parents let them down.

Many children brought up by single parents say their parents failed them
because they couldn't stay together. To those who are together, kids
complain that the parents argue and fight and it would be better if they
were separated. To the soft parents, they say that they are not firm or
strong enough to make important decisions. To the parents who are there
for their children, they tell me that their parents are forever watching
them. To the parents who gave freedom to their children, the kids say
that their parents just didn't watch out for them, they didn't protect them.
Every parent has been an unwilling player in the you-
can’t-win game. Require your daughter to take piano
lessons, and later she will complain that you wrecked her
love of the piano. Let your daughter give up lessons
because she didn’t want to practice, and later she will
complain that you should have forced her to keep going—
why, now she can’t play the piano at all. Require your son
to go to Hebrew school in the afternoon, and he will blame
you for having kept him from becoming another Hank
Greenberg. Allow your son to skip Hebrew school, and he
will later blame you for his not feeling more connected to
his heritage. Betsy Petersen produced a full-bodied whine
in her memoir Dancing With Daddy, blaming her parents
for only giving her swimming lessons, trampoline lessons,
horseback-riding lessons, and tennis lessons, but not ballet
lessons. 'The only thing I wanted, they would not give me,'
she wrote. Parent blaming is a popular and convenient
form of self-justification because it allows people to live
less uncomfortably with their regrets and imperfections.
(Carol Tavris & Elliot Aronson. Mistakes were Made (but
not by me).)

If you are a child and think your parents are liable for how you are
leading your life, you may want to reflect on the choices you made while
growing up, you may want to look back and mull over the type of
friends you hung out with. If you made a mistake, accept it gracefully
rather than making your parents accountable for everything you did or
couldn't do. Self acceptance will help you see past the scantiness of your
own life; you don't have to announce your deficiencies, you just have to
accept them so you may gain strength and move on.

If you are a parent and your kids say you are responsible for everything
that isn't going right in their lives, it doesn't mean you are a bad parent.
It means they are trying to fill a void not by understanding what they can
do to better their life but by shifting the responsibility of their own
choices and actions. It's about time you freed yourself from the
resentment, regret or the guilt. And, if you truly believe you made some
terrible mistakes (not because of what your children are saying but based
on what you know), well then, apologize and move on because we can't
undo the past. Even if you made a mistake, it doesn't mean everything
undesirable in their lives is the result of that.

Some guests arrived home for the dinner.  At the table, the mother
turned to her six-year-old and said, "Would you like to say grace?"
"But, I don't know what to say!"
"Just say whatever I say," the mother said.
"O God! Why on earth I invited these people to dinner!" Innocently
spoke the girl.

This is important: the only way to have your children live a certain way
is to live that way yourself with utmost sincerity. If they see you happy
following the things you do, they'll automatically be attracted to your
ways. They follow the actions you rejoice in doing. Sometimes, even
that doesn't work though, because all are original here. And that's just
fine.

There is no absolute good or bad way of bringing up children. Nature

allows for an allowance, an allowance of certain mistakes, some wrong
choices, a few bad decisions. It's human, it's natural. The beauty of our
life lives in the imperfections we carry, in the uniqueness we have, in the
mistakes we make, in the things we don't understand. If you did what
you thought was good at the time, and it didn't work out well, take it
easy, it was an honest mistake. Forgive yourself.

You can only guide your children, you can only provide for them,
ultimately, they have to labor, they have to walk the path themselves to
lead a wholesome life. If you loved them the best you could, if you
provided for them to your capacity, trust me, you did just fine.
(Image credit: Miki)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2014/01/three-most-important-questions.html
Saturday, 11 January 2014
Three Most Important Questions
fe is made up of a series of present moments. Movement in the moments
create Time, they create color in life.
Who is the most important person? What is the most important time?
What is the most important karma? Once upon a time, a king got up in
the morning with these three questions on his mind. In the royal court,
he asked his ministers and other courtiers. Some said the king was the
most important person, the time of one's death was the most important
time, and serving one's religion was the most worthwhile karma. Many
others had different answers like one's child or one's parent was the most
important person, the time of birth was the most important time and
charity was the most important karma. Some said God was the most
important person, many said it was the farmer, some replied it was the
soldier and so on and so forth.

The king wasn't satisfied with the responses. The three questions were
put to his subjects too but no one could provide a satisfactory answer.
Finally, his chief minister suggested that the king should visit a sage
who lived on the top of a certain mountain. Promptly, the arrangements
were made and the king was on his way with his entourage. It was a
steep climb and a few hours later he found himself outside the cave of
the yogi. As was the custom, he left his sword outside the door,
prostrated before the sage and posed his questions. In response, the sage
took him to the edge of a cliff, a nearby high point overlooking the entire
kingdom. The king was looking at his vast dominion and feeling good
about his life thus far when he was interrupted by a voice behind him.
"Turn around," it said.
The king turned back and saw the sage pointing the sword at king's
heart, just a few millimeters away.
"O King!" the sage continued, "do you know now, who's the most
important person, what's the most important time and what's the most
important karma?"
The king was startled. After his heart skipped a beat, a calm feeling
swept over his entire being and his eyes twinkled. He bowed as much in
reverence as affirmation. The sage handed back the sword. The king
expressed his gratitude and went back to his palace.
His courtiers asked him the next day if he got a satisfactory answer and
if so, they were quite eager to know as well, they said.
"Yes," said the king. "The sage answered all three questions in an
instant. Just when I was in awe looking at my colossal kingdom from the
edge, I realized the most worthwhile karma for me was to continue to
love my subjects, to care for them was the most important karma,
indeed. I was a king because of my subjects, I realized. And then the
sage appeared with my sword in his hand. I was a few moments away
from death. I realized the most important time was 'now'. At that
moment my past didn't matter and I had no future. Now was the only
moment I had. Now is the only time I have. Now will be the only time
I'll ever have."
The king went quiet in reflection. A minute ticked by.
"And, Your Majesty," the minister said, "who is the most important
person?"
"You."
"Me?"
"Yes, you. But not you."
"Your wisdom is beyond my grasp, Your Grace."
"The most important person is the person you are with," the king
clarified. "Therefore, you are the most important person right now."

When I first came across this story by Leo Tolstoy, I thought only if one
could remember these answers, major aspects of their life would
undergo an automatic transformation. The person you are with 'now' is
the most important person. When you give your sole attention to the
person you are dealing with, you boost their self-esteem, you make them
feel important, they feel cared, they feel respected. All the other positive
emotions sprout naturally. And undoubtedly, 'now' is the most important
time, the most important moment. This is the only moment we can act
in. In essence, this is the principle of mindfulness — to give your
attention to the present moment. To be able to love, to be able to care is
the most important karma, it's the most worthwhile thing you can do
with yourself, with others, with your time, with your life. When you are
with yourself, be with yourself, love yourself; when you are with
someone else, give them your undivided attention. You'll accomplish lot
more in lot less.

And, what is the most important feeling? Is it success? Is it feeling in

control? Being in love? To be loved? Is it to feel important? No, not in
my world. The most important feeling, in my view, is to feel contented.
Contentment is the most important feeling. When you are contented, you
feel strong, you feel peaceful, you overflow with love and compassion,
you sleep in peace, you wake up happy, all struggle disappears and
everything looks in place. To quote Shakespeare:

And this our life, exempt from public

haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the
running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in
everything.

When you are with yourself, you are the most important person; don't
devote your thoughts and energy to meaningless grudges of the past.
Negative thoughts have never propelled anyone into positivity. Go on
now! Be with the person you are with, doing the most important karma.
(Image credit: Cuded)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2014/01/life-is-struggle_356.html
Saturday, 4 January 2014
Life is a Struggle
Is life really a struggle or is it a matter of perspective? Read the
story.
I go through anywhere between two to three thousand emails every
month. Ninety percent of these emails are from people who are
struggling with one thing or the other. Some of them are tired of battling
and resisting, they are on the crossroads, they don't know what to do,
they say. In many cases, they write, Life's been too hard on them. Life is
a struggle and it's been like that for them ever since, they say.

Yes, life can be hard, life can be a struggle. But then again, is it really
any different for anybody else? Those who lack money think that people
with money have it easy. Those with wealth and stressful businesses
think others with simple nine-to-five jobs have it easier. The healthy
think the wealthy are better, the wealthy think happy people are better.
Yet, there are many who are healthy, wealthy and everything else you
can imagine and they are still depressed, they still struggle to go through
their life.

The truth is that's what life is about. For everyone. As long as we are
working towards accomplishing anything, there are going to be
obstacles. Some see these obstacles as challenges and others see it as
struggle. People may change, things may be different, situations may be
more favorable, circumstances more pleasant, but that doesn't mean
challenges will cease. There will always be hurdles and I've realized that
when people talk about struggle, they are mostly referring to challenges.
And, whether we see a problem as an opportunity or a barrier, it's a
matter of perspective, it's a question of mindset, it's a personal choice.
Here's an interesting story for you:

On a tree in his backyard, a man saw a cocoon of a butterfly. He

observed it everyday for the next few days. One day, he saw a tiny
opening in the cocoon with a bright caterpillar inside. It was at a larval
stage. He observed the grub for hours and saw its struggle to come out of
the swathe. Everyday, he witnessed it struggling, but with each passing
day it was out bit more, wings were forming on its body. The cocoon
was becoming more taut and cramped for the growing larva.

The man could clearly see its struggle and decided to help the butterfly.
He snipped off the cocoon and out came the butterfly effortlessly. It fell
straight to the ground. Its body was swollen and its wings shriveled. The
man sat there expectantly waiting to see the butterfly take off, but it
never did. It crawled around helplessly with its bulbous body. Its wing
never grew fully and it couldn't fly. Before long, it perished. What the
man saw as struggle was Nature's way of preparing the butterfly for
survival.

Our struggles shape us, they define us. I'm not saying all struggle is
good, but I'm asking if it's really struggle? How does a body builder
build his body? He has to undergo resistance training if he's serious
about growing and chiseling his muscles. He can look upon lifting
weights as a struggle or a rewarding task. His state of mind will depend
on his perspective. And, more importantly, the results, in turn, will
depend on his mindset.

Our Nature has evolved on challenges. It will continue to stretch you

based on your capabilities. You cannot reduce the magnitude of those
challenges. If you have something to offer, Nature will extract it from
you. We are not the center of the Universe but a tiny artifact in Nature's
grand scheme. But, yes, you can reduce the intensity, frequency and
number of those challenges. How? Simplify your life. Start by de-
cluttering. Once you start to simplify everything about you, never again
will you look upon an adversity as struggle. I'm not saying you'll
consider every challenge as an opportunity either. But, you'll not be
deterred by it.

Life may be a straight road, but it is rarely a smooth one. Certain

stretches, some aspects of it may be velvety, but overall it is topsy-turvy
to keep you alive, to keep you awake. Enjoy the ride. Imagine you are
standing on the roadside and moments of life are passing like the traffic
on a freeway. Life doesn't stop for anyone, it doesn't stop to listen to
complaints or compliments. Our earth or other planets don't stop rotating
or revolving, not even for a moment, lest it should lose its existence. The
intricate, interdependent and fascinating play of Nature never comes to a
halt. Life can't afford to stop. If you want to enjoy it, you'll have to learn
to negotiate with it.

This life is real and transient, like the bubbles in froth, love it, live it
before it pops.
(Image credit: Allison J. Bratt)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/12/you-are-not-weak.html
Saturday, 28 December 2013
You are Not Weak
Even the hard coconut can break in one blow. It doesn't mean it's weak.
 It's vulnerable.
Should you be strong all the time? Is it possible? Be Strong — it's an
expression we all have heard countless times. Since childhood. As a
child when you fall down and people don't want to see you cry, they tell
you to be strong. As an adult, anything untoward happens, they don't
want you to cry, they tell you to be strong. A caring person will
understand your plight and induce strength in you with their empathy. A
weak person will convince you that you are being a coward by not being
strong, a weak person cannot have empathy, the weak one wants you to
ignore your challenges, they want you to hide your fears and concerns.
Why? Because somewhere they are scared themselves, they are afraid
that seeing you like this may make them weaker, it may expose their
own emotional mess.

While I don't deny that a certain degree of strength is needed to survive

the blows life can deliver sometimes, at the same time I believe strength
does not come from hiding who we are and what we are feeling. That
will only be an illusion of strength. Real strength comes from being
honest to yourself, it comes from acceptance and understanding.

Let me share with you a real-life story out of Brené Brown's I Thought It
Was Just Me:

The author's mother's only sibling was killed in a violent shooting. Her
grandmother couldn't endure the death of her son. Quoting verbatim:
"Having been an alcoholic most of her life, my grandmother didn't have
the emotional resources she needed to survive a traumatic loss like this.
For weeks she roamed her neighborhood, randomly asking the same
people over and over if they had heard about his death.
One day, right after my uncle’s memorial service, my mom totally broke
down. I had seen her cry once or twice, but I certainly had never seen
her cry uncontrollably. My sisters and I were afraid and crying mostly
because we were so scared to see her like that. I finally told her that we
didn’t know what to do because we had never seen her 'so weak.' She
looked at us and said, in a loving yet forceful voice, 'I’m not weak. I’m
stronger than you can imagine. I’m just very vulnerable right now. If I
were weak, I’d be dead.'"

Next time anyone tells you to be strong or when they say you are weak
or if you feel within you are weak, recall the story above. If you are hurt,
when you're injured, there's going to be a wound. You have to take care
of the abrasion if you want it to heal quicker. When the wound is fresh,
it's susceptible to infection and deterioration. This is vulnerability. It is a
phase, a temporary state. When you experience trauma, you experience a
sort of helplessness, you are not your normal self, during this period you
are vulnerable. It does not mean you are a weak individual, it simply
means you are recovering, it means you are human, it means you are
normal.

Weakness is when you believe you are what others say about you, when
you go on a pity party, when you downgrade yourself, when you start to
believe you are unworthy because you are not fulfilling someone's
criteria. Just because there's a misfit, it doesn't mean you are unworthy.
Just because you want the other person and they don't want you as much,
it doesn't mean you have to change yourself so they may want you, it
doesn't mean you don't deserve them. It simply means the fit is not right
here. A shoe of size seven is not unworthy of a foot of size six, it's just
unfit. Unfit does not equal unworthiness just like vulnerable is not weak.
Never let anyone tag your worth.
I'm not saying we should not work on self-improvement, I'm not
recommending we should ignore our shortcomings and limitations, I'm
simply suggesting that you don't need weigh yourself on someone else's
rigged scale. If you believe you ought to work on an aspect of you, go
ahead, but only if you truly want it. Life is not a battle, you are not in a
boxing ring that you have to keep fighting and show your strength till
one of the opponent's knocked out or the time runs out. Sometimes, most
of the times in fact, it's perfectly fine to take a back step, to cry, to be
yourself, to express yourself. To show your emotions does not make you
weak; on the contrary it shows you are genuine. Just because a part of
your life is broken doesn't mean you are weak or unworthy, it doesn't
necessarily mean you are at fault. It could just be one of those times
when you went out without an umbrella on a clear day but it rained cats
and dogs.

