DEATH - Is it so frightful??

I’m sure you have challenges, things that you wish you could overcome, or things that you could get over… Stop.  Stop trying to get over it.  Because if we’re trying to get over all of the problems in our lives then our entire lifetimes are just going to be trying to get over problems—that’s all there is going to be.  And that is not a life to be proud of.  Instead, find those challenges in your life and use them!  Use them and turn them into an opportunity.

No matter how spiritually enlightened you are, or how many times you’ve thought about death and think you are okay with it, you will grieve the life you could have lived when you are dying.  You are losing the person you could have become, the things you could have done, the things you could have made with your life—you are losing that.  And there’s no way to get around that.

Death is actually not a scary thing.  The scary thing is living life without a passion and then realizing at the very last moment that it’s over and you haven’t done what you wanted to do—and that you’re not proud of your life.  That is much more terrifying.

NO DEATH NO FEAR

When you look at the surface of the ocean, you can see waves coming up and going down. You can describe these waves in terms of high or low, big or small, more vigorous or less vigorous, more beautiful or less beautiful. You can describe a wave in terms of beginning and end, birth and death. That can be compared to the historical dimension. In the historical dimension, we are concerned with birth and death, more powerful, less powerful, more beautiful, less beautiful, beginning and end and so on. Looking deeply, we can also see that the waves are at the same time water. A wave may like to seek its own true nature. The wave might suffer from fear, from complexes. A wave may say, ‘I am not as big as the other waves,’ ‘I am oppressed,’ ‘I am not as beautiful as the other waves,’ ‘I have been born and I have to die.’ The wave may suffer from these things, these ideas. But if the wave bends down and touches her true nature she will realize that she is water. Then her fear and complexes will disappear. A wave does not have to die in order to become water. She is water right here and now. We also do not have to die in order to enter the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is our very foundation here and now. Our deepest practice is to see and touch the ultimate dimension in ourselves every day, the reality of no birth and no death.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
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LIFE is a balance

Buddha once told one of his disciples - Too much of everything is never enough. You cannot label anyone as good or bad because the virtues and vices are equally embedded in every person. Depending on how the virtues are nurtured and demonstrated, a person is perceived as good or bad.

Of course there is a limit to which one can develop the virtues. Once the limit is crossed, all virtues become bad. Vices are anyways bad, excessive or not. Anything in excess is bad. If we eat too much, we get a stomach ache and other digestive problems. Too much of sleep makes us lazy and too much of money steals our peace. The irony is despite knowing this fact, we want more and more.

Life is a delicate balance of so many combinations—between freedom and responsibility, between living in the moment and planning for future, between indulgence and self-restraint, between love and hate, between wealth and poverty, between full and empty, between attachment and renunciation, and there might be so many more combinations. Only with a good balance, we can lead a healthy and happy life.

Find the elusive balance, trust the process, accept the ups and downs, and use them as an advantage to change the game. After all LIFE is a balance.

Sorrow - A gift

Leaning towards happiness is our very nature. But does that mean you won’t experience sorrow. In fact, sorrow is an important part of your life's journey and also a catalyst for everlasting happiness. As a matter of fact only when you experience sorrow you will appreciate and value happiness. When you live life sorrow is bound to occur. The more you live, the more you will love, and the more deeply you live and love, the greater will be the rewards, but also you will have a fair share of sorrows.

As these sorrows come they will eventually go too. An example you lose a good friend it is remarkably intense at that time, the memories will fade over the years and translate into a learning experience, one day you might even laugh about it. On the other hand if you have lost your child, it will remain a part of you for as long as you are alive. The pain cannot be reasoned in any way nor can it be masked.

However, does the sorrow mean you are not allowed to feel happiness? In fact if you embrace the sorrow and overcome it, you will feel a greater sense of joy. Not necessarily the joy of immediate laughter, but the deeper joy of gratitude. Sorrow means you were given a gift; that pain means you were given something worth rejoicing in.

In a world where there are absolutely no guarantees, you were granted something beautiful for a while. Whether it was a relationship or another being that was important to your being or something else, you were granted a gift so worthwhile that sorrow has blossomed inside you now that the something is gone. Imagine a world without such gifts. That would be a true tragedy.

And if, by the way, you feel you did not cherish the gift that is now gone enough while it was here, recognize these two keys: first, just as you forgive others for being human, more than that forgive yourself. Be rest assured that you have done something right enough to recognize the value of the gift. You don’t feel sorrow for something you don’t cherish. And it is never too late to feel such gratitude, to cherish. That is the beauty of the gift.

You may no longer be able to get what or who it’s that you hurt for the back. But the bounty of the gift remains. Your sorrow proves it. So, embrace it.
It will help you remain aware of the greater happiness that the sorrow is wrapped within. It will help you move toward all the joys you so deserve. And there are plenty of them. They too are waiting for you.

Move Forward

People become victims of their circumstances and life challenges all the time.  When life gets tough or depressing, most will adopt a negative perspective and think to themselves about how unfair life is: how they should have been born into better circumstances with more money; or how they should have been given better opportunities; or how things should have happened differently. 

Well, the truth of the matter is that life is going to happen anyways – sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.  The one thing that you will always have 100% control over is your response to these events.  When you adopt a positive attitude and always look for the good in any given circumstance – how could you not move forward…...

Remember - in order to best handle the challenges that you are facing in your life, you will need to be updated to your latest version.  What does that mean?  It means, if you never spend time on yourself growing mentally, physically, and spiritually – you will slowly start to become less and less capable of handling the challenges life presents.  It is the equivalent of trying to use an ordinary Apple-1 (the first computer released by Apple in 1976) instead of an iMac in todays crazy world.