If there's one gift you can give to yourself, if there's one resolution you
can make to transform yourself, it could be: never let anyone ever tell
you what your worth is, never let them dictate how you see yourself.
Next time someone neglects your feelings and tells you to be strong
instead, please know that he or she is not the right person to share your
feelings with. You'll be better off speaking to a mirror. Or maybe you'll
get more out if you just call the customer care at your telephone
company and insist they hear you out for the next few minutes. You've
been a loyal customer for years, and the least they can do is listen to
your grievance for five minutes. Alright, I'm only joking. Not a bad way
to end the year, I reckon.
(Image credit: Michael Naples)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/12/when-they-dont-love-you-back.html
Saturday, 21 December 2013
When They don't Love You Back
What can you do when an apple goes off? Matter of the heart is similar,
love is something like that.
I wasn't planning to write on this topic today, but numerous readers
emailed saying they were waiting for my next post on what to do when
your love is not reciprocated. So, here we go. At the outset, let me say
there's little you can do if you love someone but they don't love you
(back). The other person may change, they may even come around but
he or she will not love you the way you love them. I have met hundreds
of couples and have responded to thousands of emails (literally) and I'm
yet to see even one such case. Yes, it's possible that two people continue
to live together amicably out of commitment or care, in fact, it's the
common scenario, but, those warm feelings they once had for each other
rarely return. Why do people stop loving each other and what can you do
if you are not loved back? Read on.

There was a girl who was deeply in love with a guy. He was an angry
man but he assured her that he would change after their marriage. She
believed him because she loved him and because she wanted to believe
that he would change. So, they got married. The husband became
increasingly abusive soon after their marriage. For the first year, she was
still in a state of disbelief and shock for he was doing everything
opposite to what he'd promised. The second year, she thought the
situation would improve. The third year, she tried to change herself
thinking this might make them both happy and he might change too. In
the fourth year, she realized it wasn't happening and a year later, they
divorced.

Battered and hurt, she decided she would never marry again. But, a few
years later, she was married to another person. This time, the guy was
too sweet, unusually so. He was the other extreme compared to the first
one. Citing some obscure spiritual reasons, he avoided sleeping with her.
They were introduced by members of a religious organization, so she
believed him. Thinking at least he was providing for her and not
abusive, she accepted their marriage sans intimacy. Twenty years later,
out of the blue, one day he broke down and said, "I'm sorry, but soon
after I was betrothed to you, I'd got into an affair and it went on forever."
She was numb. Her whole world wiped out.
"How long did you see her?"
"17 years."
"Why are you telling me now?" she said.
"I couldn't keep it in me anymore."
"So, what do you want?"
"I don't want a divorce," he said.
"This is ridiculous! You cheated on me for 17 years," she said. "Why did
you leave her?"
"We broke up because she wanted me to leave you and I couldn't. So,
she married someone else."
"But we had nothing to share in the last 20 years."
"Yes, but I cared about you," he said.
"This is crazy. Is that why you never touched me because you loved her?
Tell me the truth."
He kept quiet.
"I wish you hadn't done that," she said. "You wrecked my life. All those
years, I thought I wasn't good enough for you. I didn't know you loved
someone else. I'll never forgive you for this."

They separated soon after and eventually divorced. This was a real-life
story I shared without distortion or exaggeration. An episode like this is
not common but I've cited it to tell you that when the other person is not
invested in you, there's practically nothing you can do to make them
love you. It doesn't mean harmony can't be revived in relationships, but,
when the damage is too great or if the other person is not willing to work
on it, there's little hope. What can you do if an apple goes off? You can't
really restore it.

When you've tried everything you can think of, and when you've given it
your best shot and you are still not loved back, at that time, you've three
choices:
a. Change yourself
If you have no choice, if must you stay with the person due to financial,
family or other reasons, and they don't love you back, well then, stop
expecting love so you may live in peace. If you can't move out, for your
own sanity, move on. Mentally. This is not necessarily the easiest but it's
the most practical and feasible choice.
b. Change the other person
In reality, this is not even a choice because you can't change the other
person unless they are willing to change. I've listed it here for a reason
though. Quoting Brené Brown, "You cannot shame or belittle people
into changing their behaviors." If you want any change in the other
person, you can't expect it by demeaning them. When they don't give
you what you expect from the relationship, you can't have it by
continuously whinging about it.
c. Change the person
Often, a lot of people go for this option only to enter into another
unfulfilling relationship. When you decide the current person is no good
and that you must have someone else, be very sure you've actually and
honestly done whatever you could to save the relationship. That said, if
you are in an abusive relationship, please don't blame yourself. There's
no justification for abuse in a relationship. In that case, protect yourself
and move out.

"I don't know the solution," a man said to his friend complaining about
his wife. "I don't know what to do with her."
"Why, what's wrong?"
"She has the worst memory in the world."
"So, she forgets everything?"
"I wish," the man sighed. "She remembers everything, man."

Sometimes, it's just about if you are willing to forget, if you are willing
to overlook, sometimes, this is all it takes. Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna
Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is
unhappy in its own way."

Life is mostly about relationships, professional, personal, interpersonal.

The first relationship you have is with yourself. Respect and value it.
Don't torture yourself. People with high self-esteem possess one
common trait: they value themselves, they value what they have to offer
and they consider themselves worthy of love. They believe it.
Compassion and care is part of their natural makeup. No doubt there are
others too who have no empathy or compassion, they too claim they are
worthy of love. The difference is they do it out of their ego and not self-
esteem.

Go on! do something worthwhile with your thoughts, with your time,

with your life. Peace of mind is not a blessing but a commitment, a
choice. Choose carefully. If you are committed to being happy, no one
can stop you.
(Image credit: Margaret Senior)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/12/what-is-love.html
Saturday, 14 December 2013
What is Love?
The puzzle of love is made up of four pieces. Which ones? Read
on.
Continuing from my last post, I share with you the four pillars, four
constituents of love. If you see what I mean, I promise, by the time you
finish reading this post, you'll have a new perspective on love. What is
love? Just having feelings for the other person, or wanting someone real
bad is not always love; it may be, but generally it isn't. Think of love as
an object for a moment, an entity that is made up of four elements. You
bring them together and love appears miraculously. In the absence of the
primary constituents, what you experience may be strong attraction, it
may be a crush, infatuation, something, anything but love. Let me start
with an anecdote:

A man comes home in the evening to see his children, still in school
uniform, playing barefoot in the street. He enters his home and finds that
their school bags, their socks and shoes are lying in the living room. A
further he goes and sees the dining table littered with open bottles of
peanut butter and jam, dirty plates, bread crumbs. On his right side is the
sink with a stack of dishes. The dinner's not ready, and the whole
kitchen is one big mess. Shocked and intrigued, he goes to his bedroom
and finds the bed undone, his wet towel from the morning still lying
there, and his wife, still in her night suit, reading a book.
"What happened?" he exclaimed, "the house looks as if a ghost did the
rounds today."
"Oh, that," she said casually. "You know how you always say what do I
do sitting at home all day? Well, whatever it is that I do, today, I didn't
do it."

In our sense of self-importance, it is easy to underestimate, even

overlook, the contribution of the other person. Your work may be
different, it may even be harder but it doesn't mean it's more important.
Love is about seeing the world through the eyes of the other person. This
leads me to spell out the four factors of love. As follows:

Respect
When two people are living together, there're going to be trying times,
difference of opinions, disagreements and all. But, at that time, if you
choose to be respectful to the other person and not be sarcastic or
contemptuous, your relationship will remain intact. Even if you don't
agree, still, be respectful. It's worth it. Each time you shoot words of
anger, every time you belittle the other person or their contribution, if
you mock them, a great blow is delivered on the delicate flower of love.
It's okay to disagree, it's even okay to have arguments sometimes, but it's
not okay to shout and it's not okay to talk down. For your own good,
respect each other. When someone's self-esteem is attacked, they'll
quickly, even if temporarily, forget what all good you've done for them.
Why? Because self-esteem, self-respect, or even ego, is linked to the
most innate, fundamental human aspect of self-preservation. Respect is
not limited to just respecting the other person but their values too. They
may have different beliefs than yours, a different way of thinking, of
operating. You don't necessarily have to agree, but if you wish to retain
love, you've to, at the least, respect.

Care
The second piece of the love-puzzle is care. It is love in action. You may
tell someone twice a day that you love them but the first moment they
need you and you are not there for them, what good is that love? If he or
she's sick and you don't even give them medication, if they are scared or
nervous and you make no attempt to soothe them, if you can't make
them feel good about themselves, if you can't comfort or brace the other
person, what good is that love? Care in words is important but care in
actions is far more important. It doesn't just stop at paying the bills, it's
about repaying the other person. Every word, every gesture of care
fosters love. What do you do with the things you love, be it cars, gadgets
or accessories? You take care, right? Therefore, what would you do if
you really loved someone? You do the math.

Compassion
I once read, "Nobody is perfect. And, I'm Nobody!" This is how many
people live. They know they are not perfect but they believe and behave
as if their word is the gospel. Compassion is about being kind towards
the other person and their mistakes and not holding them hostage to your
own self-perceived sense of superiority or perfection. Sometimes, when
you don't agree with them, or when you can't understand their
perspective, can you, at least, adopt a compassionate view and let it go?
Forever justifying our thoughts, acts, and emotions, we are often
compassionate towards our own mistakes. But, it is having compassion
for the other person that heals love. I'm hurt but I'll let it go says
forgiveness. I'm sorry you had to do this, says compassion. Forgiveness
sympathizes, compassion empathizes. And love? Love synthesizes the
two.

Appreciation
The fourth and the final ingredient of love is appreciation. From a five
year old to a ninety-five year old, appreciation makes the other person
feel valued, it makes them feel loved, important. No one wants to be
unhappy. Whenever you see good in the other person, express it,
appreciate it and they'll automatically want to do more good. You don't
have to do it artificially, you just have to look at their positive side.
Everyone could do with a bit of appreciation. In a relationship, two
people, day-in-day-out do numerous things that could be appreciated but
the lack of the first three elements make them oblivious to the good the
other person is doing.

After being married for fourteen years, a man applies for a divorce.
"On what grounds do you seek divorce?" the magistrate said.
"Your Honor, my wife has absolutely no table manners. She's a disgrace
at social dinners."
"You've been together for fourteen years, and now, suddenly her table
manners is an issue?"
"Yes, Your Honor, because only last month I read a book on manners
and etiquette. She has none of them, I observed after finishing the book."

As we grow and gain new perspectives, as our priorities change, often

we want the other person to change as well. The other person, however,
is going through his own set of lessons. Just because now you know
more or know different doesn't make the other person unworthy or unfit
for your love.
Mostly when people say do you love me, what they are really saying is:
"Do you want me? Like really want me, more than anything or anyone
else in the world." It is then followed by an assumption: "So, if you want
me, I'm sure you'll do everything possible to keep me happy, to take care
of me. Forever." Often, love is confused for an emotion, for madly
wanting someone or being wanted badly by the other person. It may be a
form of love but it's often not sustainable. The truth is, in real life, this
type of love only happens for a short time, and then people enter into a
relationship. Once living, loving and seeing each other becomes part of
the routine, they start to ignore one or all of the four elements above and
as that happens, love withers away before long.

Lasting love is always mutual. You can't love someone out of pity or
obligation, it won't last. At the initial stages, love is a strong feeling and
then a strong desire. Thereafter, it is an act, not the act of making love
but the act of loving, it requires some effort from both sides.

Next time you tell someone you love them, ask yourself if you respect
them, care about them, if you are compassionate and appreciative
towards them. Yes? Now ask yourself if your actions show it too. Yes?
It is love. And do you want them too? Yes? Big Bonus. Companionship,
joy, togetherness, a sense of peace and security automatically find place
in a loving environment. Love adds up.

And what if they don't love you back still? For another day.
(Image credit: Bella Puzzles)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/12/love-or-attachment.html
Saturday, 7 December 2013
Love or Attachment
On the tree of life are the cages of desires holding captive the birds of
attachments. Love roams freely.
"What is unconditional love?" someone asked me the other day. "How
do I love someone unconditionally?" In this post and the next, I'll write a
bit about love and how I see it. Although, in the past I've written on this
subject here, here and elsewhere, yet, allow me to further elucidate this
topic. "What does it even mean when we say I love you?" I asked a
group of people. "It means we have feelings for the other person," one
answered. But what does having feelings mean? Before I write about
unconditional love or even just love, it would help to distinguish
between love and attachment. Here's a little story for you:

A man, the quiet type, was sitting with his friends in a local inn. After he
had a couple of drinks, he opened up a bit and said to his friends, "Do
you love me?"
"Of course, we do," said his friends, "that's why we are here together."
"So, do you know what I need?"
No one answered.
"If you don't know what I need then how can you say you love me?"

This says it all. Love is about understanding what the other person needs
and not what you think they should need. This is the key difference
between love and attachment. The former is about finding yourself in the
happiness of the other person, whereas the latter is about feeling happy
to have the other person your way. We can't say we love someone unless
we find out what do they actually need and make an attempt to give
them that. Attachment is like buying a golden cage for the bird you love,
feeding it the finest food, it is wanting to keep that bird within your
sight, and love is opening the cage and setting it free. Granted, the
problem arises when the bird says I want to eat your food and I want to
rest in your cage but I want to fly free at my leisure and will. Well,
welcome to the world of relationships. Strange but real.

Attachment says you are mine and love says I am yours. Love is not
worried about exclusivity, it is about peace, it is about happiness
whereas attachment is just another term for possessiveness, and not just
possessiveness but exclusive possessiveness at that. Attachment says
what I have from you, no one else should have it. I'm not labeling it as
right or wrong, nor am I suggesting that a relationship, notably marriage,
cannot have a mutual framework, in fact, it must. I'm simply stating that
attachment is about instructions and rules whereas love is about
inspiration and care.

Of course, I've given you the ideal definition but this is not an ideal
world. So, in our world, love is generally no more than a claim and
mostly it has attachment, possessiveness and desire rolled into one. Love
says I don't want to hurt you, attachment says I don't want to lose you.
See the difference.

"I hate pasta. I don't want to see pasta ever again," a husband said to his
wife.
"How can I ever understand what you want?" screamed his missus. "On
Monday you liked pasta, on Tuesday you loved it, on Wednesday you
ate it, on Thursday you liked it, on Friday you had it and suddenly on
Saturday, you tell me you hate pasta. You're unbelievable."
If you want your love to bloom, keep the freshness alive. Freedom fuels
freshness. Love is about understanding, attachment is about enforcing.
One is about setting free and the other holding on. Falling in love may
be an instant act, but seeing it through is a slow, steady, careful and a
delicate process. Falling in love is the easy bit, wanting someone more
than anything else in the world is not something out of the ordinary
either. After all, you want them because "you" like them, and therefore,
you want to have them, so you try hard to make yourself wanted by the
other person. When that doesn't happen, you try to hold on to the other
person hoping one day they may start wanting you as intensely as you
desire them. This is attachment. Sad though it may sound, but if they
don't want you now, they won't want you later either.

You want to be loved by someone else because you haven't yet learned
to love yourself, you haven't yet ignited the fire in you, you have tried
offering yourself to many in the past but it hasn't worked. It hasn't
worked because you are not offering yourself to you, you are not living
your own life, you are not focusing on you, instead, you are living to be
a part of someone else's life, to be the focus of other person. You
deserve better.

Why is it so hard to love without attachment? Because you are trying to

look upon love as an independent emotion. The truth is, it is anything
but independent. In the next post, I'll write about the four pillars of love
and will also touch upon what to do when you love someone but they
don't love you back.
(Image credit: Chrissy Dwyer)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/11/dealing-with-stress.html
Saturday, 30 November 2013
Dealing with Stress
Stressful thoughts can be like the giant elephant in a tight space. Too big
to ignore. Tether them outside.
Our world can be an overwhelming place sometimes. We have made it a
little too complicated, a bit too fast. Everything needs to be done
yesterday. As if days, weeks and months were not enough, we started
measuring efficiency in hours, minutes and seconds. Why does it need to
be this way? It has added to our stress directly affecting our physical and
emotional well-being. There's no switch you can flick to suddenly
change the world. In fact, there's no button you can press to bring an
instant change in you either. But, you can reflect on your life, your
journey, your priorities and determine your own pace. Pace that you are
comfortable with, a pace that gives you breathing space. It is said that
once the chief engineer of Porsche Automobiles excitedly approached
Dr. Ferry Porsche, the CEO of the company, saying he had designed the
world's best car.
"How's that?" said Dr. Porsche.
"Because, it has the fastest acceleration ever known to the world."
"That doesn't make it the best car. Come back to me when your car can
stop as fast as it can accelerate. Going fast is good, stopping faster even
better."

It could easily be one's guiding principle: am I going at the right pace?

Can I stop when I need to? I can go faster but do I want to go faster? So
long as you are comfortable with your speed, the world can go at its own
pace. It's when we try to match our speed with others do we lose track of
our own. But wouldn't you be out of place if you didn't go along with the
world? Not quite, for, they are trying to match your pace. By slowing
down, I don't mean that you let go of the discipline or ambition, nor do I
mean that you take a break and go on a world tour (unless you want to).
No, putting your feet up is not slowing down either. Instead, being aware
of what you are pursuing and why it matters to you is mostly what's
required to make sound choices, that's slowing down, it's living in the
present — the antidote to stress.

When you live mindfully, you naturally start to live in the present
moment. And living in the present is the basis of inner peace. It truly is.
I am reminded of a story:

In a small village was a happy home. The man of the house wasn't a rich
merchant or a landlord but a simple iron smith who had the same
challenges as any other householder. What intrigued his neighbors the
most was never an argument was heard inside his home. He would come
home, pray to a tree outside his home by grabbing one of its branches,
and moments later the neighbors would hear him playing with his
children, they would hear them laugh. No matter how stressed he
looked, every time he touched the branch before entering his house, he
would light up as if he was a different man now. Many neighbors even
planted the same tree in their homes, imitated him but their
circumstances didn't change. One day, they could resist it no longer.
"How come you are always happy at home?" they said. "We never hear
you argue, you don't even make enough money. You become happy and
radiant when you touch that tree. Please tell us the secret of the tree."
He laughed huskily. "The tree has no secret," he said. "You see, before
entering my home, I grab one of the branches and hang a bag, an
imaginary bag of all my daily problems. I never forget that I was outside
the whole day so I could be happy inside my home. I make it a point to
not carry my external problems to my home. So, every evening, I just
hang the bag outside and I walk in light and happy. But, that's not all,
every morning I take the bag back to my shop."
"Why would you do that?"
"Well, I still have to deal with those issues. But what's interesting is I
always find my bag lighter in the morning. Most of the problems just
disappear in the dark of the night."

Why do you go outside and work? So you can have a comfortable, a

peaceful living at home, right? Granted that sometimes life can be
complicated at home too, but you can still leave outside problems
outside. This is living in the present. In most cases, aren't human desires
of gaining more, building more, having more are directly influenced by
what we observe outside? Further, those ambitions and desires prohibit
you to enjoy your meals, your time, with your loved ones. When you
want to spend quality time with your partner, you end up thinking about
work or what all you could or should have. And, at work, you want to
excel so you can be more for yourself and your family, but when the
time comes to be more with your family, thoughts of the work ruin those
beautiful moments.

Can you get away, though? Yes. Write down your priorities and review
them regularly. People will drain you out emotionally, stress at work
will remain high, you will continue to hear bad news on the TV, the
deterioration in the world will appear eternal, inflation will not come
down, but, in all this, if you want to be at peace, you will have to pay
attention to yourself and your thoughts. In your living space, in your life
space, in your mind, there should be a corner, a place where you are
strict about what and who gains entry. Insulate yourself. It's an art.
Stress is not an emotion but a response. It is what you've chosen to deal
with any issue.

Just because we have something doesn't mean we have to carry it

around. Learn to know when to park your baggage. Offload what grieves
you. We don't feel stress, we choose it.
(Image credit: LG Infinia)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/11/do-you-have-faith.html
Saturday, 23 November 2013
Do You have Faith?
What is faith? How does a rose bloom? Read the
story.
Does faith have any scientific, or even reasonable basis? And if you
truly have faith then how come worries of the future still grip you?
Personally, I believe, if you want your faith to be firm then put aside any
logic. And if you want your rational mind to be firm then put aside faith.
When we try to induce reasoning in faith, we end up polluting them
both. Faith just is, God just is, Nature just is, belief just is. "Why" yields
no answer when it comes to faith. Surely, we can fit explanations and
theories but they don't solve any purpose beyond a temporary stimulus.
Are the stories in the Torah, Quran, Bible or Bhagavatam true? The
question is does it matter to you? Faith is mostly based on what we have
already taken to be true, and rarely on the actual truth itself.

When faith runs deep in your being, surrender to the Divine comes
automatically. Inner peace is a natural by-product of surrender. A child
feels secure in his mother's arms because he knows that she'll protect
him. It's not an intellectual idea but an ingrained belief the child has.
And, it is this subtle differentiation between believing you've faith and
actually having it that makes all the difference to your inner peace.

I'm paraphrasing a beautiful story for you. I tried hard but couldn't locate
the source of the poem cited verbatim in this anecdote.

A man, worried and paranoid, asked his enlightened master if everything

would be alright in the future. "I know I should have faith but I can't get
around to let go. I'm still worried. What if things don't go the way they
should? Negative thoughts render me unable to enjoy my life. What if
God doesn't take care of me?" he said to his master.
The master took a rosebud, gave it to the disciple, and said, "Your task is
to unfold the bud keeping all the petals intact."
The disciple carefully began unlayering the rosebud. Soon, however, he
realized it was not possible to unfold it without damaging the petals. "It's
not as simple as it looked. I'm sorry but at least some petals will be
damaged," he said to his master.
In reply, the master took the rosebud from him and said:

It is only a tiny rosebud,

A flower of God’s design;
But I cannot unfold the petals
With these clumsy hands of mine.

The secret of unfolding flowers

Is not known to such as I.
God opens this flower so sweetly,
Then in my hands they die.
If I cannot unfold a rosebud,
This flower of God’s design,
Then how can I have the wisdom
To unfold this life of mine?

So I’ll trust in God for leading

each moment of my day.
I will look to God for His guidance
each step of the way.

The pathway that lies before me,

Only God knows.
I’ll trust Him to unfold the moments,
Just as He unfolds the rose.

"How much can you plan, after all? And how much do you want to
plan?" the master continued. "Why do you want to keep everything in
your hands? It's tiring. Learn to let go. Who took care of you when you
were in the womb? Who fed you when you didn't even know how to
speak? Who provided for you when you were too young to earn your
own living? If you examine, you'll find there was always someone there,
a medium Nature had already chosen for you. Sometimes letting go is
simply reminding yourself that I've done whatever I could and now I
must free myself from the outcome or the worry."

Faith is designed to give you the confidence, the courage to lead your
life with grace and conviction. It doesn't mean we can just confess and
be done with our bad karma, rather, we should have the strength to do
the right karma at the first place. I don't think God will manifest to pay
off your mortgage, your loans — karmic or financial, or to help you shed
or gain weight. We must take responsibility of our own lives. We are the
result of our desires, choices and pursuits. Allow me to deviate from
conventional wisdom by saying that faith, with all its paraphernalia and
practices, is for inner strength and not to please an external God. I don't
want to please a heavenly being and beg for favors in this life or
hereafter, instead, I would give this life my best shot and let Nature take
its own course. After all, if I truly have faith, shouldn't I know that God
or Nature's way is impartial?

Napoleon once said, "When you fight, fight as if everything depends on

you. And when you pray, pray as if everything depends on God." This is
faith in a nutshell.

Faith is supposed to complement, and not replace, our actions.

Ultimately, we are responsible for the choices we make. Wake up with
faith in yourself and go to sleep with faith in God.
(Image credit: Irina Sztukowski)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/11/the-voice-of-intuition.html
Saturday, 16 November 2013
The Voice of Intuition
When something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Read the
story.
Be it regarding your own endeavors, plans or ideas, there is something
inexplicable about the first impression — it is often the voice of our
intuition, our latent intelligence. I am not referring to forming first
impressions about the people you meet. Such impressions are mostly
stereotypes and often they are not even correct. It is mostly in our hands
to bring the best or the worst out of the other person. Yes, there are
numerous examples to the contrary too. My focus today is on the
importance of first impressions on everything but people. Let me begin
with a little story:

On the outskirts of a village, next to the woods, close to a well of clean

water, was a tree laden with shining, inviting and luscious red berries.
The berries were poisonous and dopey though and anyone who
consumed them would go unconscious for hours. From a close proximity
to the majestic tree, a notorious group of bandits kept a constant watch
for the unsuspecting travelers. Most tourists would stop by, eat the
berries and lose consciousness giving the plunderers the perfect
opportunity.

One day, a group of young merchants headed by an old and wise leader
had to pass through the village for the first time. They were returning
home after a successful business trip across the seas. They were
traveling in two groups, one following the other by a lag of a few
hundred meters. Presently, the first group came close to the tree and at a
distance they heard children playing. The group suggested to take a
break and rest for a while. They were only too eager to pluck the berries
and enjoy them. Their old chief, however, forbade them. He advised the
place was not safe to rest either. He asked a young merchant to wait for
the second group to convey the same. He insisted it was best to keep
moving.

The second group came to the tree and their first reaction at seeing the
berries was just as human. The appointed merchant, already waiting for
them, passed on the message from the old man. The group deliberated
and concluded the chief was being paranoid. They made a stop, eased
themselves and rested there. Ignoring his advice, they vigorously shook
the tree and a number of berries fell down. They began devouring them
and before they knew, they were lying there unconscious. Meanwhile,
the first group had found a place in the village and made a pit stop. The
old leader was now worried for the second group had still not caught up
with them. Fearing the worst, they quickly went back to the tree to see
their fellow merchants stripped off their possessions. Their gold chains,
rings, their money pouches, their horses, even their turbans and coats,
everything was gone.
A physician was fetched from the village to revive them.
"How did you know," a young merchant said to the chief, "that this was
an unsafe spot?"
"There's a well of fresh water. The children could be heard playing from
here. A populous village is close by. It's impossible for a tree to remain
fruit-laden in a public place as this. These signs made it abundantly clear
that the berries were not fit for consumption," he said. "You see, when
something seems too good to be true, it generally is. This is what life has
taught me."

Instinct has a short and soft voice. When you hear of a deal, proposal,
idea, organization, offering that sounds too good to be true, learn to
follow your instinct at that time. This is the inner voice. This is intuition.
If you follow the trail it leaves behind, you are far more likely to come
to an original conclusion. I'm not suggesting you become an eternal
skeptic, but at the same time you must learn to trust your inner voice.

While you cogitate, others will tell you how you are being boring,
pedantic, paranoid, overly cautious, closed and all that. It's human nature
that they want you to buy into the same idea they believe to be true, but
that doesn't mean they are right or even well-informed. When something
sounds unreal, it may well be not only unreal but unrealistic too. Any
path worth treading generally doesn't have the luxury of shortcuts. Just
like you learn any language or any new skill, you can learn to listen to
your intuition as well. It only speaks once, does so softly and is
spontaneous.

Learn to trust yourself. In fact, you are just about the only one you can
trust. You are your greatest well-wisher, you never have a hidden agenda
when you are dealing with yourself. You may as well capitalize on these
traits and unlock yourself. Your intuition is your higher source within
you.
(Image credit: Louise Mead)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/11/how-to-make-someone-happy.html
Saturday, 9 November 2013
How to Make Someone Happy
Making someone happy is like lighting a candle. You don't lose a thing
and the light increases.
When we make someone happy, the same part in our brain is activated
as it does when we do something for our own happiness. This is not
philosophy but neuroscience. I'm not surprised though; the joy of giving
far exceeds any other I've ever known. Charity begins at home, they say.
A happy environment at home is comparable to heaven on earth. In my
occupation, I get to meet many people from all walks of life. Often
though I have observed a rather strange behavior among many couples.
They rejoice in the company of people outside the four walls but are
irritated with the ones at home. I have seen a tenuous frown appear even
at the mention of their partner. They tell me they are tired of trying to
please the other person and that they couldn't be bothered anymore. This
feeling — I couldn't be bothered — is a definitive sign of downfall in
most relationships. Earlier, if they made any attempt in bringing joy to
the other person, now, they have thrown the baby out with the bathwater
(after drinking most of it).

I admit it can be quite difficult to make certain people happy. There too,
I have an observation: when you just can't make the other person happy
no matter what you do or how hard you try, chances are you are no
longer on their play-field. Mentally, they may have given you the red
card. They have decided not to source their happiness from you. If you
speak to them asking what do they really expect from you and they are
not being reasonable, you will never be able to make them happy, not for
long anyway. In that case, if you have a choice, move on. And if you
don't have a choice — seek a peaceful refuge within.

A man got married to the woman of his dreams. He was head over heels
for her and couldn't believe his luck when she agreed to marry him.
After their engagement and before the actual wedding, every night he
thought about her. He had no doubts that theirs was going to be the most
loving, functional and finest married life ever known to the mankind.
His fiancée had a high opinion of herself. (When you believe you are
better or superior than your partner — you can forget about happy
marriage.) They got married with great fanfare. His wife loved eggs for
breakfast. So, when they were away on their honeymoon, the husband
made poached eggs for her in the morning.
"These aren't done right," she said scornfully.
The man felt bad that he couldn't please his wife and made even greater
effort the following morning.
"Oh, I can't eat poached eggs everyday, y'know." She refused to eat them
today.
He made scrambled eggs the next morning.
"It's okay but too fatty. Just boiled eggs with salt and pepper would have
been better."
The next morning, to give her a choice, he brought out two dishes: a
plate of scrambled eggs and two boiled eggs. He was certain that today
she would be happy.
"What's this? You boiled the wrong egg," she screamed.

You know where this marriage is headed. Should I tell you the easiest
way to make the other person happy? No, it's not flowers, things, gifts;
they play a part but there is something even more important. The easiest
way to make someone happy is to appreciate them. When you make the
other person feel that you understand they are trying, that, you
appreciate what they are doing for you and for the relationship, this right
away boosts their self-esteem and morale. When you make an effort to
appreciate, you directly gain from it as well. How? You actually start to
see their efforts. Let's face it, it is not an easy world out there. When you
say, thank you for everything you are doing, or, you've cooked a tasty
meal, or, I know you are working very hard, or, I can imagine how you
must get so tired by the end of the day, and so on, each such utterance
brings you closer, it strengthens the relationship, it fosters love and
understanding.