If you genuinely want to help and influence others to the best of your ability, you need to start by helping and influencing yourself to the best of your ability first.  Otherwise, not only will you be limiting yourself in achieving and becoming all that you are capable of, but you’ll be limiting what influence and impact you are capable of having on the lives of others too.

Intentions don’t make a difference in the world – actions definitely do.  You can have the best intentions of growing the most beautiful flowers, but if you forget to water them, don’t plant them in the right soil, and keep them out of the sun – your flowers won’t stand a chance. Actions are everything when it comes to growth.  To know and not to do is the same as not to know!  Life is not a spectator sport – it’s a full contact, get your clothes dirty, and leave it all on the field – kind of sport.
Staying consistent with a lifestyle change or healthy habit over the long run can be very difficult.  How many times have you started a new workout routine that you said you would be 100% committed to no matter what – only to find yourself quitting it a few months later?
…Or jumped on the latest dieting trend and decided you were going to follow it ‘to the tee‘ so that you could get maximum results?  …Or set a new goal of reading for a half hour every day which never lasted?  Too many to count?  Yup, me too.  With simple hacks and determination you will start to understand how habits work and you’ll start to build the life you’ve always wanted.  Will it be easy?  Most certainly not.  Will it be worth it?  Absolutely so.

Regardless of what problems or challenges you are facing in life – the reason that they are there and affecting you the way they are, is because you haven’t expanded your consciousness enough to the point where they can be resolved.  No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Therefore, the mastery mindset here is, if you keep learning and growing – you’ll keep solving more and more of your problems!  Remain the same and you’ll keep facing the same issues.  All problems or challenges are solved twice – first in the mind and second in reality.  So if you get your mind right first, your life will follow.  Brace yourself..........

Life is really about cultivating happiness and creating meaning. And meaning does not come from what you get, it comes from what you give.  When we master the art of happiness and learn how to unleash the best version of ourselves every day – touching lives and changing our world becomes inevitable.

Transformation is possible

How a mix of acceptance, humility, and strength powers the transformation.  They also aren’t aware of how common this is in history, how many figures took seemingly terrible situations – a prison sentence, an exile, a bear market or depression, military conscription, even being sent to a concentration camp – and through their attitude and approach, turned those circumstances into fuel for their unique greatness.

Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that became the national anthem of the United States while trapped on a ship during a prisoner exchange in the War of 1812.  Viktor Frank - l refined his psychologies of meaning and suffering during his ordeal in three Nazi concentration camps.

Not that these opportunities always come in such serious situations.  The author Ian Fleming was on bed rest and, per doctors’ orders, forbidden from using a typewriter.  They were worried he’d exert himself by writing another Bond novel.  So he created Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by hand instead.  Walt Disney made his decision to become a cartoonist while laid up after stepping on a rusty nail.

Yes, it would feel much better in the moment to be angry, to be aggrieved, to be depressed or heartbroken.  When injustice or the capriciousness of fate are inflicted on someone, the normal reaction is to yell, to fight back, to resist.  You know the feeling: I don’t want this.  I want ______.  I want it my way.  This is short-sighted.

Think of what you have been putting off.  Issues you declined to deal with.  Systemic problems that felt too overwhelming to address.  Dead time is revived when we use it as an opportunity to do what we’ve long needed to do.
As they say, this moment is not your life.  But it is a moment in your life.  How will you use it?

A hardened criminal could have doubled down on the life that brought him to prison.  Dead time isn’t only dead because of sloth or complacency.  He could have spent those years becoming a better criminal, strengthening his contacts, or planning his next score, but it still would have been dead time.  He might have felt alive doing it, even as he was slowly killing himself.

“Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons,” as Robert Greene put it, “where we have nothing to do but think.” Yet sadly, prisons – in their literal and figurative forms – have produced far more degenerates, losers, and never-do wells.  Inmates might have had nothing to do but think; it’s just that what they chose to think about made them worse and not better.

That’s what so many of us do when we fail or get ourselves into trouble.  Lacking the ability to examine ourselves, we reinvest our energy into exactly the patterns of behaviour that caused our problems to begin with.

It comes in many forms.  Idly dreaming about the future.  Plotting our revenge.  Finding refuge in distraction.  Refusing to consider that our choices are a reflection of our character.  We’d rather do basically anything else.

But what if we said: This is an opportunity for me.  I am using it for my purposes.  I will not let this be dead time for me. The dead time was when we were controlled by ego.  Now – now we can live.

Who knows what you’re currently doing. Hopefully it’s not a prison term, even if it might feel like it. Maybe you’re sitting in a remedial high school class, maybe you’re on hold, maybe it’s a trial separation, maybe you’re making smoothies while you save up money, maybe you’re stuck waiting out a contract or a tour of duty. Maybe this situation is one totally of your own making, or perhaps it’s just bad luck.

In life, we all get stuck with dead time.  Its occurrence isn’t in our control.  Its use, on the other hand, is.

As Booker T. Washington most famously put it, “Cast down your bucket where you are.”  Make use of what’s around you.  Don’t let stuborness make a bad situation worse.

Be what you are....You are precious

If a rose smells better than cabbage, It doesn't mean the rose can make a better stew.

Don't try to compare yourself to others.  You also have your own strength, look for it and build on it. 

All animals that exist, were in Noah's ark. A snail is one of those animals. If God could wait long enough for snails to enter Noah's ark; His door of grace won't close till you reach your expected position in life. Never look down on yourself, keep looking up. 

Remember that Broken crayons still color.
 
"YOU are PRECIOUS".