Once, a woman, a master cook, was asked that her husband must love
her food and what did he usually say when he savored the delicacies she
cooked on a daily basis?
"He only speaks about food when something's amiss or if he doesn't like
it," she said. "So, when he's quiet, I know he's enjoying it."
"Initially, I would ask him if he liked my cooking but it irked him so I
stopped asking," she added.

Sadly, this is not a joke. I've quoted a real incident. To the waiter we
don't know, we say smilingly how delicious the food is, we tip, we
appreciate, but to the one who's closer to you, every courtesy is
withdrawn. See the disparity?

When you make it a point to appreciate, the newness never fades away.
And when something remains new, you never get bored of it. And when
you don't get bored, you never take it for granted. And when you don't
take the other person for granted, your relationship can never wither
away. Yes, never. It'll continue to blossom and spread fragrance.
Appreciation is gratitude in action.
(Image credit: Alexandoria)
Be grateful.

Note: I'm pleased to announce that after contemplating on it for two

years, I've decided to complete the temple project at the ashram. I
welcome you to be a part of this divine initiative. You can read more
about it here.

Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/11/a-random-act-of-kindness.html
Saturday, 2 November 2013
A Random Act of Kindness
The question of my bread is a material question, my neighbor's bread is
a spiritual question. ~Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Berdyaev was a Russian thinker and existentialist. He once said,
"The question of my bread is a material question but the question of my
neighbor's bread is a spiritual question." This is kindness in a nutshell.
Compassion may just be limited to a feeling, it is a form of empathy, a
sort of acceptance but kindness is compassion accompanied with a
gesture of giving.

An unexpected gift at an unexpected time given to an unexpected (or

even unsuspecting) person with no expectations in return is a random act
of kindness, a kind gesture for someone who is not expecting it from
you. You do it because your heart is open. Our heart has a peculiar
property: it can operate in both states — open and closed. Open heart is
naturally kind, compassionate and joyous. Closed heart blocks all
positive emotions. It does not mean the person is certain to be negative
or unsuccessful. On the contrary, a person with a closed heart can be
quite headstrong, they may be successful in their careers and positive
about their material endeavors. But, their heart remains closed towards
understanding, appreciating and expressing love and pain (of others).

Until you can understand the pain of the other person, your heart
remains closed for any kindness, it remains blindly focused on your own
agenda. The saddest part of a closed heart is that you only realize it was
closed when it opens. Those with closed heart, unable to perform
random or planned acts of kindness, don't even know their heart is
closed like the frog in the well that doesn't know a sea exists outside. It
is when the door of your heart opens a bit, even a little bit, you
experience a whole new world of peace and bliss. I once read
somewhere, "On the gateway of my heart I wrote, 'No thoroughfare.'
Love came in passing by and said, 'I enter everywhere.'" And when love
comes, it never comes alone — it brings a ton of virtues in tow. It is
impossible to be kind without being loving; you be one and you become
the other automatically.

There was a rich man once who mocked and scoffed the beggars.
Anytime any beggar approached him for alms, he would chastise and
cuss them saying that they had fit bodies, they were well-built, they were
young and that they ought to work and not beg. This went on for a while
until one day when God appeared and said, "Listen up, you. If you don't
have the heart to give, that's fine but at least don't condemn what I gave
them."

This is another way of being kind, it's not the best, but it's second best,
that is, don't be unkind. If you can't or don't want to give for any reason
whatsoever, that may just be fine but at least don't stop others or pollute
your own mind and speech by being negative about it. A random act of
kindness needn't always be a material offering. Even a word of
encouragement, a compliment, a helping-hand could be equally, if not
more, profound.

When you regularly do random acts of kindness, one day, something

amazing happens — Nature chooses you as the subject for its random
act of kindness. Such kind acts are always happening in the Universe, at
every moment, to millions out there. Even rains, breeze, snowfall,
sunshine, flora and fauna, origination, sustenance — these are Cosmic
acts of kindness.
A man used to give a beggar twenty dollars every month. He had been
doing it for years. Once he did not pay the beggar and told him that he
was sorry because he had to use the money to buy a bouquet for his
wife.
"What?" the beggar said, "you spent my money on her?"

Just because we have something doesn't mean it's ours. No one is an

owner in our universe, everyone is a medium, a custodian at the most.
Whatever you share, it grows — this is the fundamental law of the
universe. You share rage, anger grows in you. You share love, love
grows in you. You share contempt, hatred grows in you. You share
knowledge, wisdom grows in you. You share your time, peace grows in
you. You share what you have, and you grow as a person.

Make random acts a regular affair and Nature will reciprocate in kind.
(Image credit: Wetcanvas)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/10/listening-to-nature.html
Saturday, 19 October 2013
Listening to Nature
On your path, Nature always gives you cues. It pays to pay attention to
them. How? Read the story.
Everyone is born with some talent. It generally happens to be in the field
one is passionate about. For most though, unfortunately, their talents
remain hidden, unused.  If you absolutely love to do something, you
automatically excel in it. As you succeed, your motivation to do more
and to do better builds on its own. Whatever effort you put in anything,
never goes waste. Skills in one area can offer you benefit in another,
however unrelated those two fields may be.

When you are clear about what you really want from your life and
commit to a discipline of conduct and action towards it, the Providence
arranges for "coincidences", it puts you in the right place at the right
time. I am reminded of a little story:

Once upon a time, a traveler got lost in a vast desert. In anticipation of

what might happen if he never found his way, he panicked and
frantically tried to find a way out, to reach any township. A whole day
passed, he ran out of provisions. Evening set in and he slept on the sand,
under the open sky. The next morning he resumed his journey with no
water or food. As he ranged the desert with no end in sight, he became
increasingly nervous. All sorts of thoughts began buzzing in his head.

Soon the sun was shining high and bright. His pace slowed down
significantly in that extreme heat and fatigue. He was thirsty, he was
hungry, his lips were dry, his mouth parched, and his body tired.
Another day passed. Nearly. He was losing hope, strength and time. Just
then, at a distance, he saw what he thought was a camp. He experienced
a surge of energy. His eyes lit up, though he remained nervous. And a
camp indeed it was. A temporary shop. His joy knew no bounds even
though his body was giving up. He asked the owner if he could get
water. The man said he had no water but he was selling kufiya, an
Arabian headdress, a sort of cap. He tried to sell a headdress and even
offered a discount. "You'll need it," he said. Our traveler got furious and
yelled at his insolent and insensitive behavior that rather than offering
water to the one who was dying from hunger and thirst, he was forcing
him to buy some hat instead.

The seller pointed north and said, "Five miles from here there's a serai."
and went about his business. Somehow, with great difficulty, he
managed to walk five miles and exactly as the man had indicated, there
was a lodge. "Do you serve food as well here?" he asked the man
guarding the door.
"Yes."
"Praise the Lord!" the traveler could not contain his joy, "it's not my
time to die yet."
But when he tried to enter, he was stopped by the guard.
"What's the matter? I have money!"
"I'm sorry but I can't let you enter without a headdress! Five miles from
here there's a seller. You can buy one from there and come back."

You know where I am going with this? Often on our path, Nature gives
us clues, it arranges things for us but one is often blind-sided by one's
own expectations, misconceptions and misplaced emotions. You know
the goal, you may know the path, you may even be aware of the
milestones. This is not the complete picture still. You are going to meet
other people on your way, however unusual your track may be. You may
look upon them as your opponents or allies. They may be selling what
you don't want, they may be giving what you don't like, the truth is they
are there for a reason, Nature has placed them strategically.

Nature teaches quietly. It does not speak the same language as us. If you
pay attention, the cues start to make sense. When you are quieter inside,
you hear it better. It will amaze you with the knowledge and insight it
has for you. Only if you choose to pause and listen. Listening to nature
starts by listening to yourself. There is a lot of noise inside. If you stop,
if you contemplate, the internal noise starts to filter out, the winds of
negativity and pessimism die down. Your true nature shines in its full
glory, you gain insight, inner strength and clarity. You begin to
understand Nature.

Listen to yourself. Be free, be fearless.

(Image credit: Ric Nagualero)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/10/do-dreams-mean-anything.html
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Do Dreams Mean Anything?
Am I the butterfly dreaming I'm Chuang Tzu or the other way around?
Read the story.
Do dreams mean anything? We are a bi-mundial species — we live in
two worlds, a real world and an imaginary world. It may seem that we
spend all our time in the real world but this feeling is an illusion in itself.
The time we spend in our thoughts of the past or the future is the time
we spend in the imaginary world. How come? Because there is no direct
handle on the reality of such thoughts; past is dead and future, mostly
unknown. Vedic texts divide states of consciousness into three
categories, namely, jagrata, wakeful, svapna, dreaming, and sushupta,
sleeping. There are two more states, turiya and turiyatita, for
transcendental and beyond, but they are outside the scope of this post.

On the surface, the distinction seems clear that you are awake when in
the wakeful state, while sleeping you are in the sleeping state and other
times in your sleep you may be dreaming. Upon closer examination
though a deeper truth is revealed — these states, at times, are
interchangeable and simultaneous. You could be in the sleeping state
even when wide awake. Most people are in fact living their lives like
clockwork, they are sleeping. Thoughts and actions in the dreaming state
can easily trigger physical response in the real world. People can get
wet, sweaty and scared in their dreams, for example.

Allow me to quote Chuang Tzu from a text also called Chuang Tzu, a
classical Taoist treatise. He was a phenomenal Chinese thinker who
graced our planet in the fourth century B.C.E.. Quoting him verbatim
from a translated text:

"Those who dream of the banquet may weep the next morning, and
those who dream of weeping may go out to hunt after dawn. When we
dream we do not know that we are dreaming. In our dreams we may
even interpret our dreams. Only after we are awake do we know that we
have dreamed. But there comes a great awakening, and then we know
that life is a great dream. But the stupid think they are awake all the time
and believe they know it distinctly.

"Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamed I was a butterfly and was happy as a

butterfly. I was conscious that I was quite pleased with myself, but I did
not know that I was Tzu. Suddenly I awoke, and there was I, visibly
Tzu. I do not know whether it was Tzu dreaming that he was a butterfly
or the butterfly dreaming that he was Tzu. Between Tzu and the butterfly
there must be some distinction. This is called the transformation of
things."

So, what are dreams? Dreams represent a world no less real than our
physical world, a world that is free of the calculations and interpretations
of the conscious mind. It is a world of the subconscious and the
unconscious. The primary difference between our real world and the
dream world is consciousness; the real world is made up of collective
consciousness whereas the dream world is solely created by individual
consciousness. In the real world, someone else's actions, words can
bring changes in our world, for example, a terrorist attack, a war,
domestic violence etc., this is what I mean by collective consciousness
in the current context, but your dream world is entirely your own. It is
never without you, you can never have a dream with you not in it. You
experience and witness it in absolute terms. Just like our real world is an
amalgamation of our thoughts, emotions, actions, surroundings and so
forth, our dream world has all these elements too. There is a degree of
interchangeability in the real and dreaming world. Sometimes what you
dream comes true and other times what you see in the real world is
played back to you in your dreams. In dreams, your ego is lying low, the
conscious mind is not calculating, as a result, you live an un-lived life,
you experience a free world, you transcend taboos, you are not afraid to
be yourself. Dreams can heal you. They can also signify something very
important. Read on.

When you get a similar type of dream repeatedly, it often means you are
repressing something in real life. All feelings and emotions must either
be channelized or expressed. Whatever you repress will bottle-up in you.
The more restless you are, the more disturbing the dreams. The greater
the repression, lesser the quality of your sleep. You repeatedly dream of
what you deny. Let this sink in: you repeatedly dream of what you deny.
If you have paranoia in the real life and you are not working towards
your own fulfillment, freedom and fearlessness, you will have more
nightmares than pleasant dreams. Whatever you strongly desire or fear
but are unable to express, acquire or experience in the real life ultimately
manifests in the dream.

Just like you can create objects in the real world, you can create your
dreams too. You can use that method to heal yourself and to do much
more. It's on my mind to write on lucid dreaming both from a
contemporary and yogic perspective. Cognizant dreaming can be
healing, empowering and liberating. Even more powerful than self-
hypnotism, it's a phenomenal way of training and experiencing the
subconscious mind. It's not a promise, but hopefully I shall find the time
to write on it in the foreseeable future.

Do not suppress yourself. Express. Experience. Rather than dreaming

about your life, go claim your life of dreams. Live it. Sleeping is good
but living is better.
(Image credit: Shasta Eone)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/10/a-life-of-lies.html
Saturday, 5 October 2013
A Life of Lies
This world is a stampede. If you don't fit in, you are either pushed or
crushed. Realization is stepping aside. Mentally.
Once upon a time there was a king. Full of vanity and pride, he had an
obsession for fine clothes and ornaments. He once announced a reward
of one million gold coins to the one who could give him the most
extraordinary piece of clothing. Many weavers, tailors and stylists
approached him and showed all sorts of apparels — some were studded
with precious gems and stones, many had threads of gold, some had
extraordinary design but the king was unimpressed. Two swindlers,
presenting themselves as weavers from a distant kingdom, bragged
about their unearthly sartorial talent.
"We can stitch for you the most remarkable and unimaginable suit that
no one else in the world has ever had," they said.
This got king's attention. "What's so special about this suit?"
"Your Majesty, only those who are truthful in their lives and faithful to
you will see this dress. Anyone who is dumb or unfit for their position
will not see it."
"Wow! Is that really possible?"
"Yes, Your Excellency, but we have two conditions," they said, "first,
we alone will dress you in private and secondly, we want two million
gold coins in return because it's only once in our lifetime that we can
make an outfit like this."
"Granted!" the king said excitedly.
"We'll require three weeks to make it." And they took king's leave.
"Organize a royal parade in three weeks from now," he ordered his
courtiers, "I want my subjects to see the most expensive and
extraordinary dress in the world. Announce it in the state so everyone
can be there to see it."

Exact three weeks later, they came back for an audience with the king.
They were holding a bag made from the finest silk. The king took them
to his private chamber. He took his clothes off to wear the new outfit.
The two charlatans pretended to take out an invisible cloak from their
bag and portrayed as if they were clothing the king. Half an hour later,
they told him they were done. The king took them back to the royal
court where they announced features of the dress and asked loudly if all
could see it. The courtiers sang glories of the king and the wonderful suit
he was wearing. No one wanted to look stupid, unfaithful or unfit, so
they agreed with the fake weavers that the suit indeed was the most
impressive they had ever seen.

The king bade the swindlers good-bye with a cartload of gold coins and
proceeded with the royal parade. The subjects, like the courtiers, were
aghast to see the king stark naked but they dared not utter a word. There
was a young child in the crowd though, too young to be diplomatic; he
shouted, "Where's the suit? The emperor is naked. He's not wearing
anything!"

Others also gained some confidence and started muttering. Before long,
everyone was saying out loud. The king realized the truth but continued
with the royal procession for he didn't want to look foolish by admitting
his mistake.

This story by Hans Christian Andersen so beautifully highlights the

greatest truth of our world, that is, the society expects you to lie if you
are to fit in. In the name of conforming to norms, you are expected to be
diplomatic. Being diplomatic is not just about being tactful, instead,
most of the time, it is about tactfully, tastefully, coating the truth with
the flavor the listener desires. If a personal acquaintance calls you saying
he wants to meet you but you don't feel like, you are expected to make
up some excuse. You are not allowed to say, "I don't want to see you." It
is somewhat obligatory to lie in the name of being polite. You are more
likely to say something like, "Oh, I would love to but I've a commitment
elsewhere." and so forth. The funny thing is the other person knows you
are not stating the truth but this is what they are happy to hear as
opposed to the real truth.
Aba rahīma muśkila paṛī, gāṛhē dō'ū kāma,
Sān̄cē sē tō jaga nahīṁ jhūṭhē milē nā rāma.
Oh what a dilemma, says the Sufi saint Raheem, with truth I lose the
world and by lying I lose God!

Most people are not living a life but a lie, a blatant lie. While it may not
be possible to be brutally truthful at all times, it is feasible to lead a
truthful life. Overall. If you pay attention, you will find that half the lies
are not needed. Each time you lie, you place upon yourself a subtle
burden. I have made it a point in my life to not lie. This has cost me dear
as my truths frequently put off many people but I still believe that a life
tweaked by truth is better than the one enlivened by lies. It's a price I am
willing to pay. Does it even matter if thousands, hundreds or none know
me or like or dislike me. No, it doesn't. My life isn't affected by how
others perceive me, neither is yours if you see what I mean. This world
is like a stampede. People are going crazy. When you don't step out, you
are either pushed if you accept or crushed if you resist. Quietude is
stepping out of such crowd, it is stepping aside. This is self-realization.
It is mostly in pointless conversations, useless gossips, that people lie
automatically. Some people speak lies, many live lies, some even
believe in their own lies; these folks may be materially rich, socially
wanted, intellectually evolved, but they mostly remain insecure and
restless. By the way, I hope you are not confusing truth for morality.
Truth is neither moral nor immoral. Truth just is. Morality or immorality
is your interpretation of the truth. Living the truth is simply accepting
your actions and intentions and speaking the truth is stating the way you
understand them. If there's no contradiction in your actions and your
statements, you are practicing the truth. And, if your thoughts, actions
and words are in harmony, you are living the truth.
Truth, next to only compassion and love, is the only thing I know that
unfailingly gives its adopter strength and peace.
(Image credit: Tom Lea)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/09/the-most-fundamental-human-
desire.html
Saturday, 28 September 2013
The Most Fundamental Human Desire
Feeling loved is like sitting next to a calm ocean. It's inexplicable. You
become an ocean yourself. You feel complete.
What is the most basic human desire, the one that sits at the core of
humanism and humanity, the most fundamental human need, the one
that can make or break your world, the one emotion that makes all the
difference between feeling priceless and worthless?

Based on my own observation and interactions with a large number of

people over the years, I have come to understand that underneath all
reactions and above all emotions, lies a potent desire, it's elementary, it's
causal, it's atomic, you can't break it down any further — it's the desire
to feel loved. The desire to be loved back, to be adored, appreciated, to
be recognized, to be accepted by someone, the desire to just belong
somewhere, to someone is one of the strongest. People fall out, they
grow out, they may even loathe the very people they had once loved, it
happens especially when they don't feel wanted the same way they did at
the beginning. Nothing hurts more than neglect. Neglecting doesn't only
mean someone ignores you, this is only one form of neglect. When you
are not accepted for who you are, when you are not appreciated for your
efforts, when you are not loved for what you are, that is neglect too. And
that hurts. Let me share with you a real-life story my lawyer told me
thirteen years ago.

It happened in 1985. A seventy year old man from Serbia migrated to

Australia. Let's call him Pavle. His three sons were already living there,
they had been there for more than a couple of decades. They sponsored
their father under the family visa category. Pavle was a widower. Things
were not glorious for him in Serbia. He'd lived a hard life, felt lonely and
longed to be with his sons. It was a close-knit family and he had waited
over six years to get his permanent residency.

Upon his arrival in Australia, his three sons received him at the airport.
Things were well in the beginning but soon his sons felt they couldn't be
bothered feeding their father or offering him shelter. He only needed a
place in a home, in his sons' hearts, and a square meal, but his sons now
saw him as a burden. They started neglecting him. Over the next two
years, he felt more and more unwanted, rejected, unloved, even hated by
his sons. He didn't speak English, so there was nobody on the streets or
in the park he could converse with.

Pavle adopted a rather peculiar behavior; he would stand next to a

pedestrian crossing, wait for the traffic to approach and as soon as the
cars came nearer, he would start crossing the road halting the traffic.
Ordinarily, any car would have no issues in stopping because it was a
pedestrian crossing after all. In this case, however, Pavle was doing it
every day, all day. He would get to the other side of the road and then
wait for more cars to cross the road again. It caused great inconvenience.
Eventually, the cops issued him a ticket for misconduct and obstruction
of traffic. He simply ignored the ticket. Multiple tickets later, he had to
appear in the court and face the charges.

"It's an unusual case," the judge said. "Your medical history shows
nothing is wrong with you yet you repeatedly exhibited mindless and
dangerous behavior on the road. You are pleading guilty too. I am at my
wit's end. What do you've in defence?"
"Human," Pavle responded, "I felt human."
"Human? The court has no time for riddles. Be clear."
With the help of his son who acted as an interpreter Pavle continued:
"Your Honour, I felt loved. It felt great to see that someone finally saw
me as a human being. I felt a strange joy to see someone stop for me. I
felt I was not just an obnoxious weed waiting to be pulled out but that I
was part of the crop a farmer couldn't wait to harvest. The dignity and
respect I felt when cars stopped for me made up for all the loss of
respect I experienced my whole life. I felt valued. It was worthwhile. I
recognize that I caused much trouble and I regret it. I promise I won't
repeat it."
The judge spoke warmly yet firmly, "Australia is a free nation with
utmost respect for every individual on this young soil. You're asked to
be mindful of your future actions so others may enjoy the same
privilege. My court grants you pardon. The case is dismissed."

Pavle's son broke down in the court after hearing his father. They both
hugged each other in the corridor just outside and cried to their heart's
content. Pavle began receiving old age pension soon after he got his
Australian citizenship and he remained there till his last breath. Happy
ending.

Not all sons realize though and some do it a little too late, not all Pavles
are redeemed, not all endings are happy. Plus, how does it matter
anyway what the ending is like? Who cares whether one is buried or
cremated, whether the world remembers or forgets you after you are
gone? It's the journey that's important. For, it's the nature and quality of
your journey that has a direct impact on you and those around you. This
post is not about sons and fathers, it's just about being human.

To feel loved is not a privilege but a basic human necessity. It is

rudimentary. Unfortunately, in our world today, most are deprived of
love. It's often a futile exercise to keep searching for love or to keep
wanting it from someone else. Therefore, if you are not being loved by
someone else, learn to love yourself. It takes a while to get to that state
— to be in love with yourself, selflessly. Until then, give your love to
others, to those who want it. And then one day you will find yourself
gazing deep into the soothing light of transformation, you will discover
yourself in a deep ocean of bliss as your heart will overflow with
warmth and love washing away all the pain and hurt life put you
through. When you adopt compassion and serve His creation, the
providence arranges for exactly what is lacking in your life. Lacking —
not as you may define it but as in what you may need.

Go on! Express your love. Make someone feel special. For, you won't
understand what's feeling loved like unless you make someone feel
loved.
(Image credit: Anna Foley)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/09/independence.html
Saturday, 21 September 2013
Independence
The sky remains independent of the colors and clouds in it. It returns to
its natural state — blue. So can you.
Where do you go when you want answers? Answers to such questions as
what is right or wrong, how am I looking, how am I performing, what is
good or bad, even what is moral versus immoral, am I on the right track,
will God hate me if I do this or that? What if you could source answers
from within? Must someone else validate our opinions? It is normal to
feel comforted with external affirmations. We feel reassured when
others confirm our own beliefs. But it need not be this way. If you want
and if you are willing to work towards it, you can transcend others'
opinions and affirmations. And what does working towards it entail, you
may ask? There are two things that will lead you to that exalted state,
first, self-contemplation, and two, inner strength.

Self-Contemplation
Self-contemplation is the art of understanding yourself better, it is
knowing why and how you do whatever you do. We all have
motivations behind our actions, most of the time that motivation lives in
the subconscious. Self-contemplation helps you bring it to the forefront.
In the words of Ralph Ellison:
All my life I had been looking for something, and
everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I
accepted their answers too, though they were often in
contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I
was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself
questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a
long time and much painful boomeranging of my
 expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears
to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.

Who can know you better than you? You alone know your innermost
thoughts, your actions, your intentions. The more you understand
yourself, the closer you get to your primordial source of strength and
divinity. No doubt it requires a certain degree of inner strength and that
leads to the second attribute. Read on.

Inner Strength
The sole purpose of my writings is to help you better understand
yourself, transform yourself, be yourself. It is all about you that I am
concerned with. What do you need to do in order to build that
impeccable and undying inner strength? There are pages and pages of
my own words I could write on it, hundreds of verses I could quote from
various religious texts, instead, I am choosing to share with you a poem
by the famous British writer and poet, Rudyard Kipling. The poem is
aptly titled If.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt
you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too
wise;
If you can dream — and not make dreams
your master;
If you can think — and not make thoughts
your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've
spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to,
broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out
tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and
sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold
on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your

virtue,
Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common
touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
 If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And — which is more — you'll be a Man, my
son!

Living a mindful life, whenever you are gripped by anger, paranoia,

insecurity, at that moment, if you can remind yourself of the promises
you made to yourself, if you can focus on the code of conduct you have
set for yourself, you are well on your way to be a superman (or
superwoman) of your inner world. Without having to do hours and hours
of meditation, without the support of some grand theory, without
subjugation to any religious authority, you would gain exceptional
freedom of thought. You will become independent. Independent of their
opinions, affirmations, treatment, conduct.

Independent, it means you are only Dependent on what is In you.

(Image credit: Wallpapers)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/09/how-to-forget-someone.html
Saturday, 14 September 2013
How To Forget Someone
If you don't know how to handle them, memories can be like black
holes: deep, mysterious and gravitational.  No way out.
People go through ups and downs all the time. On the journey of life, we
meet a mix of travelers. It is unlikely that we will only meet a certain
type, or only those we like or dislike. After all, it is not a one-way road.
At any time, the traffic flows both in and against our direction.
Sometimes some people or events can hurt you so bad that you just want
to erase them from your memory. You have even forgiven them, you
want to move on but you find yourself unable to do so. Take it easy. It's
only human.

There are generally two possibilities that make you remember anyone:
either you love that person or you hate that person. And there are only
three reasons that make you want to forget somebody. One, their thought
wells up negative emotions in you and throws you off-balance. Two, you
still love them deeply but they have moved on. Three, despite your love,
they don't love you back. In any case, it hurts. If their memory doesn't
trigger any positive or negative emotion in you, there would be no need
to forget that person. In fact, if you neither love nor hate the person you
are trying to forget, you will forget them automatically. When their
memory sparks neither good nor bad in you, it means you have moved
on. But what to do when you do want to forget them? Read on.

If you find yourself thinking about that person, hold a mini self-dialog as
the first step. Accept that you are missing them and that you are hurt.
Talk to yourself. Repeat it a few times and watch your mind releasing
the thought of that person. Releasing their memory is crucial if you want
to forget them. A while back, I wrote an article on how to take your
mind off unwanted thoughts during your meditation. You can read it
here. Apply the same principle. Give yourself time and each time their
thought arises, simply and gently focus your mind elsewhere. Promise
yourself that anytime you are reminded of them, you will not let that
ruin your peace. And the way to protect your peace is to shift your focus.
This is the most powerful method I know of. When the one you love
leaves you, it creates a void in your life, a hole in your heart. You keep
falling in that pit. You need to fill that gaping hole somehow. It is not
easy but it can be done. When their memories come knocking on the
doors of your heart, shift your attention. If you can divert your thoughts
at that time, gradually the imprints will become lighter, the intensity of
their memories will start to diminish.

Once two kids found a pouch containing fifteen silver coins. One had
spotted it and the other had picked it up. Each claimed ownership of the
find. This led to an argument and ultimately they approached the wise
Mulla Nasruddin with their quandary.
"Hmmm...so you want me to resolve the matter?"
"Yes, please," both said in unison.
"Alright, I'll divide the coins between you two. But tell me, do you want
me to do justice like a human or God?"
"Please do as God would."
He counted the coins and gave twelve to one and three to the other.
While they both stood there bewildered, said Mulla plainly, "That's how
He operates."

Life can be unfair. When trying to forget someone, avoid any intellectual
analysis like why it happened to you or how could they do this to you
etc.. If you start to dissect, you will only sink in deeper.  Any cogitation
will only depress you more, it will drag you back to the field of
memories — and that's exactly what we want to avoid here. Trust me on
this one. Simply take your mind off.

Both love and hate fetter you. You cannot forget anyone by continuing
to love or hate them. If you want to forget them, you must become
indifferent towards them. You become indifferent when you rise above
the duality of love and hatred. Both love and hate touch our heart,
whatever touches our heart leaves an imprint on our mind. It is those
imprints that make up our memory store. It is for this reason that Vedic
and other spiritual texts preach one to remain even. Being even is a step
higher than being indifferent. Because being even is being indifferent
with compassion, with empathy.

The greater the number of memories you have with someone, the harder
it is to move on. Because memories indicate a commitment of time. The
number of memories is directly proportional to the amount of time you
invested with the person. How big or how easily an investment can one
write off varies from one person to another. You cannot erase a person
from your mind by trying to not think about them.

A good question would be: do you need to forget in order to forgive or

must you forgive first so you may forget? Well, when you have negative
feelings towards someone: you need to forgive so you may forget.
Unless you forgive them, you cannot be even, until you are even, you
can't be indifferent, and forgetting is not possible without indifference.
Only what is forgivable is forgettable. Mind you, forgiveness and
reconciliation are not synonyms; something for another time.

Love yourself. Value yourself. Consequently, you will not miss those
who do not love or value you. 
(Image credit: Robert Nicholls)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/09/the-fear-of-death.html
Saturday, 7 September 2013
The Fear of Death
Water evaporates and it rains back, Nature's play continues. Everything
in nature is eternal. It only gets transformed.
All sane people have it — the fear of death. Let me segregate it into two
parts: fear from an immediate threat and the fear of losing life in the
distant future. At the bottom of the second type is not just the fear of
ever-inevitable death but what if life does not end your preferred way.
The real fear is of losing all you earned throughout your life, your
relationships, your wealth, and above all, you. Often the greatest
attachment one has is to oneself and death is about separation. Hence the
fear of death is one of the greatest, it separates the real you from all that
you thought you were.

Death asked Life, "We are simply the flip side of each other, yet why do
people love you and hate me?"
"Because," said Life, "I'm a beautiful lie and you're the painful truth."

Last year, a young man, single and adventurous, let's call him Krish,
visited me in the ashram. Once, he told me, during one of his treks in the
Himalayas, he managed to reach the furthest accessible point, just a few
kilometers away from the Indo-China border. Everything was snow
white. His guide led him to the cave of a hermit. They sat in the cave
and the sage offered them to stay overnight. It was a clear sky.
Irresistible. You have to spend a night in the Himalayas to know what I
mean. Krish decided to camp outside for the night. The hermit warned
him of the danger of wild animals around, a concern he immediately
whiffed off as ludicrous. The spirit of adventure can easily subdue sense.
"Yeah right! Wild animals in this snowy region? Even vegetation can't
hold out here, let alone the animals," Krish thought. The guide chose to
stay inside the cave though. He had a family to feed. His responsibilities
required him to operate within the periphery of reason and sanity.

It was a magnificent night indeed and around midnight Krish pulled

down the zipper of his tent to take a peek at the Himalayan sky. He had
to blink a few times, however, and pinch himself to validate what met
his sight. There it was, majestic as it looked, only a few feet away, a
snow leopard glimmering under the soft moonlight. With his heart in his
mouth, Krish pulled the zipper back up in the most silent manner.
Suddenly, he became aware of all the elements his life rested on. He
could hear his own breath, his heartbeat, his pulse, he felt saliva drying
up in his mouth, not only could he feel but hear every passing moment.
The wild cat, lithe and light, faint and fierce, approached the tent and
began circling around, as if circumambulating its prey in some sacred
tribal ritual before sacrificing it.

"Those thirty minutes, Swami," Krish said to me, "were like a lifetime. I
could feel sweat in that icy cold night. I could understand how good
meditation brings crystal awareness of absolutely everything around
you. Admittedly, this understanding came after the leopard was gone.
Never earlier in my life had I realized the real duration of thirty
minutes."

You know what else gives you that experience of razor sharp awareness?
Solitude. Minus the fear, of course. The feline animal went for a
different meal leaving Krish behind while he meditated on that leopard
for the rest of the night. There was no effort in that meditation. Krish sat
there still. He felt no pains, no aches. Fear had conquered them all. He
wanted to sleep, he wanted to think of different things but the fear
reigned supreme, he could only think about the object of his fear.
Human nature. Fear is our oldest acquaintance; it is easily recognized.
Like with their possessions, humans have attachment to their fears too.
To be fair, probably anyone in his situation would have spent the
remaining night in much the same manner as him. His pants remained
dry, that was brave enough I thought. By the way, Krish is very dear to
me and I find him an amazing individual.

Fear of anything is greatly dependent on our outlook towards it. If we

change our perspective, the nature of the fear changes too. If you start to
look upon death as a mere pause and not an abrupt end, you may even
begin to like it, much less loath it. Think about this: once you cross the
chasm of death, you will get another chance at life, another childhood,
another youth, one more chance at living, at loving, at being.

Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft

brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head,
and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-
morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You
can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's
house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger
than death is.
(Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost)

How absurd it is to be afraid of the final destination of life. If we are

scared of the destination, how can we possibly enjoy the journey? No
matter what your belief, irrespective of whether or not you believe in
afterlife, rebirth or reincarnation, the real you remains the immutable
soul. When you are sleeping and you are not aware of yourself, it is.
When you are unconscious for any reason and have no knowledge of
yourself, it does. Why you connect with some people just upon hearing
their name even though you may have never met with them, because of
it. It is the linchpin of all life, the string in the pearl-necklace, the
fragrance of rose, the heat in fire, the cold in ice, the essence of all
phenomena, the warmth in the heart, the emotion in your tears, 'it' is
your atman, the soul. Indestructible. Indivisible. Complete.
Unfathomable. Unknowable.

Nothing is dying or taking rebirth. Don't let the illusion fool you. Simply
the matter is transforming. Water evaporates and it rains back.
Everything in the play of nature remains part of the game. Eternally.
There are no exceptions nor exclusions. Only the roles change, only the
shapes vary. The sum total remains the same. You are an eternal being,
an ocean of bliss. Oceans don't dry up. Drop your fears, live every
moment. Rejoice. What are you clinging to? Non-attachment leads to
no-fear.

Rethink about your life. Rewrite your rules. About time.

(Image credit: Leonid Afremov)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/08/why-do-people-get-bored.html
Saturday, 31 August 2013
Why do People Get Bored?
Boredom becomes peace when you are contented and unaffected by
 non-action.
Readers of all ages write to me regarding boredom. Some are bored from
their routines, others from their partners and many are bored from their
lives altogether. Notably, parents ask me what to tell their children when
they don't want to study citing the reason they are bored. I classify
boredom into two categories: lazy boredom and active boredom. In
either case, your mind wants you to move away from the object of
boredom. You lose sharpness of the mind when you experience
boredom, it makes you either restless or lazy. I have seen hundreds who
start fidgeting with things and many start wobbling their legs when they
are bored. The boredom is subtle but significant in this case. You don't
shake your legs when watching a thriller or reading a good book, for
example.

Often, when boredom is due to lack of interest, it makes one sleepy, the
mind starts to slow down as if preparing itself for sleep. This is lazy
boredom. This is what happens, before you go to sleep, your mind
begins to slow down, a mind racing with thoughts, the one swelled up
with emotions, needs to calm down. However, when you feel bored
because your environment fails to stimulate you, you become fidgety. It
makes you restless. This is active boredom. It means your mind is active
and wants to be engaged elsewhere, where there is something new for it,
some other stimulation of a different type.

Personally, I believe there is nothing wrong in feeling bored. If boredom

was such a bane, we would still be in the stone age. Somewhere in our
evolution and growth, boredom played a significant role. Some of the
greatest inventions did not just take place out of necessity but because
someone was bored, they wanted something new. If necessity is the
mother of invention, boredom may well be the father. Because boredom
triggers the need for innovation. If you feel sleepy when you are bored,
it means you need to stimulate your mind and find something that may
interest you. However, if what you are doing is important and you
cannot afford to get bored, take it easy. Revisit your subject after
refreshing your mind. Just like in meditation, everyone has a limit. Some
start to feel bored within the first ten minutes, many can go on for thirty
minutes and so forth. With conscious effort you can raise your limit of
boredom!

Boredom means you are not just an animal without intellect, it means
you have been blessed with intelligence and thinking power. It
particularly holds true for those who feel restless when bored. They are
intertwined: restlessness feeds boredom and boredom fuels restlessness.
There are two interesting things you should know about boredom. Let
me elaborate with an anecdote.

Committed to the practice of meditation but not getting anywhere, a

disciple approached his master and said,"I'm feeling really bored and
restless. I'm unable to meditate."
"Don't worry, don't react. It'll pass. Don't lose your resolve. Stay course,"
the guru said.
Another few weeks later he sounded really excited and said, "Oh, I'm
having the greatest time of my life. Meditation has never been so good."
"Don't get high, don't react. It'll pass too. Don't lose sight of your path.
Stay course," replied the guru.

Clearly, this is true not just for meditation but many other aspects too.
People get bored in relationships, in jobs, in their lives and so on.  The
first thing you need to know about boredom is that it is cyclical and it is
temporary. When you get bored of something you cannot escape,
practice acceptance and alertness with resolve and you will get over the
boredom in no time. There is little or no boredom where there is
attachment and devotion. A mother rarely gets bored of her child but the
restless child can get bored of his mother quickly. Eventually, it boils
down to your priorities.

The second thing you should know about boredom: you choose to be
bored. Yes, this is true. When you let your restless mind take you over,
you feel fidgety and bored. And when your lazy mind overpowers you,
you feel sleepy and bored. It's as simple as that. If you start regarding
boredom as a good thing, your mind will stop retaliating. It requires
awareness, that you become aware that you are getting bored, you
become your own witness. Acceptance and alertness when bored helps
you to overcome lazy boredom. Awareness and relaxation helps you
overcome restless boredom.

It is okay to be bored sometimes. Accept it. Be at ease with it. If you

want to overcome it, do so with awareness. In my months of solitude in
the Himalayas, when there was no electricity, no one else to talk to, no
piles of books, no music, not even birds, only snow and white snow
around, I did not allow myself to get bored. I simply meditated. When
tired of meditation, I practiced contemplation and when tired of
contemplation, I did meditation. If you are committed to discipline,
boredom can't touch you because boredom is mostly an excuse and
rarely the reason. A bored mind is a devil's workshop. In the words of
the phenomenal British thinker, Bertrand Russell: Boredom is a vital
problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by
the fear of it.
Once you get past the wave of boredom, you will find yourself in an
ocean of bliss. Your intellect becomes razor sharp and rising to the
surface of your very being, it grants you insight.
(Image credit: nicepicture)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/08/believers-non-believers-and-
disbelievers.html
Saturday, 24 August 2013
Believers, Non-believers and Disbelievers
He rounds up his sheep before dark. Or does he? Depends on the
strength of your faith.
There are many who believe in God just as there are those who don't.
Some believe because they have not done any thinking, many others,
because, they have done too much thinking. The same goes for non-
believers too. Purely from the perspective of believing, of those who
believe in God, the focus of my present subject matter, they are mainly
of three types, as follows:

The Hopper
The hopper is the restless type. He believes if his current belief system
has no answers for his questions, perhaps another one would. He is in
search of a panacea, some solution that will give him peace. The trouble,
however, is that the hopper is merely jumping from one belief system to
another. He has not sat down to either identify the problem or ask the
right questions. He's like a window shopper. He is hopping because he is
restless. All his attempts to turn inward or practice devotion prove futile
because he lacks the resolve and often morality too. The hopper wants
an easy fix for some deep rooted problems. Upon his adoption of any
new system, he feels good, relieved and consoled. This is the
"beliefmoon period". It fades away quickly before he finds himself in the
same old boat, almost as if reality woke him up abruptly after a short
dream. His restive tendencies and desires overpower him and out he
goes again in search of another solution. The hopper has little chance of
experiencing bliss, realization being out of question altogether, until he
makes some amendments in his living, life, thinking, conduct and belief.
Dry speech, tall ego, unbound anger and a lustful mind are the signs of a
hopper. He wants to change without letting go.

The Prisoner
A believer of a different type, the prisoner is more stable than the
hopper. His stability varies based on his internal state and external
circumstances. Such stability is not necessarily because the prisoner is a
better believer but because he couldn't be bothered with any cognitive
pursuits, intellectual quests or spiritual conquests. The prisoner is so
called because he is a captive of someone else's belief system. A jail in
the form of a religion, a cult, a sect and so forth has been built for a
believer of this type.  He feels life is a sentence he must serve. He has a
chance to live outside the jail but he does not revolt nor appeal. He
accepts the ways of the prison. A lot of people are simply prisoners of
their respective belief systems. They dare not venture outside. Unlike the
prisoners of the real world, these ones are behind the illusory bars.  If
you have simply accepted a certain philosophy or religion because that's
what was offered to you, chances are, you are serving a sentence. You
are living by the rules passed onto you. If must you stay in the prison,
for reasons known to you only, at least play the jailer. It is a much better
job, a better role. In the prison, one may paint prettier than Picasso or
sound smarter than Shakespeare, one remains a captive still. The "belief-
prison" is a product of the conditioned mind, and, can be knocked down
only if you are willing to put in the effort.

The Pet
Unlike the hopper, the pet stays at one place. And unlike the prisoner, he
gets love from his master as well from other residents of the house. He
lives in harmony. A pet is the one, who after finding his answers, settles
on a certain belief system with love, compassion and conviction. He gets
past the hollow arguments and dry polemics. Belief is a product of
intellect. As long as one says, "I believe", it means they have
not discovered their own truth yet. The freedom of a pet is restricted to
the whim of the owner. The expression upon realization automatically
changes from "I believe" to "I know".

Anything second hand cannot be knowledge; it is merely information.

When we use that information and arrive at a conclusion based on our
own experience, that is knowledge. The primary difference between the
prisoner and the pet is the degree of surrender. Being a pet of your own
home (intellectual discovery) is far better than being a captive of
someone else's belief system. The pet naturally finds joy on sighting his
master. In the system of bhakti, devotional service, a pet is the greatest
you can be. However, I reiterate, my present focus is wholly from the
perspective of believing. The prisoner may be as established in his belief
system as the pet but the former finds no fulfillment; he cannot play
around like the latter, let alone have the "master" clean up after him.

True realization consumes all beliefs that tie you down and condition
your world. Your experience becomes your guiding force and your
unconditioned self, your guiding light. You no longer have to either
believe or disbelieve; you get the third choice — create your own belief
system. You no longer move between the various sets of dogmas. Faith
is a higher form of belief. Faith, when held onto with cent percent
conviction, can do miracles. When you instill morality, purity, surrender
and conviction in your belief, it starts to change from a dry intellectual
doctrine to a soulful entity of faith. Besides, when you experience your
own truth, all definitions become immaterial.

Go on! Be a pet of your lord or the lord of your own world. Don't settle
for anything less.
(Image credit: Richard Ansdell)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/08/what-provokes-you.html
Saturday, 17 August 2013
What Provokes You?
Provocation is like teasing a snake. By the time you realize it, it has
already stuck. Mostly.
I am often asked if it's possible to remain even under all circumstances
and if so, what is the path? Many have tried meditation, yoga, therapies,
counselling and everything else under the sun without great results
though. Why? Allow me to get you to the root of this issue.

Our emotions and responses have a sense of spontaneity to them. You

may plan an artificial reaction to something you are already aware of,
something that has no uncertainty, but each emerging moment holds in
itself a surprise, a miracle. Emotions and feelings are our response to
that surprise. You cannot plan your emotions, you cannot tell yourself to
feel a certain way when you come across a good or a bad news. Where
do those spontaneous feelings and emotions stem from, what causes
reaction?

Our feelings and emotions, particularly negative ones, stem from

provocation. The trigger of provocation may be external or internal, but
ultimately, if nothing or no one can provoke you, you will never find
yourself saying or doing the undesirable. Someone's statement, their
actions, or simply a thought in your own mind can be the provoking
agent.

In a monastery was a master fond of a certain sweetened herbal drink. It

was a concoction of many herbs, mixed with honey. It took him hours to
prepare the concentrate. He was protective about it and would keep it in
his room, under his watch. One day the master had to go for a sermon in
the nearby village. He would be gone the whole day and he well knew
that his younger disciples might give in to the temptation.
"This is a bottle of deadly poison," he said to the young disciple in
charge of cleaning his room. "Don't touch it and don't let anybody else in
my room."
The young monk knew better. He resisted the whole day but in the end
the temptation won. With the intention of simply tasting a drop, he
opened the bottle. A wild and exotic aroma roused his olfactory senses.
Before he knew, he had already finished half the bottle. Greatly worried,
he needed a way out of the situation. He drank some more, splattered
some on his robe, spilled a few drops on the floor and shattered the
bottle on the ground. Presently, he just sat there waiting for his master to
arrive. Many long moments of worry and anxiety passed.
"What happened?" the master said as soon as he came back and saw the
disciple.
"I'm your culprit, Master," he replied. "I was cleaning your room and
this bottle of deadly poison slipped from my hand. Before I could do
anything, it broke. I was devastated that I goofed up. Thinking I
deserved to die, I drank whatever I could. I even sprinkled it on me
hoping the wild smell may kill me. Many hours have passed but I'm still
not dead."

At the bottom of provocation sits temptation. It's like the urge to itch, it
can be irresistible. And what is temptation?  It's a thought that has got us
by surprise. Subsequent thoughts, contemplation and actions are only the
post-effects, the aftermath.

It is important to know that you have practically no control over your

feelings, you cannot choose to feel good or bad. You can, however, train
yourself to not let a bad feeling stay beyond a few moments. You can get
to the root of those feelings — your mind —  and divert them
completely. Whenever you feel your emotions, your habits taking over
you, ask yourself: Am I being provoked? And then answer yourself: I
am aware that I'm being provoked. This leads to self-dialog. It raises
your level of consciousness.

Provocation is like using a short stick to tease a venomous snake. By the

time you realize, the snake with sharper reflexes has already struck. You
are mindful, careful, but sometimes you are caught off-guard and before
you know it, the spontaneity has done the damage, you are stirred and
you find yourself trounced by the negative emotion.

You are provoked when you cannot stand the other person. You may be
equally incited when you cannot stand yourself either. It is not always
under the burden of being negative or bad, sometimes, you may be
trying to be too good, too sweet, too accommodating. When you
completely ignore your own needs, you feel down, you feel provoked in
the most subtle manner. Such provocation can prompt you to act out of
the same frustration as in anger.

Know yourself so you may free yourself. It takes a lot to be provoked if

you are comfortable with yourself.
(Image credit: Patricia Roshaven)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/08/are-you-afraid-of-dark.html
Saturday, 10 August 2013
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
If you believe in inspiring and positive mythical entities, you'll naturally
feel there exist ghosts and demons too.
Everyone has fear, only the degree varies. It is innate, it forms part of
our survival mechanism for it triggers the fight-or-flight response. Allow
me to begin with a question I was asked the other day. A wonderful
lady, mother of two young ones, said, "My son is afraid of the dark.
What should I do?"
"Who isn't?" I said. "Let him be. Has he ever been so scared that he wet
his pants?"
"No. He's never done that."
"So, what's the problem? Were you not scared of the dark when you
were a child? Won't you be afraid if you have to explore an unknown
terrain at night? Familiarity eases fear. Your son gets scared because he's
still exploring the world. He has imagination well alive in his world. If
he believes in Santa Claus, he may as well believe in ghosts too. When
you read those fascinating fairy tales and religious stories of celestial
beings to him, you create an imprint of myth in his mind. It's only
natural then that he expects ghosts and demons in the dark. But I'm not
saying stop reading out those stories to him. Just accept fear as a natural
emotion in your child. Over time, Nature will teach him. Don't tell him
not to be afraid of the dark because there are only two words he'll
remember from your instruction — afraid and dark. Consequently, when
in the dark, he'll automatically think fear. Instead, tell him to turn on the
light."

Fear is not just a feeling but an emotion. It is tightly linked to our

evolution. A sperm joins an egg in the dark. A fetus spends nine months
in the dark. It has no control over its own life. It is helpless, almost
immobile. It is fed whatever the mother intakes. It cannot accept or
reject anything. There is no freedom, it's tied to the umbilical cord. That
phantom feeling still exists even when one is well out in this world.
Even practically, dark means you can no longer see. What you cannot
see becomes unknown. Your mind triggers a fear-signal because it
cannot plan tackling the unknown. You can only defend against what
you can comprehend. So, in the dark, a feeling of helplessness gains
prominence because we don't know what we may be up against.

Imagine coming back to your home well into the night. You approach
the main door to unlock only to find out someone broke in while you
were away. You feel scared naturally. What if the person is still inside?
What if he is armed? What if they are a group and so forth. These
questions and many more race through the head. Even after you have
turned on the lights and ensured all is well, a creepy feeling lives on for
months that someone has been through your home in your absence,
without your permission, without your knowledge. You feel your
defense has been breached. They know you but you don't know them.
Fear. Natural.

If you are going to bring up your children talking about nymphs, fairies,
spirits, ghosts, demons, angels and the rest, you are invariably telling
them there are beings they cannot see. And when they actually can't see
in the dark, scary images automatically crop up in their mind. They
know angels are not going to appear in the dark because children's books
often show plenty of light around angels, whereas evil beings are shown
in the dark. This is conditioning. This blemishes their pure minds with
nonexistent artifacts. But Life teaches them and over time they learn
how this world is full of fiction. This empirical wisdom and learning
helps them to overcome the fear of dark.

"Johnny, can you quickly get me the broom from the garden?" said the
mother at night.
"But, I'm scared of the dark, mommy," said Johnny. "There are ghosts
outside."
"Have faith in God, Johnny. God is everywhere and he's stronger than
ghosts."
"Are you sure God's in the garden as well?"
"Positive. And he's watching out for you. Now, go get me the sweeper."
The little Johnny opened the door slightly, stretched out his arm and
said, "Please pass me the broom, God. Mommy says you are in the
garden."

Grown ups can give themselves false affirmations, they can be clever to
deny ghosts but accept God. You have already learned to bend the truth
as per your own convenience. A child has absolute imagination though.
As they get more conditioned, they will learn the tricks too. Sad.
When reality outgrows imagination, fear disappears, for fear is always
anticipatory. Yes, always. The present moment has no fear, it's when
you start to think what may happen in the next moment can you have
any fear at all. I was hoping to cover the types of fear in this post.
Something for another day.

Be here now. Be free, be fearless.

(Image credit: Thomas Nast)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/08/dealing-with-loss-of-loved-one.html
Saturday, 3 August 2013
Dealing with the Loss of a Loved One
Over time, ponds may dry up, but they don't disappear. Healing takes
time. 
Sometimes people share with me heartbreaking incidents of how they
lost their loved one. There are those who lost their son or daughter, a
sibling or a parent untimely or unexpectedly. Many a time, it is so gut-
wrenching that even as an objective listener my eyes well up. The shock,
the trauma, the pain is unbearable for them, almost like it would never
heal. They ask me what can they do to get over the pain. Let me share
with you how I see it.

Death is inevitable. Everyone we know will die one day. All of us are on
a train and each one of us must get off eventually. Some disembark
sooner and others later than us. We know it is only a matter of time yet it
can catch one off-guard, like someone emerging in front of you out of
nowhere. When one is mentally prepared, when one sits in expectation,
in anticipation, it becomes relatively easy to prepare for even one's own
death. This is rarely possible though. We may get the time to prepare
ourselves if the loved one is terminally ill but it still doesn't mean we
have come to terms with it. The one who is gone is gone, the ones left
behind face the greatest challenge, greater than the death itself.

Various religions offer different perspectives. Some promise rebirth,

others, heaven, some salvation and so on. All those are theories, their
rewards of promises may inspire an individual to do the right thing while
living, they may offer consolation to those left behind, such promises
remain unproven claims though. Nothing beyond that. While on the
topic of death and bereavement, I could quote you from Bhagavad Gita,
from Bible, from Buddhist texts and the rest but I do not wish to offer
you consolation, it is not my aim to introduce you to some philosophy.
Instead, I just wish to share my own thoughts.

First and foremost, I want you to know that you will never be able to
forget them. Any efforts you specifically direct at forgetting them will
only make you miss them a great deal more. This is the harsh truth. And
why should you forget them? Would you like to be forgotten when you
are gone? When you begin to understand and accept the fact that the
departed one has a permanent place in your heart, in your memory, in
your life, a subtle healing begins. Do not force yourself to erase them
from your memories, to exclude them, just let it be for a while, let
Nature take its own course, let it settle. Bereavement heals one over
time.

Grief has two key elements, namely, shock and denial. When you lose
someone suddenly, to an accident for example, it takes much longer to
get over the shock. Primarily because Nature did not grant you the time
to get ready, to prepare yourself mentally. We slip into a state of denial
and disbelief. That leads to an inner resistance. And such resistance
leads to inner struggle, depression and melancholy. When you lose
someone to a terminal illness or someone who battled for life for a long
period before they passed away, the shock and denial is not any less, it is
just of different type. Either way, it is traumatic. Imagine losing a limb,
no matter how dexterous or perfect the artificial limb, it can never match
the original. The void created by the death of someone can only ever be
partially, imperfectly filled.

Acceptance is the key. I am not talking about accepting their death, I am

referring to accepting the fact that it is painful for you, that it is hurting
you, and that everything else is simply a theory. Allow natural healing to
take place, allow your emotions to outpour, give yourself an outlet. You
can't afford to have them bottled up, that will make you angry and
eternally sad. If you allow Nature to help you absorb and accept the loss,
you will find it easier to live without their physical presence. Just like
happiness, like laughter and joy, sadness and sorrow are basic human
emotions. These make us who we are. Do not curb them, be natural, be
yourself.

What do you do when you are happy? You laugh. Is it not perfectly
normal then to cry when you are sad, when you are missing their
presence?

A realized Zen master was seen crying at the funeral of a man. Most
were somewhat surprised, they thought the master had risen above the
human emotions. It was an unusual sight to see a monk cry. A child
went up to him, tugged at his robe and said, "Why are you crying?"
"He was my friend," the master said. "I'm crying because I'm sad."
If their thought makes you cry, just cry, let it out. Don't hold it back.
Some may advise you to focus your attention elsewhere, to go out, to
forget and move on etc. You can adopt any method, any philosophy, any
theory that makes you feel stronger and better but the truth is, you can't
fake your emotions, you can't lie to yourself. The greater the number of
memories you have with the one you lost, the harder it is to forget them.
No matter how intense the heat, puddles dry up quicker than ponds
whereas oceans never. How long it will take you to move on depends on
whether your store of memories is a small puddle or a gigantic ocean.
You are going to miss them on their birthday, their death anniversary, on
your own birthday, on other important events, on small incidents. This is
natural. Let it be. You may as well make them and their memories a part
of your life. After all, death is the other side of the life. You are standing
at one end of the river and they on the other, you are on this side of the
horizon, and they on the other. Horizons don't disappear nor the river of
time ceases to flow.

Our emotions make us human, positively directed, they make us divine,

misdirected, and they bring out the devil. Self-realization does not mean
you lose all human emotions. To the contrary, you become so
compassionate that you could cry at the slightest pain of others.

"O Ananda!" said Buddha, "parting from the loved ones is inevitable."
(Image credit: Arthur Chartow)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/07/the-value-of-nothing.html
Saturday, 27 July 2013
The Value of Nothing
When you learn to value "nothing", everything becomes priceless. Self-
realization is emptying your basket (of mind).
Let me start with a Taoist story. Two men, a woodcutter and his
apprentice were passing through a jungle. They came across a huge
banyan tree. Like some heavenly object, it stood majestically. Its trunk
was wide, its boughs covered a large periphery, a myriad of long aerial
roots almost touched the ground; all in all, an ancient tree.

The young apprentice was only too excited. "Look at this tree," he said.
"We need not go any further. This alone can give us the wood we need."
The experienced woodcutter threw a cursory glance at the tree and did
not even bother stopping. "This tree is too old and hard for my ax," he
replied. "The roots are useless and the branches are way too large."
"It's worthless. It has nothing for us, son," he added, "but you know that
is the secret of its long life."

The world can't affect you when you stand firmly rooted like the ancient
banyan tree. Or, it leaves you alone when it doesn't see value in you. All
through one's life, one is searching for things of value, of worth. First,
we are conditioned to value certain things more than others. Then we
chase them. The struggle in the process makes the attainment look
worthwhile. And finally, we work hard to retain them. We like to
preserve what we value. Often, the more effort it takes to attain
something, the more valuable it feels. It's natural. Think about it. For
example, after much toil, it takes someone a year to save a thousand
dollars, its value is much greater to him compared with the one who
saves that much in a day. The first one has paid a greater price to save
those one thousand dollars. What and how you value something is often
based on how you price it.

When you learn to value things that are usually "nothing" for the world,
you move closer to your inner source of strength. What is practically
worthless to most are the prized possessions of a yogi. For example:
everyone breathes. It's no rocket science. Most take it for granted but a
yogi understands breath, he tames his breath. The world doesn't think
much of it but it is a feat for the yogi. The bliss is everlasting when it is
not conditional, when it is not based on having or losing something.
How can you be blissful without attainments? Well, that's the whole
realization. That's not all though. Self-realized people have another
important quality. It's not about meditation or adhering to some tradition,
that has barely any connection with the transcendental state. Once again,
let me share another anecdote.

In Hinduism, cows are considered sacred, worthy of worship.

Predominantly because, cows were an integral part of human life at one
stage. Dairy products provided the nutrition, dried cow dung was used as
fuel, bulls tilled the farms, drew water from the wells, they transported
people and goods. Cows were like pets and more. In our story, set in
India, a pig and a cow were talking:
"Why do people worship you but detest me?," said the pig. "After all,
every single part of my body is used when I'm slaughtered. Shouldn't I
be the sacred one?"
The cow said, "There's a difference between you and I.  I serve when I'm
alive whereas you do it after you're dead."

The second sign of an enlightened person is his willingness and capacity

to serve selflessly. You maybe a businessperson or a householder, a
believer or an atheist, dressed in a robe or in a business suit, it's
immaterial. What matters is what you are doing for others. Religions,
traditions, labels are merely different lifestyles, different perspectives, at
the most different belief systems, not much beyond that. Self-realization,
however, is where the conditioned beliefs die. This is where it all begins.

Someone offers you gold, you value it at nothing. Someone offers you
garbage, you price it at nothing. Someone offers you nothing, you still
value it because it is no longer about what you are offered or denied.
This is the path of samata, evenness. When nothing is of value to you,
everything becomes worthless and when you learn to value "nothing",
everything life gives you feels priceless. Detachment and dispassion
arise naturally. For, you only cling to what you think is worth
something, anything. The degree of attachment is directly proportional
to the value you place on the object of your attachment. A self-realized
person's most valuable basket contains nothing. Therefore, what will
such a person be attached to? Nothing.

What do you value in your life? People, stuff, everything, nothing?

(Image credit: Chris Campbell)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/07/its-okay-to-change.html
Saturday, 20 July 2013
It's Okay to Change
When you cling to what you believe to be untrue, soft underlying
currents of suppression turn into tides of unrest.
Change is constant — you must have heard it numerous times before.
Constancy of change is not just true for the physical world outside but
your inner world too. As your thoughts change, so does your viewpoint
and with a different perspective, you gain a new understanding. And that
automatically brings about a change in your emotional state, in your
beliefs; you evolve, you grow, sometimes you grow out. Most people
don't let themselves evolve, they just revolve. They keep going round
and round in circles, the same old problems, patterns, same old issues,
same old responses, reactions, same old grudges. That's not because they
don't wish to change but because they deny the internal change.

As we live through more days, as we learn from our experiences, our

opinions are bound to change. The society, the world you move in, lets
you change only certain opinions but not all. For example, as a child you
are made to believe that Santa Clause exists. When you grow up, it is
accepted to believe that it was all a setup, that there was never a real
Santa. You discover it yourself. You realize that it was someone else's
invention, your parents, elders "created" him for you. Your own
discovery gives you the strength and conviction to believe that Santa
was a manufacture, an invention. Why is it easy in Santa's case? Because
you stop getting the physical gifts. I don't think it is because of the lack
of chimneys. When physical manifestation, the miraculous appearing of
gifts stop, you question naturally. Had the proposition been that Santa
comes and gives you peace and joy, it would have been hard, almost
impossible, to deny his existence. Why? Because you could neither
prove nor disprove it.

And this leads me to the crux of the matter: you are only allowed to
change your belief where a tangible and an unambiguous physical proof
is available to support your stand. The society does not allow you to
question, much less change, your beliefs about your god, your religion,
your rituals, at least not freely. A sense of guilt is instilled, you start to
think perhaps something is wrong with you, you should not be an atheist
or you should not be attracted to other systems of life and inquiry and so
on and so forth. You are expected to believe in your Siva, your Jesus,
your Allah; you are not allowed to question your belief. There is a
subtle, constant and significant pressure on you.

The example of religion is just that, an example. People tend to behave

the same in their selection of political parties, leaders, sects, cults etc.
The keyword here is behave. Religion is a behavior, a programmed
behavior that comes naturally after a while. Most of your actions spring
from your behavior. And your natural behavior is simply an automatic
response system; it is based on what, how, and how much you have been
fed. Is there anything wrong with it? Not necessarily; you decide for
yourself.

Getting back to my present subject of change: if you cling to a belief, an

opinion you once had but no longer believe it to be true, you are simply
putting greater burden on yourself. When you practice what you do not
believe, the underlying currents of non-fulfillment turn into the tides of
great unrest. When you are not at peace within, you get irritated, angry,
hurt, you are affected easily even by petty things, minor issues. These
are symptomatic. These happen when you are denying yourself the
change that has already matured in you. When you recognize and accept
your internal change, you experience a sense of freedom, a feeling of
lightness sweeps you away. No reasonable, sane or intelligent person
can consistently hold the same belief at all times. A rigid consistency of
beliefs show either you are no longer listening to yourself or you are not
accepting what your inner voice is telling you. Holding onto a belief is
not the same as holding a belief. See the difference. The expectation of
consistency is a societal pressure placed on you by the average thinkers
in the ordinary world. Such thinkers, by the way, make up ninety-nine
percent of our world. If you don't believe me, just take a look around.
Objectively. To paraphrase the thoughts of David Wallace: you will
worry less about what people think about you when you realize how
little they do.

On a dark winter morning, Mulla Nasrudin's guest said to him, "You're

so fortunate that you don't have to go to the mosque in this chilly cold
outside."
"Tell me about it!" said Mulla. "Thank God, I'm an atheist these days."

Let go of whatever binds you. Be at ease with the change within you.
Accept yourself.
(Image credit: Philip Gray)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.omswami.com/2013/07/what-is-beautiful.html
Saturday, 13 July 2013
What is Beautiful?
Beneath beauty lies a sense of connection. Whatever you can connect
with, you will find it beautiful.
What is beautiful? Something that is attractive, pleasing to look at? Or is
there more to it? When it comes to the first impression, no doubt,
external appearance can make an immediate mark. If you look at a pretty
woman or a handsome man, it is only natural to find them appealing.
Regardless of your marital, social or religious status, you cannot
artificially deny their external beauty. Pretty pathetic should you do that,
if you ask me. That said, if external beauty was all that irresistible why
would there be any breakups among the stars, luminaries and the well
endowed? Allow me to help you reflect on the notion, definition and
concept of beauty. I read a story once. I am quoting it verbatim. As
follows:

An elderly woman and her little grandson, whose face was sprinkled
with bright freckles, spent the day at the zoo. Many children were
waiting in line to get their cheeks painted by a local artist who was
decorating them with tiger paws.

"You've got so many freckles, there's no place to paint!" a girl in the line
said to the little fella.
Embarrassed, perhaps hurt, the little boy dropped his head.
His grandmother knelt down next to him. "I love your freckles. When I
was a little girl I always wanted freckles," she said while tracing her
finger across the child's cheek. "Freckles are beautiful."
The boy looked up. "Really?"
"Of course," said the grandmother. "Why, just name me one thing that's
prettier than freckles."
The young kid thought for a moment, peered intensely into his
grandma's face and whispered: "Wrinkles."

Aww... that's so sweet, right? But will you marry or even look after the
grandmother for her wrinkles? Probably not. Will you see the same
beauty in her wrinkles as did the little boy? Only if you are that boy.
However, it is not about that. Beauty cannot be chained by a string of
words or some definition because what is beautiful is never about them,
it is about you. It is not absolute, it is relative, relative to your state of
mind, to your own perception. Whatever you connect with you will find
it beautiful! With whoever you feel secure and complete, you will find
that person beautiful. That is why, the wrinkles may truly be the most
beautiful thing for the little boy because he shares a bond with his
grandmother.

The youthful Mulla Nasrudin was determined to marry a beautiful young

girl from a poor family. His father wanted him to marry someone rich.
"What's wrong with you?" he said, "the beauty that's blinded you is only
skin-deep."
"That's deep enough for me," Mulla replied. "I'm not a cannibal."

I find this joke amusing but it also makes a persuasive point: beauty is
what matters to you. It is your own reflection. As you progress in life,
intellectually and emotionally, your priorities change. What you find
pretty at fifteen, you may not find it half as beautiful when you are
thirty. As you understand yourself better, the importance of just external
beauty declines in your eyes. It does not mean the visual appeal of
something or someone beautiful diminishes in your eyes, it just means
you place greater value on other traits. Mostly. In the words of Khalil
Gibran: Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

Swami Vivekananda, the awesome and brilliant monk, clad in his

saffron robe, was taking a stroll in Chicago. The year was 1893. The
outfit seemed unusual. A couple, dressed in formals, were ranging the
same sidewalk as him and the lady said to her man, "I don't think he's a
gentleman."
Her statement reached Swami's ears. He went up to the couple and said,
"Excuse me for I overheard your remark. In your country, the tailor
makes a man gentleman but in my country, it is the character." I don't
know what happened afterwards and it's immaterial in the current
context. But was the woman right in her thinking? And was Swami right
in his response? Actually, it does not matter. The lady expressed what
she felt and she did so not directly to Vivekananda but to her partner. If
you retain the right to carry yourself however you like, let others have
the freedom to form their opinions. Media, society, advertising, religion,
they all bombard you with stereotypes, sometimes subtly and many a
time explicitly. The more you let others' opinions matter to you, the
more you move away from your internal source of happiness. Besides,
albeit on an extraneous note, I am doubtful if Vivekananda's statement
holds much truth in the contemporary India where corruption, at all
levels and in all sectors, is more an accepted way of life than a grave
governance issue. Unfortunately, it almost seems that anyone who gets
the opportunity is ready to plunder. Whether that's a businessperson
trying to dodge the taxes, or the employee polishing his time sheet, or a
government worker who doesn't mind openly asking for his cut or
kickbacks. People who are honest, not because of fear and governance
but out of morality and choice, are rare gems. There are many workers
of honesty but a few volunteers. There may be an emotional denial to
my statement but the facts are staring right into the truth — and it is not
beautiful to the sane eyes. I enjoyed this little digression, let me get back
to the matter at hand:

"Why do you want a divorce?" the judge asked the young man.
"Your Honor," he said, "I can't stand her when I'm sober and she can't
stand me when I'm drunk."

When someone does not find you beautiful, please know that it is mostly
about them. (Hope you don't interpret this as a moral of the joke.) While
you may change a little to work a common ground to see what the other
person likes, but beyond that, there is not much you can do. If you want
to win approvals of others, if that is what moves you, well then, you
better dress, behave and be the way they want. If you vainly want to
keep the world happy, you have to play a puppet in its inept and clumsy
hands. You pay for the dress but the strings come attached at no charge.
If for a moment though, you remove external affirmations from the
equation, if you eliminate their acceptance from your perception about
you, how will you behave, what will you do? In my opinion, that is how
you ought to look at yourself. It is infinitely more important to find
yourself beautiful when you look in the mirror than for others to find
you pretty when they look at your picture. No one is looking at you with
naked eyes; who you are and what they see is out of sync. Their sight is
filtered by their lenses of beliefs, perceptions and desires. They see what
they want to see — this is where beauty loses its independence. Learn
not to bother. It's worth it. As long as you are honest with yourself and
you are doing your best, you are just fine. A long post, this. Oh! even
beauty can be a drag.

If you can complement yourself, you can complete yourself. When you
feel complete, when your cup fills up, everything looks beautiful.
Beautiful is what you connect with, what matters to you. You are
beautiful.

Go on! tell someone how spectacular they are and how they have made
your life beautiful! Once done, repeat it in the mirror. Don't tell me you
haven't yet fallen in love with yourself.
(Image credit: imageshack)
Peace.
Swami
http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Anger

How to Get Rid of Anger

Handling Anger in the Heat of the MomentCoping with Residual Anger

From a Past EventEliminating Anger in the Long Run

Edited by Amber, Josh Hannah, James Quirk, Jack Herrick and 126
others

Feeling angry is a natural part of life, but excessive anger can be harmful
to the well-being of ourselves and those around us. This article will
teach you how to ease your anger in the heat of the moment, cope with
residual anger from the past, and reduce the overall amount of anger you
feel a day-to-day basis.
Part 1 of 3: Handling Anger in the Heat of the Moment

1
Step away from the situation. If possible, leave the room or office you
are in and step outside to get some fresh air or go for a short walk. If you
are with other people, let them know that you will need a moment to
gather yourself. This will give you an opportunity to compose yourself,
and will help you avoid saying things that you will later regret.
2
Take deep, slow breaths to relax. If it helps, repeat a word or mantra to
yourself either in your head or out loud. Try words like "relax," "it's ok,"
"don't worry," and so on. This will help bring your heart rate and blood
pressure back to a normal level.
3
Consider the big picture. Sometimes we get very angry over trivial
matters that have little significance in the long run. Looking at the big
picture will help you put the incident into perspective, and might even
make you realize that what happened isn't really as big a deal as you
originally thought.
4
Don't bottle up your anger. If somebody does or says something that
makes you angry, then tell them. Suppressing negative emotions will
only cause them to come back and haunt you later in life. Plus, failing to
let the person know might cause them to repeat the same behavior in the
future.

 Wait until you have calmed down before expressing your anger to
somebody else. Yelling or screaming will only heighten the tension
you are already feeling, and won't resolve anything.
 If you are not ready to talk to the person you are angry with, then
confide in a friend or loved one.
 If the matter is too private, then write about it in a journal.

5
Think about why you are angry. Take some time to seriously consider
this question. Knowing exactly why you are angry will help you avoid
placing false blame on a person or event.
  Sometimes one event triggers the memory of a past event. Try to
identify whether you are truly upset about what has just happened,
or if you are holding on to residual anger from the past.
 6
 Try to make yourself laugh. While this may be difficult, learning
to find humor in difficult situations will make life a great deal
more pleasant and tolerable. Allow yourself to appreciate the
humor or irony in the situation.
 7
 Remember that anger is a natural emotion. While anger can feel
overwhelming in the heat of the moment, remember that every
human being on earth experiences it from time to time. Accept that
things can't always go to go your way.
Part 2 of 3: Coping with Residual Anger From a Past Event

1
Acknowledge the anger you feel. Suppressing your anger won't make it
go away; if you feel like crying or screaming, then do it.
2
Talk about what happened. Talking to other people is not only a form
of catharsis, it helps you organize your thoughts, make sense of the
situation, and put the situation in perspective. Also, other people may
have certain insights that you do not, and can share similar experiences
and offer advice.

 Talk to a friend or loved one.

 Consider seeing a therapist or joining a support group.
 Write about the incident in a journal.

3
Confront the person/people who have wronged you. If you are
holding onto anger toward a particular person, then consider talking to
him or her about it. You might be surprised to learn that this person has
no idea that they have upset you.

 If you can't or don't want to talk to the person, then write them a
letter and throw it away. Even if they never read it, getting all of
your thoughts out on paper will help you move on.
 4
 Think about what the event has taught you. Even the most
difficult experiences teach us something. Recognizing what you
have learned will help you let go of anger and may even cause you
to be thankful about what happened.
5
 Accept that the event is in the past, and nothing can be done to
undo it. Be thankful that it is over, and remember that no matter
how horrible it was, it always could have been worse.
Part 3 of 3: Eliminating Anger in the Long Run
1
 Practice mindfulness. If you are constantly feeling angry, you are
probably holding on to negative memories from the past. Try to
appreciate the present moment. Pay attention to details in your
surroundings that you wouldn't normally notice, like colors,
sounds, and smells. Noticing little things like these will help shift
your focus away from constantly dwelling on the past.
2

 Smile. Even if you have to fake it, force yourself to smile at other
people. It will change the way they talk to you and treat you, which
will in turn make you feel more positive toward others.
3

 Recall positive memories. Though it's difficult to forget traumatic

memories, we often overlook all of the wonderful things that have
happened to us in the past. Take the time to remember the pleasant
things that have happened to you, like a time a loved one did
something nice for you, or a time when you laughed so hard that
your stomach hurt.
4
Pay attention to your thoughts. If you catch yourself constantly
dwelling on negative things, take a moment to clear your head and then
shift your thoughts to more positive things.

 To let go of a negative thought, close your eyes and take deep,

slow breaths, focusing all of your attention on your breath.
5
Find a stress release. Channel your anger into a sport or hobbie.

 Negative emotions can serve as material for artists, and expressing

your anger in an artistic way will help you to appreciate what
happened and move on.
 Exercise helps eliminate stress and promote relaxation, and the
endorphins released will improve your mood.
6

 Avoid substances that make you feel more irritable. Caffeine,

alcohol, and other drugs can heighten anxiety in the long run,
making you feel more hostile and angry.
7
Find a place to relax. Go outside or somewhere in your room where
you can relax. Your own space is needed so you can clear up your mind.
8

 When you've relaxed a bit, think about what happened. Why

are you angry? And how can you fix it? No one is perfect, so for
being wrong from what your did, is best to think about it.
9
  While your relaxing and thinking it's also for the best to talk
with somebody like your parents, friends; even your uncle and
aunt. People close to you can be very helpful.
10
 When you figured out what happened it's the best to settle it
with your family, friends or boyfriend/girlfriend. Talk to that
person and say what you wanted to say. 
11
 Explain to the person that you got angry with, why you were
angry. The person will most likely understand and apologize for
making you so angry.
12
 Apologize for getting very angry and/or yelling. The person will
forgive you sooner or later, and the thought of the incident will
disappear.
13
 Have the person that you got angry with explain why they did
what it was to make you angry. He/she may tell you that he/she
didn't mean to, and that they meant it differently. If so, apologize
sincerely for getting very angry after taking it the wrong way. If
s/he tells you that they did something wrong and are sorry, tell
him/her that it is okay, and tell him/her that you are not angry with
him/her.
Tips

 Remember that walking away from your anger is not the best
option. Facing it is something you need to do for yourself.
 Play, or listen to music.
  Have something to get your anger out such as a punching bag or a
pillow.
 If you are very angry, express your feelings on paper to relieve
stress.

Warnings

 Make sure all of your anger is out before you go to a different

person so you don't get angry at that person.
 Remember to keep your voice normal and don't begin to shout.
Your anger will only come back.
 Don't suppress your anger. This will only cause it to come up later
in life. Rather, devote time to sorting through it in a rational way.
 If you do end up bottling it up, be prepared to blame it on people
and then have them be mad at you. Don't expect to yell at people
and then have them be perfectly fine with it.
 If your chronic anger has caused you to emotionally and/or
physically hurt others, you should seek professional help.
 Don't walk away. Stay where you are until your problem has been
resolved.